Six Months Among Brigands [excerpt]

     During the autumn nights we were taken out from the hiding-places in which we were so closely concealed all day. When we did not travel, we lay on our couch of the men’s cloaks, or on leaves or straw, as the brigands might find for us. My young companion slept the deep sleep of youth, while I kept watch, not being able to abandon care. One evening, weeks after our capture, when we had thus been taken out of doors under the trees, one of our guard suddenly inquired if I had heard that President McKinley had been shot. He might have refrained from asking, since we had no way of learning anything unless they chose to tell us. Inexpressibly shocked, and almost unbelieving that any one could be found wicked enough to lift a hand against our noble, loving, and beloved President, I questioned to learn all the man would communicate. When he ceased, I took a liberty never presumed upon before, and paced up and down, keeping well under the shadow of trees. For a time no one objected; then there was an alarm. Some one was approaching, who might be merely a stranger, or might be a foe. “Gather yourself together and sit down!” was the imperative order to me in an undertone. I quickly obeyed. The men stealthily crouched behind stone walls and trees, took aim with their guns, and waited. The intruder proved to be inoffensive, and the alarm passed. Nothing, however, could lift the burden of sorrow from my heart. Our noble President cut down, weeks before, and there was no one to tell me whether he still lived wounded, or had died. What was his beloved wife doing? What was our nation doing? Some time after, in answer to my repeated inquiries, the man said that President McKinley had died. I felt lonely and desolate, a foreigner in a strange land, indeed, when none of them evinced any sorrow whatever at that tragic taking off of one of the most uplifted and spotless of characters.