A week later, Terry stood at the window looking down over the blistering plaza. Davao was torpid under the noonday heat. Three carabaos grazed undisturbed on the forbidden square: another of the awkward powerful brutes dawdled up the dusty road, hauling a decrepit two-wheeled cart on which a naked-backed, red-pantalooned native dozed: Padre Velasco, the aged Spanish priest, waved a weary hand at Terry from his window in the old adobe convento. As he watched he saw the soldierly figure of Sergeant Mercado emerge from thecuarteland hurry toward him.
Entering the room the soldier saluted stiffly and reported that a patrol had just come in from the foothills with the information that a mysterious fever had attacked the Bogobos in the barrio of Dalag, that a score were stricken and four already dead.
Terry hastened to the quarters of the Health Officer to apprise him of the facts. He found him cursing the heat, sweating profusely, though wearing nothing but a thin kimono. A very fat man, Doctor Merchant, inclined to be fussy about little things but magnificent in big things, and thoroughly imbued with the idea that his work of protecting the natives against their own sloth and filth was the only interestingproblem in the universe. Alarmed at Terry's report, he ordered his horse saddled and rose heavily to don his field clothes.
Terry expostulated. "Doctor, you ought to wait till it cools off."
"Lieutenant, disease spreads all the time—it takes no time off duty—so why should I?"
He came out fuming over a missing button: "Confound it all! I never have—how do you keep so immaculate, Terry? You always look as if you were on your way to a dinner or dance!" Wiping the perspiration from heavy jowl and neck he lumbered about the room collecting medicine cases, saddle bags, two big canteens, finally answering Terry's question.
"No, you can't go with me—if I need you I'll send for you."
Terry followed him downstairs and helped him mount the ridiculously small pony, then watched the sweating, cussing, bighearted doctor ride out into the sun on his errand of mercy. As the tough little pony bore his heavy burden into the trail and out of sight in the brush, Terry decided humorously that Casey was right—bigger ponies were needed.
During the afternoon theFrancescahad limped in and out of port. Among his official mail Terry received a confidential memorandum from Major Bronner that erased the softer lines about his mouth:
Zamboanga, 12/18/191-.Memo for Lieut. Terry.Last night a notorious criminal, Ignacio Sakay, passed through Zamboanga enroute to Davao.Sakay was identified with Malabanan in some of the latter's most vicious undertakings, was convicted of brigandage and has been but recently released from Bilibid Prison.Sakay is not a leader but is bold and absolutely relentless. Among the natives he was known as "Malabanan's stiletto," and was supposed to do all of the killing.You may look for immediate action from these men: Malabanan has doubtless been awaiting his arrival.Destroy this memorandum.Bronner.
Zamboanga, 12/18/191-.
Memo for Lieut. Terry.
Last night a notorious criminal, Ignacio Sakay, passed through Zamboanga enroute to Davao.
Sakay was identified with Malabanan in some of the latter's most vicious undertakings, was convicted of brigandage and has been but recently released from Bilibid Prison.
Sakay is not a leader but is bold and absolutely relentless. Among the natives he was known as "Malabanan's stiletto," and was supposed to do all of the killing.
You may look for immediate action from these men: Malabanan has doubtless been awaiting his arrival.
Destroy this memorandum.
Bronner.
Terry read the terse communication twice before lighting it with a match and scattering the charred remnants over the polished mahogany floor. He passed a grim afternoon with the Macabebes on the target range, where the scorers wagged bull's eye after bull's eye, for twenty-seven of the Macabebes were expert riflemen, forty-three were marksmen.
He saw that Matak, serving dinner, was gripped in one of the smoldering moods that often preyed upon him. Though his attentions to his master were even more meticulous than usual, he moved with an air of somber detachment. Terry had often pondered on the history of the queer Moro and now he studied him as he cleared the dishes and lighted the desk lamp.
"Matak," he said.
The Moro came to him, his melancholy eyes fixed steadfastly upon the master of his choice.
"Matak, you know that I have never asked you anything about your past life. I am not going to ask you now, unless there is something in which I can be of help to you."
Matak faced his master, his brown features Moro-masked,inscrutable. A moment he searched the concerned countenance, then before Terry understood his purpose, the tight muscles of his face relaxed and he slid forward to kneel on one knee and raise Terry's hand to his lips in the Moros' final homage to anapo—a self-chosen master. Rising, he exposed a face stripped of its mask of Oriental imperturbability.
"Master," he said, "I tell you. No other knows. When I am small boy—twelve years old—my family live east coast Basilan. Very happy family, master: father, mother, sister, me; three carabaos we have, a little house, chickens, a littlevintain which to fish—everything Moro family want. We hurt nobody, just work.
"One night, very late," his face darkened, "men come. They steal carabaos, everything. My father wake up, go out to see, and they laugh—and kill him. I—a little boy—see them do it: see them kill my father—with bolos. Then they kill my mother—the same man—the same bolo. I see that, too: they say she too old, and they laugh." He spoke slowly, hesitating before each short sentence, his black eyes dulled with the terrible memories.
"My sister—she sixteen years old—they take her away. They take me, too, because I soon be strong boy to work. My sister—they say she pretty girl!" He raised his hand in unutterable execration.
"We sail all night, all day. Second night, I hear my sister scream, see her fighting with same big Filipino who kill my father and mother. Another Filipino hold me away, laughing ... always I know that laugh, master!
"She Moro girl, he Filipino, so she fight hard—she rather die. She hurt him, so he draw knife, kill her, and throw her in sea: then other Filipino holding me hit me with bolo and throw me in too."
He whipped off his thin cotton camisa and exposed a deep scar which furrowed his left shoulder. It had severed the clavicle, and improperly knit, drew the left arm slightly forward.
"I swim ashore, two miles, to Lassak. Next morning I take boat, find sister, bury her on beach. I, twelve years old, master."
He paused, a picture of implacable hatred and purpose.
"Master, I see Filipino who kill all three my family. He born with left eye all white. I know him any time, any place. That nine years ago. Nine years I no laugh, no sing, no play, no talk with Moro girls, no marry—just listen—just look; listen for that laugh, look for big Filipino with left white eye. Nine years I no tell anybody, just listen, just look. I never find.
