“Then I will stay,” the Tagalog said slowly, adding a moment later, “My people will surely slay me if I go back to them without the book.”
“Very well.” The captain called for the guard, and the man was taken back to prison; but later in the day an order was sent that he be released from confinement and put to work with some other captured natives about the camp.
During the next two or three weeks a stranger to Tagalog methods of warfare might very reasonably have thought the war was ended, so far as this island, at least, was concerned. The natives seemed to have disappeared mysteriously. Even the men who had been longest in the service were puzzled to account for the sudden ceasing of the constant skirmishing which had been the rule before. The picket lines were carried forward and the location of the camp followed, from time to time, as scouting parties returned to report the country clear of foes. The advance would have been even more rapid, except for the necessity of keeping communication open at the rear with the harbour where two American gunboats lay at anchor.
As a result of one of the advances the camp was pitched one night upon a broad plateau looking out upon the sea. Inland the ground rose to the thickly forest-clad slope of a mountain, to which the American officers felt sure the Tagalogs had finally retreated. Early in the evening, when the heat of the day had passed, a group of these officers were standing with Captain Von Tollig in the center of the camp, examining the mountain slope with their glasses.
“What did you say was the name of this place?” one of the officers asked a native deserter who had joined the American forces, and at times had served as a guide to the expedition.
“That is Mt. Togonda,” he answered, pointing to the hills before them, “and this,” swinging his hand around the plateau on which the camp’s tents were pitched, “is La Plaza del Carabaos.”
The captain’s eyes met those of Lieutenant Smith.
“La Plaza del Carabaos” means “The Square of the Water Buffalos.”
As if with one thought the two men turned and looked out to sea. The sun had set. Against the glowing western sky a huge rock at the plateau’s farthest limit was outlined. Rough-carved as the rock had been by the chisel of nature, the likeness to a water buffalo’s head was striking. Beyond the rock three islands lay in a line upon the sunset-lighted water. Far out from the foot of the cliff the two men could hear the waves beating upon the sand.
“This is an excellent place for a camp,” the captain said when he turned to his men again. “I think we shall find it best to stay here for some time.”