“Read it!” she said. “Thank God!” and then, “My boy! My boy!” and hid her face again.
“Dear mother,” the scrawled note read.
“I got your letter. I’m glad you wrote it. It made things plain I hadn’t seen before. My chance has come—quicker than I had expected. I wish I might have seen you again, but I shan’t. A column of our men are coming up the valley just below here, marching straight into an ambush. I have tried to get word to them, but I can’t, because the Tagalogs watch me so close. They never have trusted me. The only way for me is to rush out when the men get near enough, and shout to them, and that will be the end of it all for me. I don’t care, only that I wish I could see you again. Juan will take this letter to you. When you get it, and the men come back, if I save them, I think perhaps they will clear my name. Then you can go home.
“The men are almost here. Mother, dear, good by.—Your Boy.”
“I wish I might have seen him,” the woman said, a little later. “But I won’t complain. What I most prayed God for has been granted me.”
“They’ll let the charge against him drop, now, won’t they? Don’t you think he has earned it?”
“I think he surely has. No braver deed has been done in all this war.”
“Don’t try to come, now, Mrs Smith,” as the nurse rose to her feet. “Stay here, and I will send one of the women to you.”
When he had done this the officer went back to where the men were still holding Juan between them.
“Your journey is shorter than you thought,” the officer said to the Tagalog. “Mrs. Smith is in this camp, and I have given the letter to her.”