"But now I know I find him, soon. For I know you help Matak, master."
He had read the distressed white face correctly. Terry rose, placed his hand upon the Moro's shoulder—the scarred shoulder—and looked down into his now emotionless face:
"Yes, Matak, I will help," he said simply.
Content, the Moro turned silently on his bare heels and padded out into the kitchen.
Usually Terry strolled the dark streets before going to bed, but to-night a heavy downpour kept himindoors. Outside, the square was loud with the drum-fire of the heavy fall on iron roofs, the rush of water through shallow dirt gutters; inside, the big house roared, the roof trembled overhead. He paced the floor, sleepless, worried with thinking of Matak's terrible story, of the Doctor striving to succor the stricken village, of Sakay's joining Malabanan.
There was another worry, too. Though there was nothing in the eternally verdant land in which he was living to make the fact seem real, the calendar indicated that Christmas was less than two weeks distant, and for the first time since the days when she had first intruded upon his boyish consciousness as something different, something wondrously dear and fine and unattainable, he had sent Deane nothing.
He was awakened before daylight by the arrival of a spent Bogobo runner bearing a note from Doctor Merchant:
Dear Lieut:—Can you come to Dalag for a day? These people are panic-stricken, won't do a thing I order, won't take treatment, but are trying to exorcise the devils of disease by all sorts of queer rites.I hate to ask you to come but your influence among them is so great that it seems justifiable to ask it.If you do come, bring your mosquito net—don't fail to do this. The disease is mosquito-borne, and fatal if untreated. The temperature runs are terrific—highest I ever saw.Merchant.
Dear Lieut:—
Can you come to Dalag for a day? These people are panic-stricken, won't do a thing I order, won't take treatment, but are trying to exorcise the devils of disease by all sorts of queer rites.
I hate to ask you to come but your influence among them is so great that it seems justifiable to ask it.
If you do come, bring your mosquito net—don't fail to do this. The disease is mosquito-borne, and fatal if untreated. The temperature runs are terrific—highest I ever saw.
Merchant.
Terry rode out of Davao at seven o'clock, boundfor Dalag. Within a mile he overtook Lindsey, who had spent the night in town. They rode together several miles to where the trail, soaked with the night's rain, forked toward Lindsey's plantation: the sun shone white hot, the earth steamed through its mat of decayed vegetation.
They drew rein at the fork, dismounted. Lindsey broke the silence in which they had ridden following Terry's brief explanation of his mission.
"Terry," he said, "you're too young for all this worry."
Terry's face relaxed into a slow grin: "Lindsey, how old are you?"
"But your work is different—and you are different, Terry."
Terry's bantering grin gave way to a smile of singular sweetness, the queer smile which deepened the depression at the corner of his mouth.
"Lindsey, I know what you mean, I think.... All my friends—"
He paused, gently discouraging his pony from its persistent nibbling at his arm. Lindsey waited, hoping he would continue, but Terry looked away, idly studying the thickly planted hemp fields that extended from the fork to Lindsey's house, a mile distant. The still wet leaves flaunted on great stalks fifteen feet above the wonderfully fertile soil.
"Lindsey, I wonder if you really appreciate what you are doing in taming a soil that was wild in jungle ages before Pharaoh's time, and making it useful to man."
He pointed to the huge plant nearest them; "Thefibers in those stalks—I can see them, woven into a rope that may warp a steamer to dock in Tripoli or Hoboken or Archangel: or fashioned by happy Japanese fingers into braided hats to cover lovely heads in Picadilly or Valparaiso or Montreal: or woven into a cord which will fly a kite for some tousle-headed boy in Michigan or for a slant-eyed urchin on the banks of the Yang-Tse Kiang: or, somewhere, it may be looped into ugliest knot by a grim figure standing on a scaffold—though I hope not!"
Lindsey had listened in curious wonderment to this conception of his work. He thought it over, laughed.
"Well, maybe that's what you see, Lieutenant,—but I see wild pigs rooting up my immature plants, lack of labor, poor transportation, fluctuations of price, typhoons undoing a whole year's work—take my word for it, I see aplenty!"
Terry tightened the girth, tickling the knowing pony's nose till a sneeze compelled contraction of the expanded chest. Mounted, he seemed loath to go, and twisted in the saddle to look down at Lindsey.
"About what you said a moment back—that I was 'different.' All my friends have always been like that—wanted to look after me, somehow, though I can look after myself, pretty well. I never quite understood why they felt like that ... about me. So, I know what you meant, Lindsey. And I want you to know that—that I like it."
Lindsey gripped his outstretched hand, then stood at the fork watching the slender rider thread through the maze of the trail out of sight. Mounting, hestarted homeward along the edge of the field trying to interpret the strange appeal this young officer had exerted over him, this quiet lad whose very competence and cheerfulness he somehow found pathetic. He involuntarily halted his pony as solution came to him.
"Why, curl my cowlick!" he exclaimed aloud. "That's it—he was BORN lonely!"
Terry rode into Dalag at noon and found the doctor even redder and hotter than usual. The perspiration glistened on his hands and wrists, dripped from his fat face and neck, and his once-starched clothes hung limp from his rolypoly frame. Worn with loss of sleep and fruitless efforts to bring the frightened Bogobos to reason, he welcomed Terry weariedly to the little hut that had been sat aside for his use.
Terry took command, so quietly that the doctor did not realize it. A few brief questions elicited the measures the doctor wished put into effect, simple curative methods and preventive precautions. Understanding, Terry started out, but was recalled by the doctor.
"Lieutenant, did you bring your mosquito net?" At Terry's affirmative nod he continued: "It's a good thing you did—the village is swarming with nightflyers, and every one of them is loaded to the hilt with plasmodiae!"
