over the tumbling form, and
the next instant he had vaulted over the ledge of the open window on the
lower floor, and vanished through the gateway to the beach. And now all
along the Calle Real the bugles were sounding "To Arms!"

CHAPTER XVI.

That was a wild day in Manila. Far over near the Escolta somebody shot at a
vagrant dog lapping water from a little pool under one of the many
hydrants. The soldier police essayed an arrest; the culprit broke and ran;
the guard fired; a lot of coolies, taking alarm, fled jabbering to the
river side. The natives, looking for trouble any moment, rushed to their
homes. Some soldiers on pass and unarmed tumbled over the tables and chairs
in the Alhambra in their dash for the open street. A stampeded sergeant
told a bugler to sound to arms, and in the twinkling of an eye the call was
taken up from barrack to barrack, and the news went flashing out by wire to
the extreme front. The shopkeepers hastily put up their shutters and bolted
their doors. Cabs, carts, _quilez_ and _carromattas_--even the street
cars--were instantly seized by the soldiery scattered all over town, and
utilized to take them tearing back to join their regiments. In five minutes
the business streets down town were deserted. Chinese cowered within their
crowded huts. The natives, men and women, either hid within the shelter of
their homes or fled to the sanctuary of the many churches. All over the
great city the alarm spread like wildfire. The battalions formed under
arms, those nearest the outer lines being marched at once to their
positions in support, those nearer the walled city waiting for orders.
Foreign residents took matters more coolly than did the Asiatic; German
phlegm, English impassibility and Yankee devil-may-carishness preventing a
panic. But those who had families and owned or could hire carriages and
launches were not slow in seeking for their households the refuge of the
fleet of transports lying placidly at anchor in the bay, where Dewey's
bluejackets shifted their quids, went coolly to their stations and, grouped
about their guns, quietly awaiting further developments. In an agony of
fear Colonel Frost had bidden his driver to lash the ponies to a gallop and
go like the wind to Malate; but the appearance of the long ranks of sturdy
infantry resting on their arms and beginning to look bored, measurably
reassured him before he reached his home. Once there, however, the sight of
Nita, clingi