of Spanish attempt
to rule them had left them still an untamed people, and the war between
the two races had been endless. Each year when the southwest monsoons
had blown, the Moro war-proas had gone northward carrying murder
and pillage wherever they had appeared. When the Spanish were not
too much occupied elsewhere they fitted out retaliatory expeditions
which left effects of little permanence. That year the Moros had
found not Spaniards but a small force of American troops, sent south
from Manila, and from them had cut off my little scouting squad. It
made no difference to them that we were of another nation. They cared
nothing for a change in rulers. We were white, and Christians; that
was enough. We were to be slain.

The leader of the Moros was a tall old man with glittering eyes set
in a gloomy face. I watched him as I lay bound on the deck of one of
the war-proas; for, fearing attack I suppose, soon after my capture
the sails had been spread and the fleet of boats turned to the south.

"Feed him" the chief had said, when night came on, and pointed to
me with his foot. I thought then I had been saved from death for
slavery, and deemed that the worst fate possible, I did not know the
Moro nature.

On the afternoon of the fifth day out, we passed Busuanga and
approached a small rocky island which I afterwards learned was
Coron. So far as could be seen no human habitation was near, and far
to the south stretched the unbroken waters of the Sulu Sea. The chief
gave an order in the Moro tongue, and a black and yellow flag was run
up to the mast head. In response to the signal all the proas of the
fleet joined us in a little bay at the end of the island, and dropped
anchor. At one side of the bay it would be possible to land and climb
from there to the top of the island, from which, everywhere else,
as far as I could see, a sheer cliff came down three hundred feet to
where the waves beat against the jagged rocks at its base.

The smaller boats which had been towed behind the larger craft were
cast off and brought alongside the chief's proa. I was lifted into
one and rowed to a place where we could land. My feet had been untied,
but my hands were still fastened behind my back. Two Moros grasped me
by the arms and guided me between them. They would not let me turn
my head, but I could hear the voices of men following us. The chief
led the way. He did not speak or pause until we had reached the level
summit of the is