The village, a mere scattering of crudest huts along the river front, seemed deserted, but from nearly every hut came the low wailings of the sick and the frightened. Noting that the lamentations had ceased a fewminutes after Terry went out, the doctor stepped to the door and watched his progress from shack to shack, saw how the picturesque little savages grouped about him. They knew him and listened to him confidently, so that the parboiled doctor was as much disgusted as pleased with the ease with which Terry secured the cooperation for which he had begged and stormed in vain.
Under his direction they cut down all of the plant life whose upturned leaves or fronds held stagnant, mosquito-breeding water, climbed tall palms to brush out the rain water accumulated in the concave depressions where frond joins trunk, even twisted off the cuplike scarlet blossoms from hibiscus shrubs. They carried green brush to a series of smudges he lit to cordon the village against the vicious singing horde of germ carriers. Best of all, they ceased their incantations over the sick, unwound the tight cords they had knotted around the abdomens of the stricken to prevent the fever from "going further down," opened the grass windows that gasping lungs might obtain decent air, and swallowed the doctor's hitherto neglected medicines.
There were no chickens in the village, no eggs. The doctor bemoaned the lack of nourishment for his sick. So Terry summoned four of the ablest hunters and disappeared into the woods for an hour, returning with a young buck speared through the lungs and shot mercifully through the head. In an hour a big pot was boiling in the middle of the street that throughout the night the sufferers might receive hotsoup made up of venison, yams, eggplant and rice, all that the village afforded.
Doctor Merchant, watching the transformation, marveled at the method of persuasion. There was no attempt at exercise of authority, no raising of voice, no gestures, only patient explanation, an assumption of mutual friendliness, a sincere and ample sympathy.
Shortly after sundown the doctor, exhausted with the worry and stress of the hours before Terry came, distributed his bulk as comfortably as possible on the bamboo floor, tucked in his mosquito net very carefully, and fell into a heavy sleep, too exhausted to await Terry's return.
It was as well that the doctor did not await him, for Terry spent half of the night by a fire kindled at the base of a big tree in front of the chief's abode. Seated on a stump near the blaze, surrounded by a ring of half-nude Bogobos whose timid eyes seldom wandered from his face, he answered their questions and erased the last vestiges of the panic into which the epidemic had precipitated the villagers.
Interrogation at an end, he still stayed on with them. The flickering blaze lighted the circle of little brown folk, each flare gleaming on an eye here, glinting there on beaded jacket or brass trinkets with which both men and women were adorned. The first mad panic had abated, but Death had stalked through the settlement six times in as many days, and they listened superstitiously for the stark Tread through the woods which hemmed them in. Each whisperingwind that stirred the leaves overhead brought a deeper silence, each wail from delirious sufferers in nearby huts tightened the little circle.
The quavering gutturals of a half-blind old woman, wrinkled and shrivelled with a number of years no man could estimate, jarred the dumb circle.
"My years are as the scales of a fish. Each year has brought wisdom. Listen."
It was the invariable preface of a Bogobo legend. Terry stirred: it was the old woman who had told him of the Giant Agong.
"This sickness takes not many more of our people. The white men will stop it. Trust them. These white men are Bogobo friends. These white men are strong, wise, honest. White is better blood than brown blood. Yes. The Hill People knew this."
At the mention of the dread folk the group of tribesmen moved uneasily. A young hunter nervously stirred the flagging fire into brighter blaze as the old woman went on:
"Yes. The Hill People knew. Have you forgotten how the Giant Agong rang the night the Spaniards lost their girl-child?
"No. You have not forgotten. The Hill People took her—they wanted white blood in the veins of future chiefs. They knew what white blood means—the Hill People know!"
Curiously thrilled by the simple legend, Terry moved nearer to the old woman.
"Grandmother, how many years ago was this?"
"Years? Years? I know naught of your white man's years, but this I know—it happened duringthe rains before the dark-eyed white men gave way to the blue-eyed white men."
Interpreting this as referring to the departure of the Spanish troops, he gently pressed her for further details. But she was finished.
It was dawn when the doctor rose. Groaning in the agony of the fat man who wakes stiff from the discomfort of an unaccustomed hard bed, he sat up, then forgot his miseries in a new worry as he saw Terry asleep under the open window, wrapped in his saddle blanket but without the protection of a mosquito net. He cursed, stopping midway in his vehement outburst to cock his head at the absurd angle in which men think their ears function best. As he heard the ominous drone of the insects his experience had taught him to fear more than wild beasts, he scrambled to his feet with amazing celerity.
A light sleeper, Terry awakened and lay regarding him quizzically, enthusiastically dissecting the stream of invective the doctor poured upon him for sleeping without his net. Suddenly sensing the responsibility the doctor felt in having summoned him to the village, Terry explained his lack of a net.
"Doctor, I gave my net to the chief's wife: she—she is about to become a mother, and she had none."
"Hell's bells! What Bogobo woman isn't about to become a mother?" he stormed, refusing to concede the justice of the act. "'She had none'—and probably didn't use yours!"
He was facing the window, past which the chief, arrayed in all his half-naked splendor of beads andbrass, sauntered with an air of confidence quite different from his terror of the past week.
"There goes the chief, Terry, all fancied up like a bathroom on a German liner! But he has no pants—why don't you give him yours? He 'has none'! You make me—"
He stormed on and on. Terry, still wrapped in his blanket, sat before him looking up with an absurdly rapt air as of a student at his master's feet. Merchant stopped to swab the thick perspiration from his face, laughed at Terry's humbugging pose, and desisted. Terry slipped on his shoes, buckled on the leather leggings he had used as a pillow and picking up his saddlebags went out to clean up at the river.
Finding on his return that the doctor was again genuinely disturbed over his exposure to the disease, he sought to divert him. He sneezed violently, and as the doctor listened with professional interest he followed it with a series which mounted in volume and vigor. Merchant eyed him solicitously.
"You've caught a bad cold, Lieutenant."
"Yes." Terry snuffled and drew his handkerchief. "It was awfully damp in here last night."
"Damp? How could it be damp in an open shack this time of year?"
"Well, it was. A regular mist!" He sneezed explosively, then took a few short turns about the little hut in search of the cause of his malady.
The doctor watched him, interested. Bending suddenly, Terry held aloft the perspiration-soaked nightshirt which the doctor affected.
