d bars in town or by bribery and stealth in the outlying
suburbs could the natives dispose of the villainous "bino" with which at
times the unwary and unaccustomed American was overcome.

Three or four men in civilian dress, that somehow smacked of the sea, as
did their muttered, low-toned talk, huddled together at the corner post,
furtively eying the laughing soldiers and occasionally peering up and
down the darkened street. It was not the place Stuyvesant would have
chosen to leave his carriage, but it was a case of any port in a
storm,--anything to escape that awful woman. With one quick spring he
was out of the vehicle and into the midst of the group on the narrow
sidewalk before he noticed them at all, but not before they saw him.
Even as Miss Perkins threw forward a would-be grasping and detaining
hand and called him by name, one of the group in civilian dress gave
sudden, instant start, sprang round the corner, but, tripping on some
obstacle, sprawled full length on the hard stone pavement. Despite the
violence of the fall, which wrung from him a fierce curse, the man was
up in a second, away, and out of sight in a twinkling.

"Go on!" shouted Stuyvesant impatiently, imperiously, to his coachman,
as, never caring what street he took, he too darted around the same
corner, and his tall white form vanished on the track of the civilian.

But the sound of the heavy fall, the muttered curse, and the sudden
question in the nearest group, "What's wrong with Sackett?" had reached
Miss Perkins's ears, for while once more the little team was speeding
swiftly away, the strident voice of the lone passenger was uplifted in
excited hail to the coachman to stop. And here the Filipino demonstrated
to the uttermost that the amenities of civilization were yet undreamed
of in his darkened intellect--as between the orders of the man and the
demands of the woman he obeyed the former. Deaf, even to that awful
voice, he drove furiously on until brought up standing by the bayonets
of the patrol in front of the English Club, and in a fury of
denunciation and quiver of mingled wrath and excitement, Miss Perkins
tumbled out into the arms of an amazed and disgusted sergeant, and
demanded that he come at once to arrest a vile thief and deserter.

CHAPTER XIV.

That night the sentries all over the suburbs of Ermita and Malate were
peering into every dark alleyway and closely scrutinizing every human
being nearing their posts. Few a