A short distance ahead was a large opening--an old rice field well cleared. She had scarcely begun to cross it when she heard a noise. She turned and saw the bow-legged old man whom she had robbed, with a machete in his hand, coming after her as fast as he could. He had discovered that the rosary was missing, and upon looking around, that several other things were gone; therefore he at once started in pursuit of the fiend who had just enjoyed his hospitality. Marie was not disturbed. Raising to her shoulder the rifle which she had just found, she took deliberate aim and at the first shot laid him low in death. She reached the small native village of Angono, where her mother was stopping, about four o'clock in the afternoon of March 26th. The old lady was wonderfully elated to receive the new jewels which Marie had stolen. She put on the rosary and danced about in the native hut like a young child on Christmas morning, when it sees the gorged stocking fastened to its bed. CHAPTER VII. OFF FOR BALER That night Marie had a good rest. The next morning, fired with ambition and discontent, she lit her accustomed cigarette and started for Manila. Instead of going overland, she went in a row boat via the Pasig river which drains the lake into Manila bay and which flows through the city of Manila situated at its mouth. While stealthily prowling around through Manila during the next few days, Marie accidentally discovered that plans were being carried out by the Americans to relieve the remnant of the old Spanish garrison of fifty men stationed at the little town of Baler, near the eastern coast of Luzon. This garrison was of course surrendered to the American forces with the remainder of the Spanish army on August 13, 1898, but as all lines of communication with them had been destroyed by the Filipinos they had never been officially notified of the capitulation. Scouting parties brought in the information that they were being besieged by a horde of blood-thirsty Filipinos which outnumbered them ten to one, and that it was only a question of time before all would be exterminated. Accordingly, Admiral Dewey and General Otis decided that something must be done at once to relieve them. A rescuing party was formed and placed aboard the "Yorktown," which carried them around the southern point of Luzon and then northward to the mouth of the Baler river. Marie, nerved by the thought of a new exploit, forgot her oath not to take up arms against the Americans again during the insurrection, and hastily departed overland for Baler to notify the besieging Filipinos of what was to take place, and to help them as best she could to resist the advance of the rescuing party.