"Eureka!" he exclaimed, dramatically, then dodged the shoe the hoaxed doctor let drive at his head.
After an hour's investigation of conditions in the village the doctor was convinced that he could now handle the situation alone and insisted upon Terry's returning home. His parting injunctions were worried.
"Now Lieutenant, you watch yourself closely for several days and if you display fever symptoms, you send for me."
After Terry had ridden down the river bank and into the long homeward trail, the doctor's overworked conscience smote him hard:
"Hell's bells! I never thanked him for coming!"
Next morning Terry rose as the first sleepy cock challenged the pink-streaked day. Shaving in the dim light, he watched the plaza merge out of its darkness and fill with the natives passing listlessly to field or waterfront. A few short minutes and the day arrived hot and still: hens sauntered forth to begin their tireless, day-long, scratching search: bony curs, sleepy after their instinctive vigils through the night, made couches in the dusty road: across from where Terry stood at his bedroom window, the four daughters of his Tagalog neighbor sat in a little circle on a sunny bamboo porch structure, each intently examining another's loosened hair in a community search for—well, for whatever might be found.
By nine o'clock he had snapped the company through a sharp drill and by noon had finished the weekly inspection. The afternoon passed in preparation of monthly reports scheduled to go on the mailboat expected in that evening. It is the function of the Constabulary to know everything that transpires: health conditions, state of crops, appearance of any strangers, activities of native demagogues, movements of suspicious characters, morale of the people.Everything is observed and reported, and summarized at headquarters to form the basis for intelligent handling of a difficult problem.
Of the epidemic he wrote: "A disease identified as a particularly virulent form of pernicious malaria appeared last week among the Bogobos in the barrio of Dalag. The Health Officer is on the scene and in conference with the undersigned decided that the use of our troops for quarantine duty was not necessary. It appears that he has the disease under control."
Under the heading "Recommendations" he set down: "Request that the old provincial archives be searched to ascertain if a Spanish family living in this Gulf during the last months of Spanish occupation suffered the loss, by abduction, of a female infant. An interesting story to this effect has been communicated to me by Bogobos, who attribute the crime to the Hill People."
The mailboat limped in early in the afternoon, waking the torpid town into semblance of interested activity during the brief duration of its stay. But before she had disappeared over the horizon native Davao had relapsed into stupid placidity, and the Chinos had stored the meager cargoes dropped for them—print goods, cigarettes, matches, rice, a few small agongs, and, probably, a little opium. The lethargy of the tropics during the hot hours is entire and complete: the angel Gabriel himself will fail of unanimous native response unless he toots his cheerful summons during the cool hours between dusk to dawn.
Terry still sat in the cool orderly room at the cuartel, energetically clearing his desk of the last accumulations of the paper work he found a chore, when the dapper sergeant entered with his mail. Sorting quickly through the dozen official envelopes in anxious search for one addressed in the neat hand that always quickened his pulses, he discovered, miserably, that there was none from her. Fighting off the discouraged feeling that accompanied lapses in her correspondence with him, he slowly opened a letter from Ellis. Ellis' letters, few in number, had always been cheerful but brief statements of how matters went on at home, usually business affairs. He put Ellis' letter in his blouse pocket to read after dinner, then attacked the pile of official mail: he wanted no unfinished office work to keep him in the morrow, as he planned another quiet look at Malabanan's place. When the Sergeant bore in the lighted lamp Terry ordered him to have the launch ready at daylight.
Night had wrapped the town when he crossed the plaza to his quarters. Matak, silent as ever but of more cheerful countenance, set the table. At his second laconic announcement Terry rose and crossed to the dinner table, and as he seated himself a white missile was tossed through the open window by an unseen hand and landed with a thud on the bare floor. Matak brought it to him, and unwrapping the paper from about the pebble Terry read the note. It was from the secreto whom he had planted near Malabanan's plantation.
Sir:At eight o'clock last night Malabanan left here with a newcomer named Sakay and 22 of his "laborers."From my post I could not see if they were armed.They have not yet returned. (9a.m.)I will follow in banca. They sailed south in a large lorcha.Will report further when I return."47"
Sir:
At eight o'clock last night Malabanan left here with a newcomer named Sakay and 22 of his "laborers."
From my post I could not see if they were armed.
They have not yet returned. (9a.m.)
I will follow in banca. They sailed south in a large lorcha.
Will report further when I return.
"47"
Leaving his unfinished dinner, he paced the floor. The midnight departure of Malabanan with his chief lieutenant and a majority of his followers might mark the beginning of outlawry, or it might be a legitimate excursion into the deepsea fisheries. Yet the secreto had said nothing of nets, and a party of twenty-four men would be in each others' way. Terry hastened over to the cuartel, checked up the patrol chart, then called the Sergeant, who verified the position and route of each of the two-man patrols who were covering the countryside. Satisfied that his men would discover and report the landing of any strangers within a few hours after they touched soil, Terry returned to the house.
He sat on the wide ledge of the window, thinking. The night seemed unusually warm despite the stiffening breeze which blew off the Gulf; he opened the collar of his blouse.... Where was Malabanan—what was he doing? He saw a man's form outlined against the bright Club window and answered the arm waved at him: it looked like Lindsey, he thought.... "Give 'em plenty of rope and if they make abreak—Smash 'em!" He shivered at the thought of sighting a gun against a fellow man, and again in sudden rush of memory of the night in Zamboanga.... He saw Lindsey appear again at the Club window to peer in his direction, then turn abruptly. In a moment he saw him leave the Club and cross the plaza, hatless.... Deane—why had no letter come—he had expected one, wanted one....
He slid off the window ledge as Lindsey came in, sincere and direct as usual.
"Terry," he began, "I saw you sitting here alone and came over to ask you to join us at the Club."
"I can't, Lindsey."
Lindsey studied the unusually pallid skin: "Why not?" he demanded. "You're working too hard, Terry, and worrying too hard. Let's forget it all for an hour or two!"
"I'm much obliged, Lindsey, but I can't come to-night."
