rebels made a hard stand this
time under the leadership of Sancho Valenzuela (a hemp-rope maker in
a fairly good way of business), but he showed no military skill and
chiefly directed his men by frantic shouts from the window of a wooden
house. Naturally, as soon as they had to retreat, Valenzuela and his
three companions were taken prisoners. The rebels left about 80 dead
on the field and fled towards the Pasig River, which they tried to
cross. Their passage was at first cut off by gunboats, which fired
volleys into the retreating mob and drove them higher up the bank,
where there was some hand-to-hand fighting. Over a hundred managed
to get into canoes with the hope of reaching the Lake of Bay; but,
as they passed up the river, the civil guard, lying in ambush on
the opposite shore, fired upon them, and in the consequent confusion
every canoe was upset. The loss to the rebels in the river and on the
bank was reckoned at about 50. The whole of that day the road to San
Juan del Monte was occupied by troops, and no civilian was allowed
to pass. At 3 p.m. the same day martial law was proclaimed in Manila
and seven other Luzon provinces.

The next morning at sunrise I rode out to the battlefield with the
correspondent of the _Ejercito Espanol_ (Madrid). The rebel slain had
not yet been removed. We came across them everywhere--in the fields and
in the gutters of the highroad. Old men and youths had joined in the
scrimmage and, with one exception, every corpse we saw was attired in
the usual working dress. This one exception we found literally upside
down with his head stuck in the mud of a paddy-field. Our attention
was drawn to him (and possibly the Spaniards' bullets, too) by his
bright red baggy zouave trousers. We rode into the village, which
was absolutely deserted by its native inhabitants, and stopped at
the estate-house of the friars where the Spanish officers lodged. The
_padre_ looked extremely anxious, and the officers advised us not to
go the road we intended, as rebel parties were known to be lurking
there. The military advice being practically a command, we took the
highroad to Sampaloc on our way back to the city.

In the meantime the city drawbridges, which had probably not been
raised since 1852 (_vide_ p. 343, footnote), were put into working
order--the bushes which had been left to flourish around the approaches
were cut down, and the Spanish civilians were called upon to form
volunteer cavalry and infa