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A wild shriek crashed through the intense stillness; a green sarong was torn off, and the white-clad figure of a juramentado rushed at the governor. But Kali Pandapatan was quicker, and just as the assassin raised his barong, a slender kriss glistened in the moonlight and descended. The juramentado lay bathed in his own blood. Jumping up to the platform, Kali Pandapatan raised his hands.
Telling the native that he would talk with him after he had finished his meal, the trader returned to the table. Scarcely had he seated himself when the Moro, who had slipped unobserved into the dining room, sprang like a panther, his broad-bladed barong describing a glistening arc, and the trader's head rolled among the dishes.
As he cautiously set foot across the threshold there was a sudden swish of steel in the darkness and the blade of a barong whistled past his face, slicing off the front of his hat and missing his head by the width of an eyelash. As he sprang back the door slammed in his face and he heard the bolts shot home, followed by the sound of a weapon clattering on the floor and the patter of naked feet.
It was worth perhaps twenty-five or fifty cents, but it glittered alluringly in the sunlight, and one of the Moros, with whom he had been bargaining, made a dive for the bit of metal, calling on his companions to look at it. After a swift examination the owner of the barong, to the officer's intense surprise, offered him the knife in exchange for the worthless bauble.
Perhaps there were thirty men in all. I wondered what they were going to do with me, but had decided that any fate was better than to be a Moro slave. "Men of Mindanao," said the chief, "you know our errand. You know how often men of our band have been captured by the white men of the north to lie in prisons there, where death comes so slowly that a 'barong' blow would be paradise.
Their jackets, in the gayest of colours, fitted them not wisely for so hot a climate, but too well; their long, lank hair, done up in a knot at the back of the head, was usually surmounted by a resplendent turban, whose colours shrieked and stuck out their tongues at each other, being on even worse terms with the rest of the costume; and in their belts would be stuck a barong or kris, often both, and a square or semicircular box of brass, sometimes inlaid with copper, sometimes handsomely carved, and sometimes plain.
Then came sword-dances with naked blades, when some young Moro advanced and retreated, leaped high in the air, or crouched on the ground, waving his barong or kris aloft, now retreating, now coming uncomfortably close to the little party of unarmed Americans, the flickering light gleaming redly on the glittering knife, and reminding one, with a horrid insistence, that the time and place were ideal for a wholesale slaughter.
A Tagalog dagger lay beside the body, and the uniform had been torn apart until the officer's bare breast showed. The first full moon of the month shone down upon the dead man's white, still face. A "barong" is a Moro native's favourite weapon.
It is a broad blade swelling markedly toward the center, and is somewhat similar in shape to the barong of the Sulu Moro of the Sulu Archipelago. This weapon finds its chief field of use in the Quiangan and Banawi areas. In these districts the bolo is fitted with an open scabbard, and the bright blade presents a novel appearance lying exposed against the red scabbard.
One of the prisoners we took not long ago wore a broad piece of cloth over his breast, on which was stained a picture of a man killing another with a 'barong. He believed that while he wore it no one could kill him with that weapon; and thought the only reason he was not killed in the skirmish in which he was captured was because he had the 'anting-anting' on."
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