The Woman with a Stone Heart Read online

  CHAPTER I.

  LOVE DEFEATED

  Marie Sampalit and her fiancee, Rolando Dimiguez, were walkingarm-in-arm along the sandy beach of Manila bay, just opposite oldFort Malate, talking of their wedding day which had been postponedbecause of the Filipino insurrection which was in progress.

  The tide was out. A long waved line of sea-shells and drift-woodmarked the place to which it had risen the last time before it beganto recede. They were unconsciously following this line of oceandebris. Occasionally Marie would stop to pick up a spotted shellwhich was more pretty than the rest. Finally, when they had gottenas far north as the semi-circular drive-way which extends aroundthe southern and eastern sides of the walled-city, or Old Manila,as it is called, and had begun to veer toward it, Marie looked backand repeated a beautiful memory gem taught to her by a good friarwhen she was a pupil in one of the parochial schools of Manila:

  "E'en as the rise of the tide is told, By drift-wood on the beach, So can our pen mark on the page How high our thoughts can reach."

  They turned directly east until they reached the low stone-wall thatprevents Manila bay from overflowing the city during the periodsof high tides. Dimiguez helped Marie to step upon it; then theystrolled eastward past the large stake which marked the place wherethe Spaniards had shot Dr. Jose Rizal, the brainiest patriot everproduced by the Malay race.

  When they came to the spot, Marie stopped and told Dimiguez how shehad watched the shooting when it took place, and how bravely Rizalhad met his fate.

  "If it hadn't been for this outrage committed by the Spaniards,"remarked Dimiguez, "this insurrection would not have lasted these twoyears, and we would have been married before now; but our people aredetermined to seek revenge for his death."

  Then they started on, changed their course to the northward, enteredthe walled-city by the south gate, walked past the old Spanish arsenal,and then passed out of the walled-city by the north gate. Here theycrossed the Pasig river on the old "Bridge of Spain" (the largestone bridge near the mouth of the river, built over 300 years ago)and entered the Escolta, the main business street of Manila. Aftermaking their way slowly up the Escolta they meandered along San Miguelstreet until they finally turned and walked a short distance down aside street to a typical native shack, built of bamboo and thatchedwith Nipa palms, happily tucked away beneath the overhanging limbsof a large mango tree in a spacious yard,--the home of the Sampalits.

  Here Marie had been born just seventeen years before; in fact the nextday, April 7, would be her seventeenth birthday. When she was born,her father instituted one of the accustomed Filipino dances which lastfrom three to five days and nights, and at its conclusion she had beenchristened "Maria," subsequently changed by force of habit to "Marie."

  Late that evening, while they were seated side-by-side on a bamboobench beside of her home, tapping the toes of their wooden-soledslippers on the hard ground, and indulging in a wandering lovers'conversation, Marie said to him (calling him affectionately by hisfirst name), "Rolando, when did you first decide to postpone ourwedding day?"

  "Well, I'll tell you how it was," answered he, meditatingly. "Thethought of serving my country had been lingering on my mind alllast summer--in fact, ever since the insurrection first broke out inthe spring of 1896. You know I intended coming down to see you lastChristmas, but I couldn't get away. That night I walked the floorall night in our home at Malolos, debating in my mind whether wehad better get married in March, as we had planned, or if it wouldnot be wiser and more manly for me to go to war, take chances ongetting back alive and postpone our wedding day until after the waris over. Toward morning, I decided that it was my duty to become asoldier; so I called my father and mother, got an early breakfast,bade them goodby and started for Malabon, which was Aguinaldo'sheadquarters, and enlisted. He was glad to see me. You know, he andI attended school together for one year at Hongkong. Well, Aguinaldoat once commissioned me a spy and assigned me to very important duty."

  "My God!" interrupted Marie, "you are not on that duty now, are you,Rolando?"

  Dimiguez arose. "Marie," said he firmly, "I must be off."

  "But won't you tell me where you are going and what task lies beforeyou?" pleaded Marie, as she threw both arms about his neck and began tosob, "I'll never tell a living soul, so help me God, but I must know!"

  "A spy never tells his plans to anyone, Marie," said Dimiguezslowly. "He takes his orders from his chief, plays his part; andif he gets caught, he refuses to speak and dies without a murmur,like a man. Good night, Marie, I must be off; duty lies before me."

  Marie cried herself to sleep.

  The next morning she started down town, as usual, for the market place,with her bamboo basket filled with bananas, sitting on her head,and a cigarette in her mouth. She had only gone a block when she meta neighbor girl, one of her chums of equal years to her own, who wasa chamber-maid in the German consul's home on San Miguel Street.

  Her friend looked excited. "Have you heard the awful news, Marie?" saidshe.

  "No!" exclaimed Marie, "What is it?"

  "Why, Dimiguez was caught last night by Spanish guards inside theyard of the governor-general's summer palace up on the Malacanan,just as he was slipping out of the palace itself. How he got in there,nobody knows."

  Marie dropped her basket. "Heavens!" gasped she, "Did he do anythingwrong?"

  "They found in his pocket diagrams of the interior of the palace,showing the entries to it, the room where the governor-general sleeps,and many other things; also your picture. See here! the morning papergives a full account of it."

  Marie glanced at the head lines and then started on a vigorous run forthe building in which the Spanish military court was sitting. Rushingin, past an armed guard, she began to plead for her lover's life. Buthe had already been tried, convicted and sentenced to death bystrangulation in the old chute at Cavite. Dimiguez never moved amuscle when he saw Marie. Armed guards forced her abruptly out ofthe building and ordered her to leave.

