These soldiers hunted for us until sundown and remained all the night in the forest, so that, knowing this and fearing lest the cries of the young child should betray us, De-Tam ordered us to dig a hole, and in it De-Nam's son was buried alive. "When the mother was told of what had befallen her babe--for it had been taken from her whilst she was sleeping, and she knew not where it had gone--she was stricken with much sorrow, and went away from us, weeping and complaining, into the forest, where she slew herself in the agony of her grief. "On the morrow, when the troops had moved off a little, we succeeded in getting away further into the jungle...." * * * * * The 9th June, 1902, I happened to be with a scouting party, and came upon the body of the dead woman. It was still warm, and a native knife, embedded right up to the hilt, had pierced the heart. Like the rest of my comrades, I imagined at the time that this unfortunate creature had been murdered by the rebels; and it was only several weeks later, when assisting at the examination of the deserter mentioned above, that I learned what had really happened. On my return to Nha-Nam in May, I had been glad to renew relations with my friend Doy-Tho; and whenever I found time to do so, I passed my evenings in his _caigna_, and, seated beside him as he smoked, talked over the situation. He was always very well informed on all that was going on, though he most certainly owed much of his knowledge to his former enemy, but now devoted friend, Linh-Nghi, who, since the termination of the main operations, had been nominated to the important post of _lu-thuong_ (headman) of the village of Long-Thuong; and, in return for the services he had rendered to the authorities, important stretches of cultivated land, formerly owned by some of the rebels, had been made over to him. It was from Tho that I learned of the lasting impression which the rapid capture of all De-Tam's fortifications had produced upon the population of the Yen-Thé. The majority of the people, he said, were no longer moved to enthusiasm by this chiefs appeals to their patriotism, and they now possessed no confidence in the ultimate success of the movement in favour of their exiled monarch. However, my friend was never weary of repeating that, until the French succeeded in killing or capturing De-Tam, the chief would be a source of constant trouble in the region, because most of the peasants possessed such a real dread of him, that but few of the villages would dare to refuse his demands for money or rice, so long as he remained an outlaw, and had at his disposal a band of cruel and determined partisans.