"I know that Filipino," Thaine said. "He seems like a fine young man. The scar was a marker for him. I'd know him by it anywhere." "So should I, and by his peculiar gait. I saw a man slipping along beyond the lines just now who made me think of that fellow, and that made me think of Doctor Carey," the sentinel said, and turned away. It was after nine o'clock, and the hours were already beginning to stretch wearily for sentinels, when a faint sound of guns away to the eastward broke on the air. Again and again it came, intermittently at first, but increasing to a steady roar. Down in Manila there was dead quiet, but along the American line of outposts the ripping of Mauser bullets and long streaks of light flashed the Filipino challenge to war in steady volleys. As Thaine listened, the firing seemed to be creeping gradually toward the north, and he knew the insurgents were swinging toward the Tondo road, down which they would rush to storm the bridge. In that moment civil life dropped off like a garment, and he stood up a soldier. He crept cautiously toward the bend to see what lay beyond, and dropped on his face in the dusty way as a whirl of bullets split the air above his head. As he sprang back to his place beside his comrade, other sentinels joined them, and behind them loomed the tall form of Captain Clarke. "What's around there, Aydelot?" Clarke asked. "Didn't you hear?" Thaine's reply was lost in a roar of rifles, followed by increased firing along the entire line, massing to the north before the Twentieth's front. "There are ten more men on the way up here. We'll hold this place until reinforcements come," Captain Clarke declared. It was such a strategic point as sometimes turns the history of war. But the odds are heavy for sixteen men to stand against swarms of insurgents armed with Mausers and Remingtons. In the thrill of that moment, Thaine Aydelot would have died by inches had this tall, cool-headed captain of his demanded it. Clarke arranged his men on either side of the way, and the return fire began. Suddenly up the road a lantern gleamed. An instant later a cannon shot plowed the dust between the two lines of men. "They've turned a cannon loose. Watch out," Clarke called through the darkness. A second time and a third the lantern glowed, and each time a cannon ball crashed through a nipa hut beside the little company, or threw a shower of dust about the place. "They have to load that gun by the light of a lantern. Let's fix the lantern," Thaine cried, as the dust cloud settled down. "Good! Watch your aim, boys," Captain Clarke replied. The bullets were falling thick about them. They whizzed through the bushes, they cut into the thatched huts, they flung swirls of dust on the little line of brave soldiers, they poured like stinging sweeps of hail, volley after volley, along the Tondo road. When the lantern flashed again, sixteen bullets riddled it, and without its help the big gun was useless.