Those of the Americans who were alive and able to help themselves were ordered to go ashore on the sand bar, where the Filipinos robbed them of their personal effects and then lined them up preparatory to shooting them all down in a body. Gilmore, being an officer, protested against having his hands tied. He claimed, according to the accepted rules of warfare, that on account of his rank he had a right to die honorably with his hands free. The Filipinos have great superstitions about “rank” in military affairs. Marie knew the significance of Gilmore’s request; she respected it.

The Filipinos had loaded their rifles, cocked them, raised the same to their shoulders, had taken aim, and Marie was about to give the fatal command, “Fire!”, when a shout from the bank stopped her and for a moment engaged the attention of both the Americans and the Filipinos. It came from a Filipino officer, running down to the shore. He ordered them to stop. One second longer would have been too late.

This Tagalo officer ordered the Americans to get back into their boat and to row across to the opposite shore. After bailing the water out of the boat and plugging up the holes in it made by the enemy’s rifle balls, they obeyed his command.

When they went ashore, Lieutenant Gilmore asked permission to bury his dead comrades. This privilege was emphatically denied. What was done with their bodies by the Filipinos is hard to tell, but in all probability, as was customary with the natives, they cut them into fragments and threw them away.

The ones who were mortally wounded, but who were still alive, were placed under a tree by Gilmore and his comrades, and left to die. The Lieutenant asked that a native doctor be summoned to give them aid, but it was not done. What their fate was Eternity alone will reveal.

Gilmore and his comrades picked up the lesser wounded and carried them, and together the whole procession was marched inland about a mile to the Filipino Commandante’s headquarters.

Here they were questioned at length. Gilmore asked permission to write a note to the commander of the Yorktown telling him of their fate. Permission was granted, but the note was never delivered. The two scouts who went ashore, returned to the Yorktown in the afternoon and reported that they had heard heavy firing up the river.

After waiting several days for news of some kind for them, and finally concluding that they were either captured or killed, the crew of the Yorktown, heavy-hearted over their failure and their sacrifice, steamed back to Manila.

During the afternoon of the same day that the battle took place, the American prisoners were ordered to march to an old bamboo church in the northern outskirts of the little town of Baler, a mile and a half farther on. By this time the wounded men were suffering terribly. Little Venville’s ankle had swollen badly. From his four wounds he had bled so much that he had grown faint. Therefore, he and several of the others had to be carried.

En route to their new destination, the Americans passed in sight of the old stone church being used as a fortress by the Spanish garrison whom they had originally set out to relieve. The Americans had gone to the Philippines to fight the Spaniards. They were now sacrificing their lives to save them.

At the bamboo church, an old Filipino with a kindly face and a manner that elevated him above his fellow tribesmen, came in to see them. He examined the wounded and then disappeared. Presently he returned with some large leaves that resembled rhubarb, under his arm. Out of the big stems of these native herbs he squeezed a milky secretion which he permitted to drop into the gaping wounds of the Americans. The torture of the wounded occasioned by this liquid was damnable. The men grew deathly pale. They rolled and screamed and begged to be shot. But it did not last long. In ten minutes the torture had ceased, the men became quiet, the swelling around their wounds was gradually reduced, and their temperatures soon lowered. The herb doctor evidently knew his business.

The next day the Filipinos received orders from Aguinaldo, who, with his appointed congress, was now at San Isidro, to march the captured Americans to his headquarters. Accordingly, the trip was undertaken. But the apprentice lad, Venville, was unable to go along. Obeying the stubborn orders of the rapacious Filipinos his comrades left him lying on the floor of the old rickety bamboo church,—wounded—uncared for—suffering—hungry—thirsty—dying. A year later the assistance of the entire naval organization in the Philippines was given to the task of trying to ascertain from the Filipinos in the neighborhood of Baler some information concerning the lad’s whereabouts or his burial place, but no trace of him, dead or alive, could ever be found.

Amid great privations the marching column crossed the mountains and the fertile plains on the opposite side, to the city of San Isidro. It was heralded in advance that the Americans were coming through the country. Obeying their greatest national instinct—curiosity—the natives assembled by thousands in the villages along the road. Every one of them kept crowding forward to get to touch the Americans to see what their skins felt like. Others were looking for the long feathers in their hair, which they had heard so much about. It was all the Filipino guards could do to restrain their own people. The latter, like monkeys, jabbered incessantly. Gilmore’s men hurled back at them defiant epithets. They realized that involuntarily they had become the chief actors in a new moving circus.

Again, when they reached San Isidro, a great throng of curious natives had come to town to see them. These fellows were very hostile to the Americans. It was all the native guard could do to keep the Filipinos from doing violence to them. Gilmore was again questioned at length and then he was separated from his comrades and all were hurried off to jail.

In a few days it was rumored that the American army was approaching the city. Aguinaldo and his associates hurriedly prepared to leave. Orders were given to march the prisoners overland north and then westward across another range of high mountains to Arancay, on the western coast of Luzon,—a distance of 100 miles.

This time the crowd of prisoners was greatly increased. At San Isidro there were added 600 Spaniards; a small tribe of mountain Negritos whom Aguinaldo had originally sent to fight the Americans, but who, being armed only with spears and bolos, soon got tired of seeing their number decrease so rapidly before American riflemen, and refused to fight, and who were later imprisoned and terribly misused by Aguinaldo’s selected guards; and eighteen Americans in addition to Gilmore’s party (total twenty-six Americans), who had been captured in as many different ways around Manila by the crafty, cunning Filipinos. Among them was Frank Stone, of the U. S. Signal Corps, captured by some “amigos” (friendly natives) on the railroad track near Manila, while out strolling one Sunday afternoon; Private Curran, of the 16th U.S. Infantry who was grabbed within fifty feet of his own outpost, gagged and dragged into captivity; also a civilian who had gone to the Philippines to sell liquor.

