Anting-Anting Stories by Sargent Kayme (read full novel .TXT) 📕

There had been a battle between the American forces and the Tagalogs, and the natives had been driven back. The stone church of Santa Maria, around which the engagement had been hottest, and far beyond which the native lines had now been driven, had been turned into a hospital for the wounded Tagalogs left by their comrades on the field. Beneath a broad thatched shed behind the church lay the bodies of the dead, stiff and still under the coverings of cocoanut-fibre cloth thrown hastily over them. The light of a full tropic moon threw the shadow of the roof over them like a soft, brown velvet pall. They were to be buried between day-break and sunrise, that the men who buried them might escape the heat of the day.

The American picket lines had been posted a quarter of a mile beyond the church, near which no other guards had been placed. Not long after midnight a surgeon, one of the two men left on duty in the church, happened to look out through a broken window towards the shed, and in the shadow, against the open moonlight-flooded field beyond, saw something moving. Looking close he could make out the slim, brown figure of a native passing swiftly from one covered form to another, and turning back the cocoanut-fibre cloth to look at each dead man’s face.

Calling the man who was working with him the surgeon pointed out the man beneath the shed to him. “That fellow has no business there,” he said, “He has slipped through the lines in some way. He may be a spy, but even if he is not, he is here for no good. We must capture him.”

“All right,” was the answer. “You go around the church one way, and I will come the other.”

When the surgeon, outside the hospital, reached a place where he could see the shed again, the Tagalog had ceased his search. He had found the body he was looking for, and sunk down on his knees beside it was searching for something in the clothing which covered the dead man’s breast. A moment later he had seen the men stealing towards him from the church, had cleared the open space beneath the shed at a leap, and was off in the moonlight, running towards the outposts. The surgeons swore; and one fired a shot after him from his revolver.

“Might as well shoot at the shadow of that palm tree,” the one who had shot said. “Anyway it will wake up the pickets, and they may catch him.

“What do you suppose he was after?” he added.

“Don’t know,” said his companion. “You wait, and I’ll get a lantern and we will see.”

The lantern’s light showed the clothing parted over a dead man’s body, and the fragment of a leather thong which had gone about his neck, with broken ends. Whatever had been fastened to the thong was gone, carried away by the Tagalog when he had fled.

The next morning a prisoner was brought to headquarters. “The picket who caught him, sir,” the officer who brought the prisoner reported, “said he heard a shot near the church where the wounded natives are; and then this man came running from that way.”

The surgeons who had been on night duty at the hospital were sent for, and their story heard.

“Search the man,” said the officer in command.

The native submitted to the ordeal in sullen silence, and made no protest, when, from some place within his clothing, there was taken a small, dirty leather bag from which two broken ends of leather thong still hung. Only his eyes followed the officer’s hands wolfishly, as they untied the string which fastened the bag, and took from it a little leather-bound book not more than two inches square. The officer looked at the book curiously. It was very thin, and upon the tiny pages, yellow with age, there was writing, still legible, although the years which had stained the paper yellow had faded the ink. He spelled out a few words, but they were in a language which he did not know. “Take the man to the prison,” he said. “I will keep the book.”

Later in the day the officer called an orderly. “Send Lieutenant Smith to me,” he said.

By one of the odd chances of a war where, like that in the Philippines, the forces at first must be hastily raised, Captain Von Tollig and the subordinate officer for whom he had sent, had been citizens of the same town. The captain had been a business man, shrewd and keen,—too keen some of his neighbors sometimes said of him. Lieutenant Smith was a college man, a law student. It had been said of them in their native town that both had paid court to the same young woman, and that the younger man had won in the race. If this were so, there had been no evidence on the part of either in the service to show that they were conscious of the fact. There had been little communication between them, it is true, but when there had been the subordinate officer never overlooked the deference due his superior.

“I wish you would take this book,” said Captain Von Tollig, after he had told briefly how the volume happened to be in his possession, “and see if you can translate it. I suspect it must be something of value, from the risk this man took to get it; possibly dispatches from one native leader to another, the nature of which we ought to know.”

The young man took the queer little book and turned the pages curiously. “I hardly think what is written here can be dispatches,” he said, “The paper and the ink both look too old for that. The words seem to be Latin; bad Latin, too, I should say. I think it is what the natives call an ‘anting-anting;’ that is a charm of some kind. Evidently this one did not save the life of the man who wore it. Probably it is a very famous talisman, else they would not have run such a risk to try to get it back.”

“Can you read it?”

“Not off hand. With your permission I will take it to my tent, and I think I can study it out there.”

“Do so. When you make English of it I’d like to know what it says. I am getting interested in it”

The lieutenant bowed, and went away.

“Bring that prisoner to me,” the captain ordered, later in the day.

“Do you want to go free?” he asked, when the Tagalog had been brought.

“If the Señor wills.”

“What is that book?”

The man made no answer.

“Tell me what the book is, and why you wanted it; and you may go home.”

“Will the Señor give me back the book to carry home with me?”

“I don’t know. I’ll see later about that.”

“It was an ‘anting-anting.’ The strongest we ever knew. The man who had it was a chief. When he was dead I wanted it.”

“If this was such a powerful charm why was the man killed who had it on. Why didn’t it save him?”

The Tagalog was silent.

“Come. Tell me that, and you may go.”

“And have the book?”

“Yes; and have the book.”

“It is a very great ‘anting-anting.’ It never fails in its time. The man who made it, a famous wise man, very many years ago, watched one whole month for the secrets which the stars told him to write in it; but the last night, the night of the full moon, he fell asleep, and on that one day and night of the month the ‘anting-anting’ has no good in it for the man who wears it. Else the chief would not be dead. You made the attack, that day. Our people never would.”

“Lieutenant Smith to see you, sir,” an orderly announced.

“All right. Send him in; and take this fellow outside.”

“But, Señor,” the man’s eyes plead for him as loudly as his words; “the ‘anting-anting.’ You said I could have it and go.”

“Yes, I know. Go out and wait.”

“What do you report, Lieutenant?