our astonishment,
had scudded away with an expiring squeak like that emitted from a
musical balloon on its collapse. We never found the pig. He was just
mean enough to die in privacy.

But there was to be some compensation. What, though our Christmas
dinner had escaped? I managed to bring down a monkey that for some
time had been chattering and scolding at us from a tree, and with this
substitute--a delicacy rare to native palates--marched triumphantly
back to the town.

Exactly at midnight the _senores_ took their seats around the
board. The orchestra was stationed in an elevated alcove in the next
room. On the benches sat the women, from the dainty Juliana in her
pink cotton hosiery and white kid slippers to the old witch Paola,
the town scold. We knives or forks. Heaping platefuls of rice were
served with the stewed meat--cut in small pieces that "just fit the
hand," and cooked with vegetables. At my request the monkey had been
roasted whole. "All la same bata" (baby) cried my host, and sure,
I never felt more like a cannibal in all my life. I shuddered later
when, the ladies at the table, Juliana gnawed the thigh-bone of the
little beast with relish.

Senor Pedro kept the orchestra supplied with gin, with the result
that what they lacked in accuracy they made up for in enthusiasm. In
the dim room, lighted only by the smoky "kinkes," we could see the
hungry eyes of those awaiting the third table--the retainers and the
poor relations. On the boards below was spread a banquet of rice and
_tuba_ for the multitude.

The party broke up with a dance, and as the pointers of the Southern
Cross faded from the pale sky, the happy merrymakers filed off to their
beds. They had so little in this far-off corner of the world, and yet
they were content. Had not the stars looked down upon them through the
tropic night? Had not the blue sea broken in phosphorescent ridges
at their feet? And didn't they have the Holy Virgin on the walls to
smile a blessing on their little scene of revelry? O, it was Christmas
over all the world! And on this day at least the white man and the
"little brown brother" could shake hands over mutual interests.

Chapter XI.

In a Visayan Home.

The shutters of the house across the street were closed. Under the
balcony, near where the road was strewn with scarlet blossoms from
the fire-tree, carpenters were hammering and sawing busily. Shaped
by the antiquated bandsaw and the bolos, a rude