board. In tow were two small vintas, dugout canoes with bamboo outriggers, which would each hold six men. These would serve to embark the expedition when near Tandubas, as the faintly muffied chug-chug of the launch would alarm the quarry. That is if the launch got that far; gasolene launches with electric batteries are uncertain quantities in the tropics. But the Captain Hayson started well and settled down to a regular pop-pop-pop which brought the little naked brown children from the bamboo shacks of the fishing villages along the beach. Soon the narrow channel of the eastern entrance to Bongao harbor was passed and the launch and vintas lightly rolled to the gentle swell coming in from the Celebes Sea. A mile or two further and the launch entered the inside channel between Tawi-Tawi and the chain of islands which formed a barrier against the Celebes Sea. Now the pilot, Mani, stood on the bow, peering into the water and signalling the helmsman as reef after reef barred the way. The launch twisted and turned through the channel, now cutting over reefs with but a few inches of green water under her keel and again finding the deep, ultramarine channel of safety. As she passed above the reefs the lieutenant looked over the side and watched the mushroom corals, all the colors of a palette, rise up as if to strike the boat. A marine garden was unfolded to his view, with fish and snakes and starfish and seaslugs among the coral branches, instead of birds. In the midst of all this glory the Constabulary ate a prosaic supper; for the men rice, boiled before leaving Bongao and wrapped in layer after layer of banana leaves, with canned salmon from Puget Sound (a study in economics this, with the sea around teeming with fish); for the lieutenant a solitary meal of crackers with a can of baked beans. By this time Bongao was thirty miles astern. It was two in the morning when the coco palms on low-lying Tandubas made a dark mass three miles to the morth. A waning moon was high and gave light enough to locate the position of the launch on the greasy chart which the lieutenant pored over by the light of the maquinista's lantern. The launch was anchored in two fathoms on the edge of a reef; the vintas were hauled alongside and the Constabulary embarked. Each soldier laid his carbine beside him in the bottom of the vinta and picked up a paddle. The lieutenant, with Rodriguez behind him, sat in the bow of one vinta; he held a Winchester repeating shotgun in one hand and steadied himself by grasping with the other the crosspiece of the outrigger. The vintas stole silently over the face of the waters through the night, Rodriguez guiding them towards the black bulk of Tandubas. The tide was now falling rapidly and from time to time the pointed paddles would grate on a coral bottom. Silently all stepped into the warm water and pushed the lightened vintas toward the beach. The corals were sharp and slippery, the surface most uneven, so that often the men were wet to their cartridge belts. The men "fell in" without command, ten dripping figures along the beach. The moonlight cast long, spectral shadows on the sand. A quiet order and the little column filed slowly along the shoreline, soon entering a grove of cocos which stretched even beyond the limit of high tide. At first there was a subdued, squashy noise as water oozed from shoes; soon this ceased and the men moved almost noiselessly over the sand and gravel beneath the palms. The rope-soled alparagatas are admirable footwear for Constabulary work. The lieutenant gave whispered orders. Corporal Baynudin with three men would make a wide circle to the other side of the village to get between the houses and the beach, halting fugitives who might dash for an escape by water. Also they would, as soon as they heard the lieutenant and the main body in the village, occupy the smuggler's sapit and see that any of the crew who might have remained on board did not get away with the boat. The lieutenant, five men and Rodriguez would surround the house of Panglima Toha, the chief of the village, where the smuggled Chinamen and opium were lodged. Corporal Sariol with two men would patrol the village and keep all people in their houses until the Panglima and his followers were disposed of. Parting the fronds of the nipa palms, Baynudin moved off with his men and was swallowed up in the night. The lieutenant held his watch so that the moonlight shone upon it and timed Baynudin; he should be at the beach in ten minutes. One! two! three-ten! The lieutenant touched Rodriguez, hitched up his cartridge belt, settled his campaign hat more firmly, and all crept along a broad, baked mudtrail toward the village. The nipa palms again gave way to cocos, but the grove was not dark and ahead grew lighter and lighter as it neared the village and the beach. The stench of dried and decaying fish showed the proximity of Moro dwellings; then the cross poles of the roofs were silhouetted against the sky. There were a score of palm-leaf and bamboo houses fronting the beach and backed against the grove. The pariah dog barked louder, and howled as a Moro in one of the shacks threw a stick at him, showing that not all the village