as a shot; the soldier dropped all in a heap and Sackett and
the sailor ran for their lives around the corner,--the last he had ever
seen or heard of them up to this moment.

So that was how poor Maidie's pistol happened to be picked up on the
Calle Real and why one or two assertive officers lately connected with
the provost-marshal's and secret-service department concluded that it
might be well for them to try regimental duty awhile. That was how it
happened, too, that Lieutenant Stuyvesant was prevailed on to take a
short leave and run over to Hong Kong. But he came back in a hurry, for
there was need of every man and trouble imminent "at the front."

The dawn of that memorable February day had come that saw Manila girdled
by the flame of forty thousand rifles and shrouded in the smoke that
drifted from the burning roofs of outlying villages from whose walls,
windows, and church towers the insurgent islanders had poured their
pitiless fire upon the ranks of the American soldiery.

In front of a stone-walled enclosure bordering the principal street in
an eastward suburb two or three officers were in earnest consultation.
From the ambulance close at hand the attendants were carefully lifting
some sorely wounded men. Up the street farther east several little
parties coming slowly, haltingly from the front, told that the incessant
crash and rattle of musketry in that direction was no mere _feu-de-joie_,
while every now and then the angry spat of the steel-clad Mauser on the
stony road, the whiz and whirr about the ears of the few who for duty's
sake or that of example held their ground in the highway, gave evidence
that the Tagal marksmen had their eyes on every visible group of
Americans.

In the side streets at right angles to the main thoroughfare reserve
battalions were crouching, sheltered from the leaden storm, and awaiting
the longed-for order to advance and sweep the field at the front. From
the grim, gray walls of the great church and convent, which for weeks
had been strictly guarded by order of the American generals against all
possible intrusion or desecration on part of their men, came frequent
flash and report and deadly missile aimed at the helpless wounded, the
hurrying ambulances, even at a symbol as sacred as that which towered
above its altars--the blood-red cross of Geneva.

It was the Tagal's return for the honor and care and consideration shown
the Church of Rome. As another ambulance came swiftl