Long will Manila remember the night! It followed close upon the heels of warnings that for weeks held every officer and man to his post of duty. Day after day the strain increased. The Insurgents, crowding upon our outposts in front of Santa Mesa on the north and of Santa Ana on the south side of the Pasig, had heaped insult and threats upon our silent sentries, compelled by orders to the very last to submit to anything but actual attack rather than bring on a battle. "The Americans are afraid," was the gleeful cry of Aguinaldo's officers, the jeer and taunt of his men. The regulars were soon to come and replace those volunteers, said the wiseacre of his cabinet, therefore strike now before the trained and disciplined troops arrive and sweep these big boors into the sea. And on the still, starlit night, sooner perhaps than his confederates within the walls intended, the rebel leader struck, and, long before the dawn of the lovely Sunday morn that followed, the fire flashed from forty thousand rifles in big semicircle around Manila, and the long-expected battle was on. Hours after dawn, hours after the attack began, the --teenth were in extended battle order to the south of Malate confronted by thickets of bamboo that fairly swarmed with Insurgents, yet, only by the incessant zip and "whiew" of their deadly missiles and the ceaseless crackle of rifle fire, could this be determined; for with their smokeless powder and their Indian-like skill in concealment nothing could be seen of their array. Over to the westward on the placid waters of the bay the huge Monadnock was driving shell after shell into the dense underbrush across the abandoned rice fields and the marshy flats that lined the shore. Over to the east resounding cheers and crashing volleys, punctuated by the sharp report of field guns, told that the comrade brigade was heavily engaged and, apparently, driving the enemy before them. To right and left their volunteer supports were banging into the brush with their heavy Springfields; and still there seemed no symptom of weakness along the immediate front, no sign of yielding. If anything the fury of the Insurgent volleying increased as the sun climbed higher, and all along the blue-shirted line men grit their teeth and swore as they crouched or lay full length along the roadside, peering through the filmy veil that drifted slowly across their front--the smoke from the Springfields of the volunteers. To lie there longer with the bullets buzzing close overhead or biting deep into the low embankment, sometimes tearing a stinging path through human flesh and bone, was adding to the nerve strain of the hours gone by. To rush headlong across that intervening open space, through deep and muddy pools and stagnant ditch, and hurl themselves upon the lurking enemy in the bamboo copse beyond, had been the ardent longing of the line since daylight came to illumine the field before them. Yet stern