"The fellows asked me to get you, Terry. They think it is queer you come so seldom."
Understanding something of Terry's weariness of spirit he strove hard to persuade him to spend the evening in the pleasant Club, but was unsuccessful. Desisting, he talked a few minutes with Terry and then left, a little embarrassed, wholly disappointed.
Alone again, Terry slumped into a big cane chair drawn up by the table. His cheeks burned; he thought, vaguely, that he must have shaved too closely. Loosening his stiffly starched blouse, he crackled the letter from Ellis, opened it without much interest: then his whole being tensed.
Crampville, Nov. 23, 191-.Dear Dick:Everything lovely here—and things are going to pick up with you when you read this!Yesterday Deane's father came in the bank and asked to see me confidentially. Thinking he had come on bank business I took him into my private office. Well, he just sat there facing me for several minutes, not knowing how to begin. You would have thought he had been robbing a train or something, he looked so absurdly guilty!I just sat there watching him, taking a most unchristian joy in his trouble, whatever it was: I have had it in for him ever since—since you know what. I liked the way his Adam's apple chased up and down his throat.Finally he swallowed hard and began: "Ellis, I came over to—to ask you to—to send over that fox skin that Terry gave Deane last Christmas."Just like that! It sure was a pill for the old boy to swallow but he went the whole hog like the old Puritan he is. Once started he kept going, though still phased. Said that he was glad that you had found something worth doing and were doing it well, that he took a lot of interest in your goings-on—as he called it—and that Deane always read your letters aloud. And the last thing he said before he went out was that he hoped you would soon get spunk enough to write her some letters she "wouldn't dast read out loud!"He said THAT about my brother-in-law! Great leaping frogs! What is the matter with you?Get busy! Write—and make 'em sizzle!Ellis.P.S.—I forgot to say that I am sure she made him come to see me. Also that Sue took the skin over last night. And also that Bruce is more than professionally interested in the nurse he imported from Albany to look after hisoffice. It has been some time since he hung around Hunter's—and as to why, I do not know, but I sure am some little guesser!
Crampville, Nov. 23, 191-.
Dear Dick:
Everything lovely here—and things are going to pick up with you when you read this!
Yesterday Deane's father came in the bank and asked to see me confidentially. Thinking he had come on bank business I took him into my private office. Well, he just sat there facing me for several minutes, not knowing how to begin. You would have thought he had been robbing a train or something, he looked so absurdly guilty!
I just sat there watching him, taking a most unchristian joy in his trouble, whatever it was: I have had it in for him ever since—since you know what. I liked the way his Adam's apple chased up and down his throat.
Finally he swallowed hard and began: "Ellis, I came over to—to ask you to—to send over that fox skin that Terry gave Deane last Christmas."
Just like that! It sure was a pill for the old boy to swallow but he went the whole hog like the old Puritan he is. Once started he kept going, though still phased. Said that he was glad that you had found something worth doing and were doing it well, that he took a lot of interest in your goings-on—as he called it—and that Deane always read your letters aloud. And the last thing he said before he went out was that he hoped you would soon get spunk enough to write her some letters she "wouldn't dast read out loud!"
He said THAT about my brother-in-law! Great leaping frogs! What is the matter with you?
Get busy! Write—and make 'em sizzle!
Ellis.
P.S.—I forgot to say that I am sure she made him come to see me. Also that Sue took the skin over last night. And also that Bruce is more than professionally interested in the nurse he imported from Albany to look after hisoffice. It has been some time since he hung around Hunter's—and as to why, I do not know, but I sure am some little guesser!
Terry had never questioned the decision he thought she had made that Christmas eve in returning the fox skin, had thought it hers, and final. As the burden of a year fell from him he sat quietly, smoothing at his stubborn, crown lock, the wistful twist of mouth ironed out by a faint smile. He bent to read the letter again but after a few lines the words were blurred out by a salty rush to his steady gray eyes. Rising, he went into his bedroom and closed the door quietly behind him, emerging in a few minutes. Perfect peace lay in his eyes and they shone with the light that will never die in this world as long as men live, and women.
Two days to Christmas, he thought, and he had sent her no remembrance. He stood at the window, tasting the cool thickness of the evening, breathing the fragrance of ylang-ylang: leaf and frond, stirred by the monsoon, purred in gentle contact. In the starlight the old stone church outlined its old-world, old-time architecture in friendly shadows which veiled the pitiful scars and age-stains: the bamboo shacks across the square—wry, flimsy, smutted by a hotly jealous sun—had yielded to the magic of the night to become little golden houses in which the fairies abode till the morning stars should fade.
A present for her ... he pondered long, the while he stifled his desire to go outside and shout the joy that tugged at his restraint. Suddenly he started,tightened as the idea fastened upon him, then fairly ran to his desk. A hurried search for cable blanks and he wrote in desperate haste that consumed four misused forms before he accomplished an intelligible message:
Miss Deane Hunter, Crampville, Vermont.Christmas greetings from palmed coast to snowy shore. Please cable will you accept so humble a Christmas offering as an equal share in the future of oneRichard Terry.
Miss Deane Hunter, Crampville, Vermont.
Christmas greetings from palmed coast to snowy shore. Please cable will you accept so humble a Christmas offering as an equal share in the future of one
Richard Terry.
Buttoning his blouse as he ran, he raced down out of the house and over to his orderly room, where he typed the message and sent it out by a soldier. The dozen Macabebes lounging in thecuartel, who had sprung to attention when he passed, stared at him and then at each other—this joyous, whistling boy was new to them! He crossed the dark plaza: natives, looking out of raised windows, wondered who that Americano was who walked in and out of the shadows of the great acacias, singing:
When in thy dreamingMoons like these shall shine again:
When in thy dreamingMoons like these shall shine again:
Being natives they did not understand the English words, but being natives and instinctively attuned to the most ancient of emotions that throbbed in the low baritone, they listened silently and stared out into the night long after the singer had passed.
He reached the house, hesitated. Lindsey had said that the fellows wanted him to come over to the Club... he had neglected opportunities to be with these good friends. He sailed his cap up through an open window and crossing a corner of the square went up into the gayly lighted building.
