Page:The Campaign of the Jungle.djvu/119

Rh war;" and so the bags were given out until verylittle remained.

It was not General Lawton's intention to quarter at Angat for any length of time, and, having entered the town in the morning, he left it in the afternoon, to begin an advance up the river the next day, striking San Rafael on the right bank and Muronco on the left bank.

"Somebody has set Angat on fire!" exclaimed Ben, as the regiment marched away. A thick column of smoke had suddenly risen from the upper end of the town.

"I don't believe it was our men," answered Major Morris, who walked beside the young captain. "They had strict orders not to loot or burn."

The flames speedily increased, as one nipa hut after another caught, and the warehouses added to the blaze. The Americans always thought the rebels started this conflagration, while the insurgents laid the crime at our door. However it was, Angat burned fiercely, and by nightfall little remained of its many picturesque buildings.

The weather was beginning to tell upon the troops, and out of Ben's regiment fully forty men