s she stated with pride to a friend of mine
who interviewed her--she had the satisfaction of shooting dead one
Spanish officer, and then retreated to her convent refuge. Again,
she was present at the battle of Silan, where her heroic example of
courage infused new life into her brother rebels. The carnage on both
sides was fearful, but in the end the rebels fell back, and there,
from a spot amidst mangled corpses, rivulets of blood, and groans of
death, Josephine witnessed many a scene of Spanish barbarity--the
butchery of old inoffensive men and women, children caught up by
the feet and dashed against the walls, and the bayonet-charge on the
host of fugitive innocents. The rebels having been beaten everywhere
when Lachambre took the field, Josephine had to follow in their
retreat, and after Imus and Silan were taken, she, with the rest,
had to flee to another province, tramping through 23 villages on
the way. She was about to play another _role_, being on the point
of going to Manila to organize a convoy of arms and munitions, when
she heard that certain Spaniards were plotting against her life. So
she sought an interview with the Gov.-General, who asked her if she
had been in the rebel camp at Imus. She replied fearlessly in the
affirmative, and, relying on the security from violence afforded
by her sex and foreign nationality, there passed between her and
the Gov.-General quite an amusing and piquant colloquy. "What did
you go to Imus for?" inquired the General. "What did you go there
for?" rejoined Josephine. "To fight," said the General. "So did I,"
answered Josephine. "Will you leave Manila?" asked the General. "Why
should I?" queried Josephine. "Well," said the General, "the priests
will not leave you alone if you stay here, and they will bring false
evidence against you. I have no power to overrule theirs." "Then
what is the use of the Gov.-General?" pursued our heroine; but the
General dismissed the discussion, which was becoming embarrassing,
and resumed it a few days later by calling upon her emphatically to
quit the Colony. At this second interview the General fumed and raged,
and our heroine too stamped her little foot, and, woman-like, avowed
"she did not care for him; she was not afraid of him." It was temerity
born of inexperience, for one word of command from the General could
have sent her the way many others had gone, to an unrevealed fate. Thus
matters waxed hot between her defiance and his forbearanc