At Sibalay, twenty miles below the mouth of the Hog, there was then a post of native constabulary, and once every two months a launch from Ilo-Ilo came to stock it with provisions. He had made a note of the dates the boat was to come. He looked among his papers and found it. It was due that very day. Since morning, while he sat stupid there, the boat had been discharging cargo; that very evening it would leave for Ilo-Ilo, and in Ilo-Ilo there were Americans, doctors, hospitals, hope! And there was still a chance. The boat, in its course back to Ilo-Ilo, must cross the mouth of the Hog. There might be time to intercept it. He ran out of the house and down to the river; and the best he could find after an hour's search were two old bancas, mouldy and full of water and each with an outrigger broken; but he lashed them together, with the remaining outriggers on the outside. Then he stormed at the Casa Popular till they gave him the town prisoners, a villainous six. He then had his wife carried on her cot to the boat, and they started down the river. From the beginning everything went wrong. He had counted upon the swollen river-current; he found that the sea tide was on the flood and backing it up. The impressed prisoners were sullen, and after he saw that promises of reward had no effect, he made them work with his revolver at their backs. The river wound interminably, and then another obstacle confronted them. The wind rose, and every time the turn of the river made it head on, they had to slow up, for the short, choppy waves dashed into the boats, threatening to swamp them. The men grew more defiant, and once he was obliged to fire over their heads to keep them at their paddles. Thus they went down the river, between the high palm-lined banks, the boats leaking, the tide purring against them, the men straining, with Fear upon them, and he standing at the stern, tense as a maniac, feeling Hope slowly and inexorably slipping from him. And all the time, from the cot at the bottom of the boat, came the soft, continuous, patient plaint. When they reached the mouth of the river, the surf was booming on the bar and they could not cross. It was dark, and in the distance a red and a green light were passing slowly. They paddled back five miles up the river to the pueblo of Hog and camped in the deserted convent. Toward midnight, White, the constabulary officer, came along. He was on his way to Sibalay, but the mud had killed his horse and he had had to stop. The two men had a conference. Then White impressed two carabaos from the presidente and started off in a drizzling rain. There was an army wagon, with two American horses, at Sibalay, and he was going after them. With the wagon, Delaroche could perhaps make Pulupondan, sixty miles to the north, and catch the little steamer that plied between that town and Ilo-Ilo.