word to the old man to guard his
companions. I finally decided, however, that Juan, though quite vile
enough to do such a thing, would never dare to guide his employer to
the Conjure man's house.

I did not properly measure the heart of a native doubly driven by
hate of a former master from whom he is free, and fear of a master
by whom he is employed at the present time.

The very next day Juan went to the Conjure man's house, and in his
master's name demanded that one of the apes be brought, dead or alive,
to the tax collector's office.

The only answer he brought back, except a slashed face on which the
blood was even then not dry, was:

"Does a father slay his children at a stranger's bidding?"

The next day I was in the forest all day long. When I came home
in the edge of the evening, and passed the tax collector's house,
I said words which I should not wish to write down here, although I
almost believe that the tears which were running down my cheeks at the
time washed the record of my language off the recording angel's book,
just as they would have blotted out the words upon this sheet of paper.

Europa, noble great animal, lay dead on the ground in front of the
house, the slim, strong paw, like a right hand, which she had reached
out to welcome me, drabbled with dirt where it had dragged behind the
"carabaos" cart in which she had been brought, and which had been
hardly large enough to hold her huge body.

I knew it was Europa. I would have known her anywhere, even if
Filipe, white with fear and rage, had not told me the story when I
reached home.

Juan had guided the tax collector to the mountain home in an evil
moment when its owner and Atlas, by some chance were away. The Spaniard
had shot Europa, standing in the door, as I had seen her standing,
and the two men had brought the body down the mountain.

I think Filipe, and perhaps the other natives, expected nothing less
than that the village, if not the whole island, would be destroyed by
fire from the sky, that night, or swallowed up in the earth, but the
night passed with perfect quiet. Not a sound was heard, nor a thing
done to disturb our sleep, or if, as I imagine was the case with some
of us who did not sleep, our peace.

Only, in the morning, when no one was seen stirring about the tax
collector's house, and then it grew noon and the lattices were not
opened or the ladder let down, the Tagalog soldiers brought another
ladder and put it agai