he
capital, Manila. When he reached there he learnt, to his dismay,
that the renowned practitioner was a political exile who lived in
an out-of-the-way place in Mindanao Island. Intent on his purpose,
he took ship and found the abode of Dr. Rizal. The American had been
forsaken by his daughter in Manila, where she eventually married a
young native who had neither craft nor fortune. The adopted daughter,
therefore, was his companion to Dapitan. When they arrived at the
bungalow the bright eyes of the lovely Josephine interested the doctor
far more than the sombre diseased organs of her foster-father. The
exile and the maiden, in short, fell in love with each other, and they
mutually vowed never to be parted but by force. The old man's eyes
were past all cure, and in vain he urged the girl to depart with him;
love dissented from the proposition, and the patient found his way
back to Manila, and thence to Hong-Kong, with his Macao servant--a
sadder, but a wiser man. The foster-child remained behind to share
the hut of the political exile. When, an hour after her marriage,
she became Widow Rizal, her husband's corpse, which had received
sepulture in the cemetery, was guarded by soldiers for four days lest
the superstitious natives should snatch the body and divide it into
a thousand relics of their lamented idol. Then Josephine started
off for the rebel camp at Imus. On her way she was often asked,
"Who art thou?" but her answer, "Lo! I am thy sister, the widow of
Rizal!" not only opened a passage for her, but brought low every head
in silent reverence. Amidst mourning and triumph she was conducted to
the presence of the rebel commander-in-chief, Emilio Aguinaldo, who
received her with the respect due to the sorrowing relict of their
departed hero. But the formal tributes of condolence were followed
by great rejoicing in the camp. She was the only free white woman
within the rebel lines. They lauded her as though an angelic being
had fallen from the skies; they sang her praises as if she were a
modern Joan of Arc sent by heaven to lead the way to victory over
the banner of Castile. But she chose, for the time being, to follow a
more womanly vocation, and, having been escorted to San Francisco de
Malabon, she took up her residence in the convent to tend the wounded
for about three weeks. Then, when the battle of Perez Dasmarinas was
raging, our heroine sallied forth on horseback with a Maeuser rifle
over her shoulder, and--a