That night at the Club became a sort of tradition in the Gulf. They still tell, wonderingly, of how he entered—a laughing, mischievous, fun-loving boy, and of how the crowd welcomed this new Terry that none of them had ever known before. They talk, still, of his deviltries, the clean jests and keen wit he whetted—always at his own expense, and as rough old Burns put it the next morning when they talked it over: "And he niver took a drink and he niver cussed once, I'll be ---- if he did!" As the story of Terry's night at Club spread over the Gulf all of the planters found excuses to bring them into town afternoons in the hope of being present when he came again. They rode in by pony or launch every night for two weeks, and then they ceased coming.
For two hours he held them in the spell of his infectious deviltries. Irrepressibly gay, impish, it seemed as if he vented all of the stored up boyishness in him, spilled it in one heaping measure. Story followed story, in quickly shifting brogues that rocked the building with the sidesore laughter of the transported audience; they followed him through a seemingly inexhaustible series of anecdote, through a dozen ridiculous parodies he sang to a one-handed accompaniment chorded on the battered piano the while he pantomimed with free hand and roguish face.
"Why," whispered the astonished Cochran, "the—the—son of a gun!"
The uproar stilled suddenly as, seated at the old piano, he forgot them for a moment, saw a vision on the white wall that was not visible to the others. A few deep chords from knowing fingers, then his low voice, rich with the depth of his happiness:
Love, to share again those winged scented days,Those starry skies:To see once more your joyous face,Your tender eyes ...
Love, to share again those winged scented days,Those starry skies:To see once more your joyous face,Your tender eyes ...
The song, or something in the deep voice, pulled at the heart-strings of those lonely men, who, womenless, never discussed women. Burns sniffled, then glared belligerently at the others.
Cochran whispered to Lindsey: "Just what is there about—about that boy? Is it because he's so pale?"
"Yes, that's it—you poor fish! But it's about time you quit pinching my arm—it's getting numb!"
Flushing slightly in realization of his lapse, Terry had sprung astraddle the corner of the billiard table, where, absurdly solemn, he declaimed tragically, combing the classics for sepulchral passages, plunging the intent listeners into deepest melancholy but concluding with a droll extemporization that swept them from verge of tears to convulsed mirth.
Lindsey, flinging a laughter-helpless arm across a call-bell, rang an inadvertent summons to the steward that cost him the price of the drinks and gave Terry a breathing spell. He sat astride the billiard table under the acetylene lights, vainly trying to smooth down his scalplock, his eyes dancing in eager enjoyment ofthe hour and of the friends who crowded around him in affectionate amazement, laughing and shouting at each other and at him.
Cochran's voice rose above the clamor of the room in a raucous whoop. They all turned toward where he stood near the bulletin board reading a message he had just torn down.
He waved the sheet joyously: "I saw the steward tacking it up a minute ago—it just arrived—from Casey. He couldn't wait to tell us—the long awaited day has come for Casey!"
He bent with laughter, then straightened and sobered to read it aloud.
"Casey talks like the Congressional Record but he sure minces his written words. Listen.
Davao Club, Davao.Horray! American mare had a filly colt last night. Also sixteen pigs by Berkshire boar.Casey.
Davao Club, Davao.
Horray! American mare had a filly colt last night. Also sixteen pigs by Berkshire boar.
Casey.
A roar of merriment greeted the phraseology in which Casey had hurriedly couched the double event of his day of days. The terse—too terse—message passed from hand to hand till it reached Terry. He studied it, his head cocked to one side like a puppy's and with something of a puppy's quizzical expression. A moment and he slid slowly from the billiard table and crossed to the corner of the room where a typewriter had been placed for the convenience of club members.
They watched him, glancing uncertainly at each other, as he inserted a sheet of paper, spelled out afew hesitating words, then jerked it out, crumpled it in his hand. Slipping in a fresh sheet he started slowly, pausing, rapt, after each few works. As line followed line the room became quiet save for the click of the machine, the planters eyeing each other, waiting impatiently for disclosure of the new deviltry his whole attitude betokened. Pausing after each few lines to seek inspiration at the roots of his thick tumbled hair, he wrote for about fifteen minutes.
Then, tearing out the sheet, he mounted the chair and with a face owlish in its affectation of heavy wisdom, he thrust his hand in his blouse in classic barnstorming attitude and read his creation.
"CASEY"
The palm-fringed gulf of fair Davao—The garden-spot of Mindanao—Has been the Theater where SurpriseHas pried apart our mouth and eyes.But bounteous Nature, in her last,Has all her former deeds surpassed!What now are Burbank's grafting deedsMarconi's stunts, whose genius speedsA message on a wireless tackAnd makes of space a jumping-jack?Where now does Edison hold sway?Or radium's finder, Pierre Curié?Does not this deed alone sufficeTo render all that men or miceHave wrought since days of Tubal CainInfinitesimal, and vain?No man before has seen a damProvide the rudiments for a ham.And not content with razor-backsProduce a quota for the tracks.It seems like thistles yielding figs—A blooded mare with sixteen pigs!And Truth receives a serious joltTo find the seventeenth a colt!Can anything on earth compareWith this performance of a mare?But hold! For while I eulogize,There is another claims a prizeAnd puts to shame all gone before;I mean this humble Yankee boar!What lowly hog did yet aspireTo ribboned fame as race-track sire?Consult the annals of all time,Great deeds extolled in prose and rhyme,Delve deep in Clio's treasured store,Exhaust encyclopedic lore—You will not find in one editionA hint of such high pig-ambition!Had he but lived in days gone byWhen Richard raised his voice on highAnd offered Kingdom for a Horse,To him he might have had recourse....Imagine bristly Berkshire swineUpon the throne of Cœur de Lion!!But, while we give our meed of praiseTo those who would these isles upraise,Forget not him who planned all that—For it was Casey at the bat!Forget not him whose Celtic headOutdid, when all is done or said,That classic stunt—the herculeanMinerva sprung from Jovian bean!Where else but in the PhilippinesAmid these sunny tropic scenesThat lull the senses into rest,Could come this genius of the West?For, not content with colt and swine,He must produce domestic kine—To heap the brimming measure fullHe perpetrates an Irish Bull!
