nst the house, and I climbed up and went in,
to find the two men who stayed there, the Spaniard and Juan, dead on
the floor. Their swollen faces, black and awful to look at, I have
seen in bad dreams since. On the throat of each were the blue marks
of long, strong fingers.

And the body of Europa was gone.

MRS. HANNAH SMITH, NURSE

The red eye of the lighthouse on Corregidor Island blazed out
through the darkness as a Pacific steamer felt her way cautiously
into Manila harbour.

Although it was nearly midnight, a woman--one of the passengers on
the steamer--was still on deck, and standing well up toward the bow
of the boat was peering into the darkness before her as if she could
not wait to see the strange new land to which she was coming. Surely
it would be a strange land to her, who, until a few weeks before
had scarcely in all her life been outside of the New England town in
which she had been born.

People who had seen her on the steamer had wondered sometimes that
a woman of her age--for she was not young--should have chosen to
go to the Philippine Islands as a nurse, as she told them she was
going. Sometimes, at first, they smiled at some of her questions,
but any who happened to be ill on the voyage, or in trouble, forgot
to do that, for in the touch of her hand and in her words there was
shown a skill and a nobleness of nature which won respect.

The colonel of a regiment stationed near Manila was sitting in his
headquarters. An orderly came to the door and saluted.

"A woman to see you, sir," he said.

"A woman? What kind of a woman?"

"A white woman, sir. Looks about fifty years old. Talks American. Says
she has only just come here. Says her name is Smith."

"Show her in."

The man went out. In a few minutes he came back again, and with him
the woman that had stayed out on the deck of the Pacific steamer when
the boat came past the light of Corregidor.

The Colonel gave his visitor a seat. "What can I do for you?" he said.

"Can I speak to you alone?"

"We are alone now."

"Can't that man out there hear?" motioning toward a soldier pacing
back and forth before the door.

"No," said the officer. "We are quite alone."

The woman unfolded a sheet of paper which she had been holding,
and looked at it a moment. Then she looked at the officer. "I want
to see Heber Smith, of Company F, of your regiment," she said. "Can
you tell me where he is?"

In spite of himself--in spite of