You remember that after the battle of Manila the American troops lay in town for months, just drilling and waiting to see what the insurgents were going to do. There were all sorts of rumours afloat, and nobody knew which way the cat would jump. The Filipinos were camped in a semi-circle outside the city and growing uglier every day. Our sentries were watching them close enough to see every nigger that stuck his finger to his nose at us. I saw more and more of Maria, danced with her, or went to her house every night I could get off. It wasn’t long before I saw that I had her going. Her brother looked as if he’d like to bolo me in the back, and never left us alone for a moment. I didn’t care. I was too far gone myself to be afraid of him. I’ve seen one or two women in my time, but she could put it over them all. Love goes pretty fast in hot countries. One night I happened to find her alone. Her brother was away on some Katipunan conspiracy business, most likely, or perhaps dodging our spies. She was dressed like a queen, all ready for me. I had no more than come in when she threw herself into my arms and lay there crying. I had gone too far, and I was in for it. I let her stay there a little while, kissing her and trying to get her quiet, and then I looked away, and told her what I should have told her long before—that I had a wife and couldn’t marry. She took it pretty hard at first. After she had cried she laughed, and there was a load off my mind. I said to myself that women must be different down here, and thought I was lucky to get out of it so easy. I thought perhaps she hadn’t been so badly hurt, after all. She said we’d forget it, and be friends, just the same. I was a fool and believed her. She asked me to come back to-morrow, and I said I would. The next day I met Señor Aguilar, her brother, and he seemed to be as friendly as if we were bunkies. He insisted upon my having a drink with him. He seemed to be glad to know that Maria and I weren’t so much lovers as he had thought. We sat most of the afternoon drinking cognac, and I got more and more pleased at having squared myself with them both. Then some one must have hit me over the head. When I came to, my head was bursting. My hands were bound and I was covered with a sheet of canvas, being jolted in a little bobbing cart. I yelled for help, and my only answer was the barrel of a Mauser rifle stuck in my face. Then I went off into a stupor, and for the rest of that trip I only remember heat, thirst, hunger, stiff joints and a murderous headache. The journey seemed to go on for years and years, but I didn’t have energy enough even to wonder what had happened or where I was going. Finally I found myself stretched upon a cot in a white-walled room, looking through a great arched window into a green _patio_ waving with palms. Señor Aguilar was standing beside me, smiling wickedly. Bromo-seltzer wouldn’t have cleared my head the way the sight of him did.