This fellow was captured by the Filipinos in the outskirts of Manila while he was searching for a small boatload of stolen beer. He was the life of the expedition. He took his captivity as a joke, told stories to keep the prisoners good natured, and painted on ever boulder that he passed the seemingly sacrilegious words, “Drink Blank’s beer on the road to H——.” It was, however, this harmless practice that later on enabled the American relief party to follow the prisoners’ trail.

After reaching the western shore of Luzon, the party was marched northward along the beach, another 100 miles, to the city of Vigan. Here they were imprisoned for three months longer. The sudden presence of an American war-ship in the harbor, off Vigan, caused the natives to abandon that city and start inland with their prisoners for some mountain fastness. The Americans were separated from the rest of the prisoners whom they never saw again.

High up in the mountains of northern Luzon, two of the American boys were taken sick with fever and fell down, exhausted. The Filipino lieutenant who had charge of the prisoners, ordered them to go on; they could not. He threatened to shoot them. Gilmore interceded for them without avail. The Americans refused to leave their Anglo-Saxon comrades and prepared to fight. At this moment the Filipino officer himself was suddenly taken ill, and by the time he was able to advance, the sick Americans were able to go along.

A few days later they struggled over the crest of the divide and came upon the headwaters of a beautiful mountain torrent dancing down the rocky ledges in its onward course to the sea. At a widened place in the canon, the Filipinos withdrew from the Americans, and with guns in hand took their positions on the rocks round-about and above them.

“Prepare to die,” said Gilmore to his companions; “they are going to shoot us.” Calling the Filipino lieutenant to his side Gilmore asked him why he did not shoot them on the opposite side of the mountains, and not have made them make all of that hard climb for nothing.

The native officer said in reply: “My orders were to shoot all of you when I got you up in the mountains, where, in all probability, your bodies would be destroyed by wild animals and no trace of them ever be found by your countrymen; but a few nights ago when you showed me that crucifix tattooed on your chest while you were a midshipman in America, I decided not to carry out my order, but to let you all go free. I may be punished for disobedience of orders; but we are both bound together by the great Catholic church, and my conscience forbids that I should kill you.”

Gilmore replied: “You might as well shoot us as to set us free away up here in the mountains in our weakened condition with nothing to defend ourselves with against the savages whose territory we will have to cross in order to get to the sea. Can’t you spare us at least two rifles and some ammunition? If you will do this, I will give you a letter which, should you fall into the hands of the Americans, will make you safe and bring you ample reward.”

The Filipino looked meditatingly at the ground for several moments, then he calmly said, “I shall not dare to do it. An American relief party, seeking your liberation, is close on our heels. They will protect and care for you. Goodby!”

Gilmore did not believe him.

Under cover of the night the Filipinos disappeared. In the morning, after nine long, tedious months of captivity resulting from Marie Sampalit’s depredations,—sick, nearly starved, practically nude, with nothing but two battle axes and a bolo for both weapons of defense and for tools—the Americans at last found themselves free men in the wilds of northern Luzon, with positive death left behind, and with possible life and all of its happy associations still before them.

Their first day of liberty was spent in preparing bamboo rafts on which to float down the tortuous, winding river to the sea. The next night they all slept well; and on the following morning, just after they had gotten up and begun to saunter around, everybody present was suddenly shocked by the shrill yell of a strong American voice. They all looked up, and while their hearts for a moment seemingly stopped beating and fairly rose in their throats, the liberated prisoners beheld the blue shirts and khaki trousers of Colonel Hare’s rescue party that for several weeks had been on their trail.

What rejoicing! The bony, ill-clad prisoners fell on the strong bosoms of their rescuers and wept.

Colonel Hare’s father, Judge Hare, of Washington, D.C., knew Gilmore personally. He had seen the military reports of his captivity among the natives. When his son bade him goodby as he started for the Philippines, Judge Hare said, “My boy, God bless you; find Gilmore and bring him home!” Colonel Hare had remained true to his trust.

The party could not retrace their steps over the mountains, owing to the weakened condition of the prisoners and the lack of food. Their only chance for self-preservation and a possible return to civilization lay in carrying out Gilmore’s designs to build bamboo rafts and float down the river to the sea. This was done. In going over rapids and water-falls, many rafts were destroyed and new ones had to be built.

Two of the boys got the measles. The raft on which one of them, Private Day, was being transported, got smashed on the rocks and he was thrown into the water. He took cold and died the next day. His comrades took his body with them and did not bury it until they finally reached the little town of Ambulug, at the mouth of the stream they had been following, on the northern coast of Luzon. There, amid a simple but impressive ceremony, it was buried in the church-yard of the cathedral to await the resurrection morn.

At Ambulug the Americans secured ox-carts drawn by caribous and drove along the beach to the city of Aparri, at the mouth of the Cagayan river. Here they were met by a detachment of American Marines who took them aboard a war-ship, lying out to sea, which carried them around the northwest promontory of Luzon to the city of Vigan on the western coast, at which place they had been imprisoned for so long.

Here they met General Young who shook hands with each of them; congratulated the rescued and complimented the rescuers.