  Inside of two hours, on the same day, April 7, the anniversary ofMarie's birth, he was taken to the little town of Cavite, seven milessouthwest of Manila, and was there placed in the lower end of a longchute built out into Manila Bay. This chute was just wide enough fora man to enter. Its sides, top and bottom were all built of heavyplanks. The side planks lacked a few inches of connecting with thetop, although of course the side posts ran clear up and the top wasfirmly bolted to them. The entrance to it was well elevated near thedocks. The lower end protruded into the bay, so that it was visibleabout eighteen inches above the water during the period of low tide,and submerged several feet during high tide.

  Tides come in slowly at Cavite, each succeeding wave rising but atrifle higher than the others, until the usual height is reached. Thus,a prisoner placed in this chute, forced to the lower end and thenfastened securely during low tide, can look out over the side planksat the hideous spectators, watch the tide as it begins to rise andsee slow death approaching. It was in this chute that Marie's lovermet his death.

  Marie saw the launch that carried him away as it left Manila. Sherushed down to the Pasig river, loosened her little boat from thetree to which it was tied, jumped in, seized the oars and started inpursuit. The launch on which he was being carried had for its powera gasoline engine, and, of course, it soon left her far behind. Whenshe first started, the swells caused by the launch rocked her littlecanoe quite roughly and impeded her progress. As she approached themouth of the river, passed the monument of Magellan and came betweenthe walled-city on the southern bank and the docks on the northernbank, a crowd of excited natives thronged the shore, and many of themrecognized her. She heard some one cry out, "Vive Marie!" With mightand main she strove forward.

  The launch made its seven-mile run to Cavite; the victim was placedin the chute; the tide had risen to the danger line; her lover,with his head thrown back, had just begun to gurgle the salt water,when Marie, in frantic agony, almost exha
usted, rowed around thelower end of the chute and came near enough to the dying hero tobe recognized by him. Straining ever muscle to keep his head abovethe water a second longer, he cried out in chocking tones that wereinterrupted by the merciless sea which was rapidly filling his mouth,"Goodby, Marie, God bless you. Avenge my death!"

  Hush! At this moment another tidal wave engulfed the apex of thechute. Not a sound could be heard save the slight flapping of thewaves against the pier, and the dismal chant of three priests, whostood on the shore near by, and who had not been permitted to attendthe young spy before his death. Marie trembled; she dropped the oars;her eyes fell; for a moment it seemed that her young heart stood still:then her face flushed; the tears stopped flowing; anguish gave ventto determined revenge; pent-up sorrows yielded to out-spoken threats;and in tones sufficiently audible to be heard ashore, she cried,"I'll do it."

  The Spaniard knows no pity. If Marie were to have stepped ashoreimmediately after her lover's strangulation, she might have cometo grief. It is strange that she escaped punishment for havingfollowed. She, therefore, rowed directly east and landed on the beachof the bay, about four miles south of Manila, just west of the littlecity of Paranaque.

  From sheer exhaustion, she needed food; therefore, she walked northwardalong the shore until she found a Mango tree heavily laden withfruit. After eating a few luscious mangoes, she crept into a clumpof bamboo and had a good cry: tears so ease a woman's soul.

  From her position on the beach she could readily see the Spaniardsas they took her dead lover from the chute when the tide had loweredtoward evening. She saw them even strike his corpse, and she bit herfinger nails as she watched them place him in a rough wooden box andhaul him up through the streets of the village on an old two-wheeledcart drawn by a caribou.

  With the approach of sunset, things grew strangely quiet. The springzephyr that had blown modestly during the day died away. There was nolonger even a dimple in the blue surface of Manila Bay. Not a leaf wasastir. It seemed to Marie that the only sound she could hear was thethe throbbing of her own heart. To her the whole world seemed like anopen sepulcher. Looking down she discovered that she was unconsciouslysitting on a flowery terrace and that all about her was life. Shepulled one of those exquisite white flowers with wide pink veins,peculiar alone to the Philippines, and pressed it to her lips.

  The sun was just setting beyond Corregidor. The island's long shadowsseemed to extend completely across the bay to her feet. As the solarfires burned themselves out, the orange tint which they left behindagainst the reddened sky reminded Marie of the night before, whenshe and her lover had strolled along the shore of the bay about threemiles farther north; and as the sun slowly nodded its evening farewelland buried its face in the pillow of night, she remembered how he, onthe previous night, had called to her attention the lingering glow ofits fading beams. Before her lay the Spanish fleet, it, too, castingshadows that first grew longer and longer and then dimmer and dimmeruntil they in turn had died away in the spectral phenomenon of night.

  Marie's thoughts turned toward home. What about her mother? She walkedback to her little boat, pushed it out into the bay, and, steppinginto it, sat down, took hold of the oars and started northward nearthe beach. Just opposite Fort Malate, she swung westward, and, passingoutside of the break-water a mile from shore, she entered the Pasigriver and hurried homeward. When she arrived, about nine o'clock,she found her mother on the verge of prostration; for that very day,strange to say, Marie's father, who was a colonel in the Filipinoinfantry, had been killed at San Francisco del Monte, six milesnorth-east of Manila, in a battle with Spanish troops.

  "Don't cry, mother," expostulated Marie, "from now on I intend tokill every foe of ours in these islands!"