Again came the derricking of guns. Then we went through a deep aisle where only one man could rush in at a time, with Filipino sharp-shooters above us. But our last fight cut them from our front and we reached the Regulars. They had held their place and escaped death only because they had lain for two days in an old fissure with empty shells beside it and canteens as dry as the old volcano. But weak as they were they charged with us after the Filipinos, scattering them like mountain goats over the hills. There was a tropic moon that tropic night. The Mango trees circled the farther mountain sides and the bamboos stood in groups in the valley below. The kingly palms towered high over all. The weird tropic night sounds were borne to us on the breeze. The tired battle line of my brave boys lolled by camp fires in one long line of sentinel light with the last wrecked forts of the beaten enemy at their backs. The field guns, rapid of fire, poked their long blue noses out into the night. "Still smellin’ for the varmints loike blood houns for nagurs," said Moriarty, our fighting Irishman, and the wit of the regiment. Then he would walk over and pet the blue steel beauties, for they were his. Moriarty it was who had brought them over mountain side and _crevasses_ where no man dreamed they could go. "An’ it’s aisy it is," he would laugh and say when I praised him to his face. "It’s aisy, Cap’n; I’ve done nothin’ but pet ’em, an’ so they jus’ foller me loike dogs." Half a mile out a line of pickets faced the way the beaten enemy had fled. Our fighting was over. Cebu’s island would no longer be troubled with Insurgents. And the next day would be the Indiana and home! Our General had thrown off his sword belt and come over to my camp, and together we had smoked and talked of home and the war, of everything but you, sweetheart. But when he left he smiled and said a puzzling thing to me. "I’ve a surprise for you to-morrow, at Cebu, Jack, that will knock the war and even the homegoing out of your head." Then he twisted his gray mustache and smiled delightedly. Had the old man, as we all loved to call him, received word of another promotion for me, I wondered. For myself I wanted no more war. I wanted only you, Eloise, somewhere, somehow, living; or the memory of you amid my own Tennessee trees. "General," I said, "there are worthier men here than I for any promotion you may have. I will go back to my land and my work; but if you could arrange for Moriarty here—" I added, pointing to the game little Irishman. "Oh, Pat’s fixed already," he answered. "He has brought these guns over hills, through fissures, and the walls of hell. He’ll be First Lieutenant in the regular army as soon as I can wire this day’s work to the President. But you, Jack,—" I pressed his hand. "General, dear General, believe me, I want nothing more, nothing but a chance to work and make a home in Tennessee."