Anting-Anting Stories Part 6

"Who was it?"

The man hesitated.

"Who was it? Answer. It is for her good I want to know."

"It was her son, Senor."

"Was he the man who gave us warning of the ambush today?"

"Yes, Senor."

The officer folded the paper, unread, and thrust the pin back through the folds. The enamel on the badge glistened in the camp light.

"Keep the Tagalog here," he said to the men, "until I come back;"

and walked across the camp to where the hospital tents had been set up.

"Where is Mrs. Smith?" he asked of the surgeon in charge.

"Taking care of the men who were wounded this afternoon."

"Will you tell her that I want to see her alone in your tent, here, and then see that no one else comes in?"

"Mrs. Smith," he said, when the nurse came in, "I have something here for you--a letter. It has just been brought into camp, by a native who did not know that you were here and who wanted to be sent to Manila to find you. It is not very strongly sealed, but no one has read it since it was brought into camp."

He gave the bit of paper to the nurse, and then turned away to stand in the door of the tent, that he might not look at her while she read it. Enough of the nurse's story was known in the army now so that the officer could guess something of what this message might mean to her.

A sound in the tent behind the officer made him turn. The woman had sunk down on the ground beneath the surgeon's light, and resting her arms upon a camp stool had hid her face.

A moment later she raised her head, her face wet with tears and wearing an expression of mingled grief and joy, and held out the letter to the officer.

"Read it!" she said. "Thank G.o.d!" 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 G.o.d 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."

"May I see her?" exclaimed the man.

"Not now. In the morning you may. Have you seen this man, her son, since he was shot?"

"No, Senor. He gave me the note and told me to slip into the forest as soon as the fight began, so as to get away without any one seeing me. Then I was to stay out of the way until I could get into this camp."

"Do you know where he stood when he was shot?"

"Yes, Senor."

"Can you take a party of men there tonight?"

"Yes, Senor; most gladly."

Afterward, when it came to be known that Heber Smith would live, in spite of his wounds and the hours that he had lain there in the bushes unconscious and uncared for, there was the greatest diversity of opinion as to what had really saved his life.

The surgeons said it was partly their skill, and partly the superb const.i.tution that years of work on a New England farm had given to the young man. His mother believed that he had been spared for her sake. Heber Smith himself always said it was his mother's care that saved his life, while Juan never had the least doubt that the young soldier had been protected solely by a marvellous "anting-anting"

which he himself had slipped unsuspected into the American soldier's blouse that day, before he had left him. As soon as she knew that her son would live, Mrs. Smith started for Was.h.i.+ngton, carrying with her papers which made it possible for her to be allowed to plead her case there as she had pleaded it in Manila. A pardon was sent back, as fast as wire and steamer and wire again could convey it. Heber Smith wears the uniform of a second lieutenant, now, won for bravery in action since he went back into the service; and every one who knew her in the Philippines, cherishes the memory of Mrs. Hannah Smith; Nurse.

THE FIFTEENTH WIFE

Mateo, my Filipino servant, was helping me sort over specimens one day under the thatched roof of a shed which I had hired to use for such work while I was on the island of Culion, when I was startled to see him suddenly drop the bird skin he had been working on, and fall upon his knees, bending his body forward, his face turned toward the road, until his forehead touched the floor.

At first I thought he must be having some new kind of a fit, peculiar to the Philippine Islands, until I happened to glance up the road toward the town, from which my house was a little distance removed, and saw coming toward us a most remarkable procession.

Four native soldiers walked in front, two carrying long spears, and two carrying antiquated seven-foot muskets, relics of a former era in fire arms. After the soldiers came four Visayan slaves, bearing on their shoulders a sort of platform covered with rugs and cus.h.i.+ons, on which a woman reclined. On one side of the litter walked another slave, holding a huge umbrella so as to keep the sun's rays off the woman's face. Two more soldiers walked behind.

Mateo might have been a statue, or a dead man, for all the attention he paid to my questions until after the procession had pa.s.sed the house. Then, resuming a perpendicular position once more, he said, "That was the Sultana Ahmeya, the Sultana."

Then he went on to explain that there were thirteen other sultanas, of a.s.sorted colors, who helped make home happy for the Sultan of Culion, who after all, well supplied as he might at first seem to be, was only a sort of fourth-cla.s.s sovereign, so far as sultanas are concerned, since his fellow monarch on a neighboring larger island, the Sultan of Sulu, is said to have four hundred wives.

Ahmeya, though, Mateo went on to inform me, was the only one of the fourteen who really counted. She was neither the oldest nor the youngest of the wives of the reigning ruler, but she had developed a mind of her own which had made her supreme in the palace, and besides, she was the only one of his wives who had borne a son to the monarch. For her own talents, and as the mother of the heir, the people did her willing homage.

When I saw the royal cavalcade go past my door I had no idea I would ever have a chance to become more intimately acquainted with Her Majesty, but only a little while after that circ.u.mstances made it possible for me to see more of the royal family than had probably been the privilege of any other white man. How little thought I had, when the acquaintance began, of the strange experiences it would eventually lead to!

At that time, in the course of collecting natural history specimens, most of my time for three years was spent in the island of Culion. Having a large stock of drugs, for use in my work, and quite a lot of medicines, I had doctored Mateo and two or three other fellows who had worked for me, when they had been ill, with the result that I found I had come to have a reputation for medical skill which sometimes was inconvenient. I had no idea how widely my fame had spread, though, until one morning Mateo came into my room and woke me, and with a face which expressed a good deal of anxiety, informed me that I was sent for to come to the palace.

I confess I felt some concern myself, and should have felt more if I had had as much experience then as I had later, for one never knows what those three-quarters savage potentates may take it into their heads to do.

When I found that I was sent for because the Sultan was ill,--ill unto death, the messenger had made Mateo believe,--and I was expected to doctor him, I did not feel much more comfortable, for I much doubted if my knowledge of diseases, and my a.s.sortment of medicines, were equal to coping with a serious case. If the Sultan died I would probably be beheaded, either for not keeping him alive, or for killing him.