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Piang!" resounded through the stillness, as the excited Moros watched him. Sicto stood, head down, wriggling his toes in the sand. He did not like the idea of the lonely jungle, or the thought of the long hard days between him and Ganassi Peak, but he did not speak. With solemn ceremony the pandita prepared to anoint the boys according to the rites of the tribe.
As dread and the scarcity of inhabitants in the Bisayan Islands cause great ranges of the coast to be left unsettled, it is very easy for the Moros to find numerous lurking-places and strongholds whenever they are pressed, and their constant practice, in these cases, is to enter the rivers, ground their vessels, and hide them among the mangroves and thick foliage, and fly with their arms to the mountains, thus almost always laughing at the efforts of their opponents, who seldom venture to follow them into the thickets and morasses, where the musket is of no use and a single step cannot be taken with any security.
When the Moros are satisfied that Seaforth's party have no more cartridges, then those brown pirates plan to rush the house, with little loss to themselves, and run creeses through every defender left alive." A moment later Prescott's order was repeated down the line of soldiers, now lying prone on the ground: "Load magazines! Remember to fire low.
The Moros sold our men a large quantity of wax. When the men of Luzon saw our tostones they were very much pleased with them, and they gave nearly twenty marks of gold, which they had there in that island, giving for six tostones of silver one of gold; and they said that they had more gold, if our men would give them more tostones, and that in exchange for the latter they would give them ten or twelve quintals of gold which they had there in that island.
"I think it might be as well to let them take their time about it," remarked Captain Link. "These Moros always get very much worked up in their war-dances, and occasionally they forget that it is all make-believe and send a spear into a spectator. It's safer to leave them alone. They're very temperamental."
But they were relieved by the appearance of Ricardo, the interpreter, who explained to the dato that the troops were not hostile, but had come to make friends with the Moros. Proudly Piang swung along at the head of the column, guiding them to his recent platform home. Camp was pitched on the shore, and the engineers commenced work at once.
That year the Moros had found not Spaniards but a small force of American troops, sent south from Manila, and from them had cut off my little scouting squad. It made no difference to them that we were of another nation. They cared nothing for a change in rulers. We were white, and Christians; that was enough. We were to be slain.
The Moros were represented mostly by men and boys, lithe, graceful creatures, their legs encased in skin-tight trousers, or else concealed entirely by a sarong wrapped closely about them, the long end tucked into a belt at the front.
Their close neighbours, however, the Moros of Tampassook, are a notorious tribe of the Illanoan pirates, who are the terror of the Asiatic seas. It was not improbable that these people might have many European prisoners as their slaves, but from what we knew of their character, we felt assured that if they possessed white female prisoners, they would never consent to their being ransomed.
It is further true that we might retain it and still grant independence to the remainder of the Philippine Archipelago, but if we are to eliminate Mindanao from consideration because the Filipinos have no right to control the Moros, of whom there are in reality only about a hundred and fifty-four thousand on the island, and could not if they would, what about Luzón, where there are in reality no less than four hundred and sixty thousand non-Christians, many of whom, like the Ifugaos, Bontoc Igorots, Kalingas and wild Tingians, are fierce fighters and practically all of whom are bitterly opposed to the thought of possible ultimate domination by Filipinos, while most of them welcome American rule?
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