You may say what you please, but it is certain that the Evil One never appeared in the Philippines until after the Spanish had taken possession of the islands. At least, this applies to Luzon. And, strange to tell, he has not been seen there since the Spanish left. Some will have it that he was smitten into a despairing bashfulness during Weyler’s administration, and that when the governor went home with a couple of million dollars in his valise—the savings from his salary—the Devil went home likewise, awe-struck. His Satanic Majesty’s last recorded exploit occurred in the view of three men, of whom one may still be alive to vouch for it. They were farmers of Wild Laguna, a few miles above Manila, and on one memorable day were cutting wood in the ravine near by,—a deep gulch through which babbles a stone-choked stream. This glen has precipitous sides, but is so thickly overhung with green that it is almost like a verdant cave.

While they were resting—and the Filipino’s ability to rest is one of his striking qualities—they were startled by the hurried advance of something, or somebody, on the bank. There was a swish and crash of undergrowth, a hobbling stamp, and something that sounded like the smiting of leaves with a club. At first the farmers thought that a water buffalo had run away from some plantation and was angry because he could not descend the craggy sides and reach the water. Then came a volley of expletives in an unknown tongue, and in a voice so deep and harsh that the hair of the three heads bristled, and three pairs of eyes goggled with fright. The farmer who was good crossed himself; the one who was bad turned white and tried to remember how prayers were said; the one who was betwixt-and-between clung to the stone on which he was seated and held his breath; for a tall, lank personage, with overhanging brows, slanting eyes, long chin and nose, and wrathful aspect, was striding to and fro on the edge of the ravine, looking at the opposite bank as if trying to decide whether or not he could leap that distance. He was scowling, gnashing his teeth, and brandishing his arms. Any Spaniard might have done as much, and brandished a sword besides; but the terrible thing about this gentleman was the great length of tail, with a dart at its tip, that he was flourishing among the bushes, for only one being, on the earth or under it, was known to have a toil like that.

As if to leave no doubt, the stranger, in stamping on the ground, lifted his leg so high that the watchers could see that it ended, not in a foot, but a hoof. It was Satan himself! The farmers did not dare to tremble, but each shrank within himself as far as he could and thought upon his sins, the worst of the trio with the least compunction, because he was not conscious of any immorality in robbing Spaniards. As he tramped back and forth, the devil now and then looked up into the branches, as if guessing the height of the trees. Presently he stopped before the tallest, levelled his finger at it, and cried with a stentorian voice a command in words that belong to none of the forty or fifty languages and dialects of the islands. Then the souls of the spectators fell, like chilling currents, and their hearts swelled like balloons and arose into their throats, and there was no joy in them; for the great tree bent slowly down and swung itself entirely across the chasm. Its reach was great, and Satan skipped along the trunk as spryly as a cat on a fence, his arms and tail held out for balance and twitching nervously. Half-way over he spied the three spectators and stopped. Their circulation stopped also. He grinned from ear to ear, showing two rows of tusk-like teeth, shook his fist playfully, and shouted a laugh so loud, so awful, that they believed their last moment had come. But it had not. Their hair turned white, to be sure, and they took on fifty years’ growth of wrinkles; but the Devil was after bigger game. He scampered over the arching trunk, disappeared on the farther side, and hurried off at a run toward Manila, where a certain rich lawyer was rumored to be dying. From later whisperings it appears that His Majesty was not late.

The strange part of the incident is that, although the tree was thus ill-used to serve the Devil’s convenience, and is marked along its bark by his cloven feet, it was not blasted, but to this hour is green and flourishing. The Devil’s Bridge, as everybody calls it, is an arboreal wonder, curving lightly and gracefully over the chasm, its branches resting on the bank opposite to its root, some of them growing upside down, but all as green and healthy as those of any tree that the Devil spared when he was looking for a way to cross the ravine. Had he waded the stream he not only would have wet his feet, which would have been unpleasant, but would have touched water that had once been blessed, and that would have been torture. The bad farmer did not survive this spectacle by many years, though it is not related that he reformed. The fair-to-middling one lasted for a while longer. The good one may yet be in the land of the living, unless he enlisted under Aguinaldo, which is not likely, because old men cannot run fast enough to be effective members of the Filipino army.