m. A patrol
came along just then, searching alleyways and yards, and they looked
about the premises, while he, Corporal Scott, started west on the Faura
to warn Number 4, who was over towards the beach, and while there Major
MacNeil, the field officer of the day, came along, and after making
inquiries as to what Number 4 had seen and heard and asking him his
orders, he turned back to the Faura, Corporal Scott following.

One block west of the Calle Real the major stopped as though to listen
to some sound he seemed to have heard in the dark street running
parallel with the Real, and then stepped into it as though to examine,
so Scott followed, and almost instantly they heard a muffled report
"like a pistol inside a blanket," and hastening round into the Faura
they found Benton lying on his face in the middle of the street, just at
the corner of the Calle Real, stone dead. His rifle they found in the
gutter not twenty feet from him.

Scott ran at once to the guard-house three blocks away and gave the
alarm. Then the patrol said that a tall officer, running full speed, had
passed them, and here the provost-marshal interposed with--

"Never mind what the patrol said. Just tell what you--the witness--did
next."

Scott continued that he and others with the lieutenant, officer of the
guard, ran back to Number 6's post, and there stood the major with the
pistol.

"When we asked should we search the yards and alleys the major nodded,
but the moment he heard the men telling about the running officer he
gave the lieutenant orders----"

And again the provost-marshal said "Never mind," the major would
describe all that.

And the major did. He corroborated what Corporal Scott had said, and
then went on with what happened after Scott was sent to alarm the guard.
Barring some opening of shutters and peering out on the part of natives
anxious to know the cause of the trouble, there was no further
demonstration until Scott and others came running back. But meanwhile
something gleaming in the roadway--the Calle Real--about fifteen paces
from the corner and up the street--to the north towards the
Bagumbayan--and close to the sidewalk attracted his attention.

He stepped thither and picked up--this revolver. By the electric light
at the corner he saw that one chamber was empty. When the guard came on
the run and he heard of the tall officer fleeing up towards the
Bagumbayan, the direction in which the pistol lay, he sent Mr.
Whar