home, telling their loved ones in far-off Spain that they were still
alive, and asking for money.

As the Americans began to empty their haversacks and hand hard-tack
and Boston baked beans to them, some of the prisoners seized them by
the fingers and kissed the backs of their hands in grateful homage
for their kindness. A few of the more ignorant ones, who had heard so
much about the cruelty of the American soldiers, and who, upon sight
of our officers, believing the end was near, had sought a kneeling
attitude and begun to pray, gradually sank back into a reclining
posture and held out their hands for a morsel of food.

The Filipino guards sulked when they were displaced by the American
sentries, and some of them had to be forced from their posts of
fiendish duty at the point of the bayonet. They considered these
Spaniards as reprisals, constituting their own private property, with
whom they could do as they pleased without any justifiable interference
on the part of anybody. Marie Sampalit slapped an American private
who had been sent to displace a Filipino sentry whom she had just
stationed at one of the prison doors. He promptly knocked her down with
the butt of his rifle. What she said in reply he could not understand.

CHAPTER IV.

THE INTERVAL

After avenging her lover's death, Marie returned again to Manila
where she remained at home until the Filipino uprising against the
American troops in the spring of 1899. During this interval of nine
months, she daily frequented the places of rendezvous of the American
troops stationed in and around Manila. She also went to the officers'
homes in the city where their wives and children were stopping. She
did their washing, and cared for the children. Her congeniality made
her a favorite. Some of the American ladies offered to bring her back
to America with them for a house-hold servant.

From them she learned to speak the English language nearly as fluently
as Spanish. The American soldiers were kind and polite to her. She
made considerable money by doing washing for them. It was noticeable
that she was gradually improving the old bamboo home in Manila. In a
few months she had come into possession of more money than she thought
there was in the entire world. Most of it was American gold--largely
in five dollar denominations. (This is what the United States used in
paying the soldiers.) These she took to the Spanish bank in Manila
and exchanged them for