The captain swore softly and said something about striking “the ruins of that old Spanish bridge,” then hurried forward to see what damage had been done. The people in the cutter, riding the short waves in our wake, were thoroughly alarmed and were clamouring to know what had happened to us. We couldn’t tell them, but it sounded very much as if we had torn the whole bottom out of the launch. The engine had stopped; it was inky dark; the children all began to cry; and, to add further discomfort to the situation, it began to rain in torrents. The launch swayed sickeningly this way and that, then the engine started again, whereupon came a most furious clatter aft. There is no denying that it made us blanch with fear, but it proved to be only a blade of the propeller which had been bent and was striking the boat with each revolution.
Three times more we slid into the mud; the last time we stuck and no effort that could be made would get us out, so we were forced to abandon the launch and wedge ourselves altogether into the little cutter. You may picture for yourself the scene of men, women and children, in the rain and with no light save the faint flicker of lanterns, dropping off a big launch into a small rowboat over an inky stream supposed to be filled with crocodiles.
When we reached the mouth of the river the captain began to show signs of nervousness, though he had been entirely self-controlled throughout the worst of our troubles. We couldn’t see where we were going, but we could distinctly feel that the open bay lay not far ahead of us. What we wanted was to have the Sumner’s searchlight turned on our path, but the only thing we had with us with which to convey this desire to the ship’s officers were red rockets—the last resort of the sailor in distress. There was nothing else to do; the launch captain began firing them off, and a weirder scene than was revealed by their momentary glare can hardly be imagined. They produced the desired effect, however, and in less than ten minutes a great shaft of light, straight from the bridge of the Sumner, was sweeping the banks of the river and bay shore and affording us just the kind of assistance we required.
But that was not the end. Less than halfway to the Sumner we met a lifeboat, equipped with all the paraphernalia for rescuing us from a watery grave, and manned by an excited crew in oilskins, who, under the sharp commands of an almost frantic officer, were pulling in mad haste for the river’s mouth. When they saw us they lapsed into a state of utter disgust. They turned and rowed sadly back to the ship, and afterward I overheard them exchanging very definite opinions as to the possible future of a sailor who would burn red rockets when all he wanted was a searchlight.
After calling at Cagayan Misamis, Dapitan, Iloilo, San José Antique and Capiz, we made straight for Cebu. Cebu is, in rivalry with Iloilo and next to Manila, the most important town in the Philippine Islands. It is a receiving station for exports from all parts of the southern islands and is altogether what is known as a “live” town. It is the capital of the province of the same name which consists of a single long island some two thousand square miles in area and with a population (at that time) of nearly seven hundred thousand.
At Cebu we were rejoined by Chief Justice Arellano, who had left us sometime before to go back to Manila. We were greatly interested in his account of the effect of Aguinaldo’s capture and subsequent treatment. The erstwhile insurgent leader was still in prison, but his prison was made an honourable abode where he was permitted to be with his family and to receive his friends. The mass of the people would not, for a long time, believe he really had been captured. They thought the report was an American fabrication to delude them and to destroy their faith in Aguinaldo’s anting-anting—or magic charm against defeat. The shattering of that faith gave vast impetus to the general peace movement and, though a few hundred rifles and several insurrecto officers were still unaccounted for, and though occasional outbreaks and the activities of marauding bands of outlaws continued for a considerable length of time, the actual organised insurrection had suffered a complete collapse.
The Commission kept Cebu on tenterhooks for a time as to whether the condition of order in the province was such that they could go on with the establishment of government there, and it was interesting to watch the effect of this uncertainty. To be included in the general organisation became at once the warmly expressed wish of a majority of the people, and there was great excitement throughout the town. Eventually Justice Llorente, of the Supreme Court of Manila, a member of our party, and himself a Cebuano, was appointed Governor of the province under the simple American form, and because of his integrity and real patriotism, because of the high regard in which he was held by the people, and because of the enthusiasm and complete faith with which he entered upon his duties, it was hoped that he would be able soon to lead his province into the sensible paths marked out for it.
With Cebu and the problems of Cebu behind us, we felt that our long trip was nearly finished. Bohol, Leyte, Samar, Albay, the Camarines and Sorsogon, each
