"Don't interrupt me--'If you as much as touch one of my hairs, you know what will happen. The American soldiers will come after you. Not the scouts, not the constabulary, but the American soldiers. They will follow you like hounds, ten thousand, a hundred thousand of them, if necessary. They will never let you rest. They will avenge me--well, you know the American soldier, my friends. Don't get him mad. I am the American woman; I am sacred!'" "But, Gomez; do you think that is all true?" "It is; I know." "But, Gomez; the Americans, they are not fools. They can see. They must know that she is old like my grandmother, that she is seven feet tall, that she takes out her teeth at night, that----" "It doesn't matter; she's an American woman." "Ah, these Americans; what a singular people!" A long contemplative silence. "Gomez, Gomez"--with sudden inspiration--"let's poison her!" "Now you're talking like a babe; there's the same objection." "Oh!"--more silent despair. "Gomez, let's take her back, back to Taal!" "Umph--what do you think the Taal people would do to us?" "Madre de Dios, Gomez, is there no way, none at all?" "None I can see." "Then let me die!" But hope in human breast is indestructible. It was Gomez who, after all, found the solution. "We'll take her to some other town, some town where she is not known, absolutely not known," he proposed in rapt accents. "Bagum-Bagum!" exclaimed Gato, rising to his feet; "there's ten thousand pesos in the treasury!" "We'll raid the town and leave her there!" "But say, there 're some constabulary there; do you know how many?" "No, I don't know. But the constabulary inspector knows." "She's freed him, too!"--Gato flew from the immediate consideration of practical things to a bitter recapitulation of wrongs. "He walks around the camp as if he owned it. And she gave him my best pantaloons, those with the gold stripes----" "Never mind," said Gomez soothingly; "we'll question him to-morrow." V So it was that, upon getting up, a little later than usual, the next morning, the widow found the door of her hut locked from the outside. As has already appeared, the widow was a person of considerable executive ability. She wasted no time in idle recrimination, but promptly kicked, through the nipa wall, a hole out of which she emerged, fresh, vigorous, and unruffled. An interesting scene met her interrogative eye. In the centre of the clearing a tripod had been constructed out of three great pieces of green bamboo. And even as she looked a man was tying a supple liana to the apex, while another worker tied a slip knot to the loose extremity. Then a little fire of twigs was started beneath. "Umph," grunted the widow; "I wonder what these heathen think they're going to cook."