For several long hours the girl brooded over the situation, wondering how she could aid the friends for whom she had learned to hold a high regard. Bemoaning the fate that had made her a helpless woman, she took Juan by the hand and strolled away up the wooded slope toward the family burying grounds where the body of her father peacefully rested. Reaching the newly made mound she placed upon his grave the handful of flowers which she had gathered. In her heart was a great bitterness. Juan, too young to appreciate the magnitude of his loss, chased gleefully the monkeys which chattered in the trees about him, leaping almost into his arms as they eluded his embrace. Following her brother Maria listlessly strolled farther into the gloom of the forest.
Suddenly a low whistle from deeper in the woods attracted her attention. With startled eyes she stopped, her head erect and her bosom heaving in sudden fright.
A MAN STEPPED SILENTLY FROM
BEHIND A TREE
A man stepped silently from behind a tree and walked toward her. With a glad cry she ran to him. It was the officer known to the Americans as Colonel Martinez.
“I have heard,” he said sorrowfully as the girl incoherently sobbed the sad news of her father’s death. “I would have come sooner, but I believed the Americans would have been strong enough to prevent it.”
“His last words were for you, Gregorio,” Maria whispered as he patted caressingly her straight black hair. “He hoped that you would follow his example and surrender to General Wilson. Why do you not take your own name again?”
“Sister,” the insurgent officer answered earnestly, “when my father disowned me for fighting under Aguinaldo in the north, I took the name of Remundo, and because I would not surrender after most of my men had been killed or captured I have been declared by the government of the islands an outlaw, and a price was put on my head. I am accused of many crimes of which I am not guilty. I have an enemy, who now stands high in government favor. It was he who harried the country using my name falsely, and for his deeds I am blamed. Captain Blynn has my written proofs. So you see I could not comply with our father’s wish before, but now I am willing to lay down my life in order that Juan Rodriguez’s soul may rest in peace, which it cannot do until his murderer has received his just punishment.”
While they talked Gregorio Rodriguez had taken the small hand of Juan in his own, leading his sister along a tiny trail away from the river.
“I have a few trusty followers awaiting me a short distance beyond,” he added, “and I wish you both to come with me. Your lives are too precious to allow you to be out of my sight.”