The palm-fringed gulf of fair Davao—The garden-spot of Mindanao—Has been the Theater where SurpriseHas pried apart our mouth and eyes.But bounteous Nature, in her last,Has all her former deeds surpassed!
What now are Burbank's grafting deedsMarconi's stunts, whose genius speedsA message on a wireless tackAnd makes of space a jumping-jack?Where now does Edison hold sway?Or radium's finder, Pierre Curié?
Does not this deed alone sufficeTo render all that men or miceHave wrought since days of Tubal CainInfinitesimal, and vain?
No man before has seen a damProvide the rudiments for a ham.And not content with razor-backsProduce a quota for the tracks.
It seems like thistles yielding figs—A blooded mare with sixteen pigs!And Truth receives a serious joltTo find the seventeenth a colt!Can anything on earth compareWith this performance of a mare?
But hold! For while I eulogize,There is another claims a prizeAnd puts to shame all gone before;I mean this humble Yankee boar!What lowly hog did yet aspireTo ribboned fame as race-track sire?
Consult the annals of all time,Great deeds extolled in prose and rhyme,Delve deep in Clio's treasured store,Exhaust encyclopedic lore—You will not find in one editionA hint of such high pig-ambition!
Had he but lived in days gone byWhen Richard raised his voice on highAnd offered Kingdom for a Horse,To him he might have had recourse....Imagine bristly Berkshire swineUpon the throne of Cœur de Lion!!
But, while we give our meed of praiseTo those who would these isles upraise,Forget not him who planned all that—For it was Casey at the bat!
Forget not him whose Celtic headOutdid, when all is done or said,That classic stunt—the herculeanMinerva sprung from Jovian bean!
Where else but in the PhilippinesAmid these sunny tropic scenesThat lull the senses into rest,Could come this genius of the West?For, not content with colt and swine,He must produce domestic kine—To heap the brimming measure fullHe perpetrates an Irish Bull!
Finished, he still stood on the chair, frankly happy in the uproarious response to his effort to amuse them.
The clamor subsided in a sudden and almost incredulous appreciation of his swift composing: and in the momentary silence during which they gazed at the happy, laughing boy, a pair of heavy shod feet sounded on the bare stairway—loud, hurried.
All eyes shifted from where Terry stood on the chair to the stern visaged Macabebe sergeant who had stopped in the open doorway. He hesitated a moment, then urgency overbore his instinct against violation of the white man's domain, and he stepped toward his chief.
Terry met him in the center of the room. The Macabebe saluted, then reported in a savage grating voice that carried clear to every startled ear.
"Sir, Patrol Number Seven reports that ladrones raided Ledesma's plantation at one o'clock last night: killed one servant, stole all of Ledesma's carabaos and money, and stole his daughter."
Malabanan had dared! The ladrones had struck!
Terry's pace across the plaza taxed Mercado's shorter legs. He was surprised that Malabanan's move came almost as a relief after the weeks of anxious waiting. Scoffing the Constabulary, they had sought to test the strength of the new government ... "if they make a break—Smash 'em!" He whirled, taut, as they reached his quarters, and the battle-loving veteran thrilled with delight as he caught the hard ring of voice.
"Sergeant, I'll be ready in ten minutes—you will go with me to Ledesma's plantation—have the ponies saddled. Double every patrol along the coast. Send the launch out at once to scour the gulf for information about a fifty-foot lorcha—add four soldiers to the regular crew: if they sight or learn of this lorcha they are to return at once and report the facts—they are not to engage. Retain in the post twenty of your very best men, under full field equipment ready to move instantly. Issue extra ammunition. Understand?"
"Yes, sir!" He about-faced and hurried on his mission, eager, joyful. This was the life!
Terry ran upstairs, turned up the light, ripped off his white clothes and slipped into riding clothes and flannel shirt. As he buckled on his belt and hookedin canteen and holster, he heard the Sergeant galloping down the street with his led horse. A swift inspection of the mechanism of his big automatic, four extra clips added to the belt, and he ran downstairs as the Macabebe drew up.
Reaching the beach they turned south, riding fast through the chill darkness, Mercado keeping his pony a length behind Terry's nervous gray. They had covered several miles before the sun rose from behind Samal, gray-pinked sky and sea for a brief bewitching moment, then swept the low hanging mists from gulf and mountain, and smote, full-powered, upon the sandy shore down which they rode. The tireless ponies—crooked of leg but splendid of head and eye in true indications of their heritage of coarse Chinese and fine Arabian bloods—toiled steadily over the high-tide beach, sinking coronet deep in the soaked sand, their footprints disappearing almost as they lifted hoofs. Courageous, the little animals scrambled over the coral formations that blocked their path, picked their way, delicately, through sour mangrove swamps: once, unsaddled, they swam a wide tide-deepened creek that the riders crossed, bridle reins in hand, in a small dugout which they found on the bank.
Their sharp shadows had shortened a third when they swung up from the beach and trotted down the unkempt street of Sabaga. A chorus of howls, set up by bony, slinking curs of the type that infest all native villages, announced their presence but there was no sign of life in any of the shambling bamboo houses. The village seemed deserted.
They pulled up, the Sergeant pointing significantlyat the carabaos tied up under the high perched huts. Terry understood: fear of the ladrones had paralyzed the natives. As he studied the closed windows and doors, sensed the terror of these defenseless, harmless people, a cold hatred of the spoilers narrowed his steel-gray eyes. They were about to press on when the quiet of the town was suddenly broken by a cry sounded from a house behind them:
"El Soltario! El Constabulario!"
The exultant shout was taken up by other voices as windows were cautiously raised: in a moment the doors were thrown wide and a crowd of natives swarmed about the two riders. The men shrill-voiced, women and children hysterical, they crowded around the pair in a confidence that was pitiful.