slept. The Panglima's house was near the centre of the village and in a moment it was surrounded by the constabulary. Still no other sound but the barking of the dog and the stertorous breathing of sleeping beings in the Panglima's house; but every soldier had his carbine ready, and the officer stood at the foot of the rough, wooden ladder which was the only entrance to the house. His riot-gun lay easily over his left aim; the hammer was cocked and his finger on the trigger. It was a toss-up whether the Panglima, his followers and the smugglers would surrender quietly or dash out, kris and barong in hand, to kill and be killed. Now was the decisive moment. One shot fired by accident or design would precipitate a bloody conflict. There were at least a dozen armed men in the house, desperate with the knowledge that they were caught in the act of smuggling or receiving smuggled goods. The one hope was that Panglima Toha, a wise old Moro with a dash of Chinese blood in him, might control them. "Tell the Panglima, Rodriguez, that we will harm no one; that the men are to come out of the house quietly, one by one, leaving their arms behind them. Tell him that if any resistance is made we will riddle his house and men as full of holes as a salambot fishnet and that all his tribe will be killed!" The lieutenant spoke bravely, keeping any tremor from his voice, but he knew that at any moment an old musket might belch a load of slugs into his face, or a brass-jacketed calibre .50 Remington bullet tear through flesh and bone. There was much talk inside the house and the split bamboo floor creaked with the hurried movements of the Moros. The voice of the Panglima was heard urging submission. "Better," he said "to be taken to Jolo and fined 50 pesos, than to die here in the dark. I will pay the fines." The Panglima was too wise to add, "and spend two years in the iron cage at San Ramon prison." The lieutenant clinched the argument by shouting in his broken Sulu, "Quick, now! Out you come or we fire and you all die!" Taken unprepared in the cold, gray dawn, it were no disgrace to surrender. At 4.30 A. M. the courage of even the most reckless Moro runs low. There was a great cursing, with a crashing of arms on the bamboo floor; then, one by one, headed by the Panglima, in the rapidly growing light of the dawn, the smugglers and the Panglima's men came down the ladder. Rodriguez and a soldier took them as they touched the ground and deftly handcuffed them in line. Last came the nine Chinamen, and, handcuffs giving out, they were tied on a long rope binding each man's elbows together behind him. And so the smugglers were captured, this time without bloodshed; but the next, perhaps, only after a hand-to-hand fight. The constabulary of Sulu numbers scores of bloody encounters with pirates and smugglers. And that is but a part of its work on the latest frontier of the United States-among the Sulu Islands, within sight of Borneo, four degrees north of the equator. JOHN R. WHITE F IFTY years ago, the day after Christmas, 1864, which happened to be on Monday, occurred the first lecture in Boston of Artemus Ward, "Among the Mormons." The programme of this event has come to be esteemed by collectors of programmes. A fresh reading of this little paper brings reminiscences of a delightful evening. The programme does not state the price of admission but, as I remember, it was only fifty cents, and each ticket read "Admit the bearer and one wife." At the door of the hall upon surrender of this ticket you received a neatly folded four-page sheet about the size of ordinary note paper bearing in facsimile of the lecturer's handwriting these words, "Yours truly, A. Ward." The title of the lecture was "Artemus Ward among the Mormons' at the Melodeon Washington Street-for six nights only Commencing Monday Evening, December 26. Begins at 8." You began to grin with the first phrase "Music on the Grand Piano-Operatic Medley including (for the first time in this city) the Soldiers Chorus from Faust-This is a good thing." Then No. 1, "A light and airy preamble by the lecturer with some jokes (N. B.Artemus Ward will call on citizens at their private residences and explain these jokes if necessary)." There were eleven numbers in the first part of the programme, evidently accompanied by magic lantern pictures, and each title had some clever quip in description. Number IX., for example, reads: "The Mormon Theatre-The Lady of Lyons was produced at this theatre a short time ago but didn't give satisfaction on account of there being only one Pauline in it. Mr. Tom De Walden of New York is now hard at work revising this play and by introducing twenty or thirty good square Paulines he hopes to ‘fetch' the Mormon public." No. X. "Brigham Young's Houses-Brigham's wives live at these houses-They live well at Brigham's, the following being the usual bill of fare: Soup: Matrimonial Stew (with pretty pickles) Fish: Salt Lake Gudgeon Roast: Brigham's Lambs (Sauce piquants) Broiled: Domestic Broils (Family style) Entrees: Little Dears Cold: Raw Dog (à la Injun) Vegetables: Cabbage Head, Some Pumpkins, etc. Dessert: Apples of discord, a great many Pairs, Mormon Sweetheart Jumbles, etc. |