The woman with a stone heart

To those whose love of adventure would cause them to plunge head-long into an abyss of vain glory, hoping at life's sunset to reap a harvest contrary to the seed that were sown, let me suggest that you pause first to read the story of "The Woman With a Stone Heart," Marie Sampalit, dare-devil of the Philippines.

Perhaps we might profitably meditate for a few moments on the musings of Whittier:

"The tissue of the life to be We weave in colors all our own, And in the field of destiny We'll reap as we have sown."

--The Author.

DEDICATION

To Her, who, as a bride of only eighteen months, stood broken-hearted on the depot platform and bade me a tearful farewell as our train of soldier boys started to war; who later, while I was Ten Thousand miles away from home on soldier duty in the Philippine Islands, became a Mother; and who, unfortunately, three months thereafter, was called upon to lay our first-born, Oliver D. Coursey, into his snow-lined baby tomb amid the bleak silence of a cold winter's night, with no strong arm to bear her up in those awful hours of anguish and despair,

My Soldier Wife, Julia,

this book is most affectionately dedicated.

"Only a baby's grave, Yet often we go and sit By the little stone, And thank God to own, We are nearer heaven for it."

--O. W. Coursey.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Page

Marie Sampalit 10 Region Around Manila Bay 29 Admiral Dewey 39 Aguinaldo 61 Marie, Her Mother, etc. 82 Filipinos at Breakfast 100 End of the Boat-Battle 113 The Rescue 126 Floating Down The Rapids 129 General Lawton and Staff 139

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapters: Page

I. Love Defeated 9 II. First Shot of A New War 25 III. Avenged Her Lover's Death 41 IV. The Interval 57 V. Filipino Uprising 69 VI. As A Spy 81 VII. Off For Baler 93 VIII. The Gilmore Incident 105 IX. The American Prisoners 113 X. Death of General Lawton 131 XI. North-bound 141 XII. Crossing the Sierra Madres 153 XIII. Compensation 167

CHAPTER I.

LOVE DEFEATED

Marie Sampalit and her fiancee, Rolando Dimiguez, were walking arm-in-arm along the sandy beach of Manila bay, just opposite old Fort Malate, talking of their wedding day which had been postponed because of the Filipino insurrection which was in progress.

The tide was out. A long waved line of sea-shells and drift-wood marked the place to which it had risen the last time before it began to recede. They were unconsciously following this line of ocean debris. Occasionally Marie would stop to pick up a spotted shell which was more pretty than the rest. Finally, when they had gotten as far north as the semi-circular drive-way which extends around the southern and eastern sides of the walled-city, or Old Manila, as it is called, and had begun to veer toward it, Marie looked back and repeated a beautiful memory gem taught to her by a good friar when she was a pupil in one of the parochial schools of Manila:

"E'en as the rise of the tide is told, By drift-wood on the beach, So can our pen mark on the page How high our thoughts can reach."

They turned directly east until they reached the low stone-wall that prevents Manila bay from overflowing the city during the periods of high tides. Dimiguez helped Marie to step upon it; then they strolled eastward past the large stake which marked the place where the Spaniards had shot Dr. Jose Rizal, the brainiest patriot ever produced by the Malay race.