own a bamboo pole into it. The Filipino soldiers,
armed with their newly-captured rifles, were then to stand around
the brink of this pit and use these half-starved Spaniards for living
targets. Marie gloated over her new enterprise. What sport! How she
enjoyed it! The Filipino's marksmanship was poor and many of their
unfortunate prisoners were shot over a dozen times before they were
stilled in death. This bloody practice was kept up until over two
hundred Spaniards had been slain.

About this time rumors of what was being done reached the ears
of General Anderson. He ordered it stopped, and sent food ashore,
under American escorts, for the Spanish prisoners. These prisoners,
before being led to the slaughter, were housed by the Filipinos
in an unfinished portion of the old convent at Cavite, and in some
large stone buildings without floors and with only a few windows,
heavily barricaded with iron bars, formerly used by the natives for
storage purposes for various cargoes of raw materials, preparatory
to exportation. These buildings were dark, damp and infested with a
multiplicity of insectivora.

The Spaniards, imprisoned therein, were fed by the Filipinos on a
very small ration of uncooked rice. This they had to pound into meal,
and eat it out of their hands. Water, although plentiful, was denied
them, except in small quantities. They had no beds, but slept on
the bare ground. Many of them were practically nude. They had staid
by their guns on the Spanish fleet until their ships began to sink;
then they had jumped overboard and swam ashore, taking off most of
their clothes before making the attempt. The Filipinos had little
clothing to give them and no disposition to share what they did have.

These half-starved wretches, pale, lean and ghostly looking, many
of them sick with fever and other ailments, none of them with a
cent of money, were a sickening sight to the American troops whom
General Anderson sent ashore to investigate their circumstances
and conditions. Of course the healthier ones were marched out and
killed first. Some of them began to cry when the American officers,
pushing the Filipino sentries aside, poked their vigorous manly faces
through the openings of the massive doors to see who and what was on
the inside; but most of them propped themselves up on one elbow and
held out the other hand for something to eat. Others indicated by
motions that they wanted paper and pencils, so as to write letters