uaintances, and knots of men
gathered about the building and congratulated each other on the great
event. At last the much talked-of communication with the outer world
was at hand, a marvel no less astounding to the minds of these people
than would be the realization of those stories of Harun-al-Rashid's
days to our more complex civilization, those dear, delightful days
of genie and fairy, when two and two didn't always make four, and
when nothing was too impossible to happen.

That afternoon a schooner was hired, and five miles of cable for the
Misamis shore end of Iligan's line of communication was put aboard
her. At daybreak on Monday, January 14th, the schooner started out to
lay the cable, while a second party dug the trench and prepared for
the landing of the shore end. This was all completed by ten o'clock,
and we were under way for Iligan, towing the schooner at our stern. We
sailed very slowly, as bearings and soundings were being taken all day,
anchoring off our destination late that afternoon.

Chapter IV

ILIGAN

Our first glimpse of Iligan was not assuring, as only the Headquarters
Building could be seen from the harbour, and in front of it,
reaching to the left for some distance, stood a long, single row of
cocoanut-palms, so tall that the green foliage was far above the top
of the house, making the trees look like stiff bouquets in absurdly
long wooden holders. At the foot of these trees water, blue as indigo
on wash day, lashed itself into a white fury against the stonework
of the pier.

Before daybreak on the following morning the Signal Corps had its
breakfast, and aside from the not always obvious compensation which
undeviating good conduct is said to bring, we had a very evident
reward for our early rising in seeing Jupiter and Venus in a brilliant
stellar flirtation, the Southern Cross as chaperone giving sanction
to the affair.

Before the night had really paled into a gray dawn, three life-boats
from the ship, each loaded with some six hundred feet of cable,
were fastened in tandem and drawn to the shore by a stout rope,
which had already been run to the beach, and the two shore ends, one
for Misamis and one for Cagayan, Mindanao, were laid with but little
trouble. As Iligan's insurrectionary population was too aristocratic
to demean itself by manual labour for any monetary consideration, the
soldiers of the infantry company stationed at Iligan were detailed to
dig the trench. B