in
discussing the subject on every occasion and used to bring out. their
photographs of amoks decapitated, amoks riddled with bullets, amoks
minus arms or legs, amoks with trailing guts, saber-slashed and in
every state of maimed horror.
The
Jolo folk, civilian and military, gloated over these pictures and
recalled for the benefit of every newcomer the minutest details
connected with Juramentados of the past while implying that you
yourself might participate in a gruesome episode within the next few
hours. The tales, I found, were even more horrifying and unnerving than
the horrible reality!
Within
the precincts of the citadel one was comparatively safe because the
guards at the city gates made every Moro leave his weapons behind until
he returned from his business in the town. Frequently it happened,
however, that intending amoks concealed their bolos in their pants or
had them strapped to their backs beneath their jackets, or else brought
them in baskets covered by vegetables and fruit. So one never knew.
The
first warning you received was the shriek "Juramen-tado!" from a
neighboring street. This was re-echoed from hundreds of throats, and
all those in the vicinity of the first shout ran—not towards but away
from the noise, and as people ran in all directions every shopkeeper
and every householder immediately banged his front door and waited
shivering behind it. God help the pedestrian who was thus shut out in
the blank street, for no one would let him in. What he then saw, if in
his panic he had wits enough left to look, was this: death in the guise
of primitive humanity, with a distorted face, fierce passion in every
line, bloodshot savage eyes, and the cruel glistening blade held high;
death dancing down the street in a dreamily swaying, leaping, madly
onrushing dance.
The
sum and substance of Jolo, the world's smallest walled city, was
this—all contained within some few hundred paces from east to west and
north to south: the barracks, the United States custom house, the
Spanish-built barracks of yore, a diminutive plaza with seats in the
shade of gorgeous flame
