Page:Under MacArthur in Luzon.djvu/233

Rh "What became of the other three of your party?"

"I believe they are not far off, for we were generally kept pretty close together. The commander was with the others. We've been in the mountains so long now that I've lost track of time. There are other prisoners, too, but no sailors."

"Didn't you try to escape?"

"Bless you, yes, more than a dozen times. But the guards were sharp, and when one or another got away he was always brought back and treated to the worst flogging I ever witnessed. One man, one of the soldiers who joined us after we left Vigan, died from the treatment."

The story the sailor had told was strictly true, and, it may be added here, the whole tale of the capture of the men from the Yorktown, their fearful sufferings for eight weary and heartrending months, their long marches through jungles and swamps, and their final rescue by a detachment of soldiers under the command of Colonel L. H. Hare, reads far more like some romance of the dark ages than a narrative of present-day facts. They, with some other prisoners, were taken to the most forlorn mountain region known, in the vicinity of the Arbaluque River, and here their captors left them