One or two of Felizardo’s men—there were over a hundred clustered round—laughed; but the chief himself looked grave. “Patriot generals should do better than that,” he said. “I fear you would be certain to die for your country if an enemy were to meet you in that state. I can remember the days when our people were content with a bolo in a wooden sheath.”
A laugh went round the semicircle of his followers, each of whom had one of the weapons in question strapped round his waist. But the envoys did not laugh. Somehow, Felizardo’s courtesy seemed to jar on their nerves.
“What do you want here, on my mountains? Where is the message you have to bring me?” The chiefs manner changed suddenly.
The envoys exchanged glances; then the eldest of them, rather reluctantly, produced an official-looking document, decorated with a large seal. Felizardo read the paper carefully, then handed it to a youngster who was standing behind his chair. “Burn that, Enrique,” he said; and after that he turned to the envoys again. “What are your names, O Generals of the Sovereign People?” he asked.
They gave him names, and then, after telling the eldest to stand to one side, he called to his men. “Do you know these two?” he asked.
One they identified as the late door-keeper at the Palace, and the other as a money-lender in a Manila suburb.
Felizardo nodded; then he beckoned to the third man. “You are the son of Cinicio Dagujob,” he said. “You were one of the band of ladrones which burned San Juan two years ago. Do not deny it. I know you.” Then he nodded to his men. “Hang him,” he said curtly; and they led the general away, sullen, defiant, unresisting, a ladrone to the end, and hanged him, with his great sabre still on him.
After that, Felizardo called up the other two. “You shall go back to Manila, with this message from Felizardo.—Your government talks of the will of the Sovereign People and the Law of Liberty. I, Felizardo, say that here, in my mountains, where I am the sovereign chief, there is only one law, the Law of the Bolo, to which every man becomes subject the moment he sets foot on my land. Tell them that in Manila. See that you tell it faithfully, lest I come down to Manila and tell it them myself. And now, O Generals of the Sovereign People, you shall be well flogged, so that you may remember Felizardo, and then you shall go back with the message of the Bolo.”
The Provisional Government passed a resolution, or rather a series of resolutions, on the subject of Felizardo, declaring him to be a rebel, an outlaw, a tyrant, and an Enemy of the People, whilst a bishop whom it had appointed—ratification from Rome was sure to come to Catholic patriots—solemnly excommunicated the whole band; but when they called for a volunteer to deliver copies of the resolutions to Felizardo, none was forthcoming, even though they promised a general’s commission to any man who undertook the task. But they sent no force against the chief of the mountains, and, almost before they had got half-way through their discussions on the subject of dealing with him, the American Army arrived and, as the soldiers put it, began to clear up the mess.
A few weeks later, the Provisional Government itself had taken to the hills; and many a time, when the Americans were hard on their heels, members of that same government looked longingly at Felizardo’s mountains, and thought of the shelter to be obtained there, or rather of the shelter which might have been obtained there, had Felizardo not been a tyrant and an Enemy of the People. Yet none even set foot in his territory, for that message of his concerning the Law of the Bolo had been repeated faithfully in Manila; and all men, at least all Filipinos, knew that Felizardo was a man of his word.