Frightened beyond a white man's conception by the midnight visitation of ladrones within a half-mile of their village, cowed, witless, they were reassured merely by the uniforms the two riders wore—the red-piped uniform of the small, scattered force of five thousand Filipinos, who, ably officered, highly trained, intrepid, have never tasted defeat: have wiped out every murderous band that raised treacherous hand and then, outlawry scotched, have turned the power of their discipline against the scourges of diseases, floods, cattle plagues, typhoons. Unsung, unwept, they have carried on, their motto Service and their goal Success.
Terry, patient, reassuring, lingered till he had overcome their immediate fears, left them content with their faith in the protection he promised them. Hurrying on, Terry and his Sergeant shortly cameto Ledesma's well kept plantation, and Terry turned his pony over to the Sergeant and approached the big bamboo house.
Ledesma, gray-haired, distinguished looking, bearing his grief with Tagalog stoicism, greeted him with the finished courtesy of the Spanish tradition and led him up the precarious slatted steps into the house. It was a house of desolation.
The mother lay moaning wretchedly upon the cane bottom of the carved mahogany bed which, with four chairs, a round table and a talking machine made up the furniture of the main room. Ledesma's son, a lad of eight, sat big-eyed and solemn near an open window, not fully understanding the blow that had fallen but vaguely frightened by his mother's lamentations.
The Tagalog, dignified in his suffering, answered Terry's brief interrogations intelligently but as he had been out on the gulf with his fishermen during the raid he had little to offer. Terry turned to the sobbing mother and in a few minutes she had quieted sufficiently to tell her story. He grew paler and grimmer as she dramatized the terror of the midnight entrance of the ominous shadows, the noiseless gliding of bare feet, the vicious whispered threats, the cries of the girl as they bore her away into the night and the long wait for Ledesma's return. Finishing her story, she sank back upon the great bed, moaning and muttering incoherently.
Ledesma elaborated her story with details she had told him. She had recognized neither shadowed forms nor whispering voices of any of the four who hadentered the house while the others herded the stolen carabaos toward the waterfront. One of them had warned her that this was what would happen to all of the natives who made too good friends with the Americanos: and the biggest of the four had bent over her to whisper in the dark: "And the pale Constabulario won't be able to help you with his celebrated pistol—soon we will visit him!"
Terry soon realized that he was wasting valuable time here—and time was the big factor. He conferred with Mercado, who had been questioning the scared laborers, but equally without result: no one could identify any of the band, there was no evidence that would lead to Malabanan's conviction, though all were certain that the biggest figure had been his. Bidding Ledesma a hurried adieu he rode away. Time was pressing ... Ledesma's daughter must be rescued ... soon. He followed the trail of the stolen carabaos, the renewed lamentations of the distracted mother ringing in his ears.
Fifteen minutes along the plain trail torn through the brush by the driven carabaos brought them out on the beach. There the trail ended: it was for this that Malabanan had brought the big lorcha that the secreto had mentioned. A moment of thought and he swung northward toward Davao, again following the glistening beach. At noon, and low tide, they forded the creek and swung up off the beach to breathe the sweating ponies in the deep shade of a mango tree that spread high above the surrounding brush. Dismounting, they stood as in a huge green bowl: its bottom the smooth waters of the gulf, iridescent under azenith sun and framed as far as the eye could reach with a slant of parched beach; the sides of the vast concavity were formed by the verdant mat of jungled slopes that rose with ever increasing abruptness to the far, somber-edged mountains.
The doughty Macabebe gave not a glance at the great panorama, busying himself in refolding the reeking saddle blankets and tightening girths, then lighted a casual cigarette. Terry, impatient of the necessary halt, paced the shadowed space restlessly after his first appreciation of the sun-drenched Gulf. He turned to the Macabebe with the first words they had passed since leaving Ledesma.
"Sergant, what is your opinion? Was it Malabanan?"
Mercado looked up quickly, pleased with this mark of confidence from his uncommunicative chief. He was positive.
"Yes, sir. Malabanan."
"Of course—it could be no other. But—what would you do if you were in my place—we have no legal proof."
"I would take a platoon of our best men, sir, and visit his hacienda—and then there would be no Malabanan, sir—unless dead men live!"
"But the courts, Sergeant: we could not convict him on the evidence we have. And what you suggest would be mere murder."
"Courts, sir? Malabanan will never face a court—I know that, sir. I FEEL that, sir!"
Terry studied the hard face of the little fightingman: "Sergeant, you don't seem to fear man or devil."
Mercado's white teeth flashed as he shrugged pleased denial of claim to such courage, then his roving gaze focussed upon a distant object and the confident expression altered swiftly to uneasiness, awe, superstitious terror. Terry, startled at the transformation, followed the direction of his dread stare and saw that his eyes were fixed upon the distant, mist-wreathed crest of Apo. He understood. Even this sturdy little soldier cowered before the obscure menace of the hidden Hill People. Terry resented, vaguely, that others did not respond to the spell of the Hills as he did.
The five minutes had freshened the wonderful little steeds, so they mounted and pushed on through the heat with eyes half shut against the glare of sand and water. At four o'clock they pulled up in front of Terry's quarters.
A note from the secreto lay on his table. He opened it and read that Malabanan had not returned, that the place was deserted. He had anticipated this, knowing that the band would now operate from some secret rendezvous in the maze of the forests. His problem now was to locate their meeting place: his patrols must search them out. Information would be passed quickly to them by the inhabitants of the gulf—every planter, laborer, trader and native now knew that the ladrones were rampant: and now the Bogobos would be most valuable to him, as in their wanderings they covered every inch of thewoods to the edge of the Hill Country, and news of strangers would be brought to him by swift Bogobo runners.
A quick shower to rid himself of the intolerable stickiness of the long hot ride, a change to fresh shirt and breeches, and he hastened to thecuartel. Two patrols had come in during the afternoon, reporting no intelligence of the bandits but bearing tidings of an aroused American and frightened native population. The launch returned an hour later after a fruitless search of the west coast for signs of the lorcha. He manned it with fresh crew and detail and hurried it out to cover every inch of the east coast.
He ordered out two additional patrols to help cover the back country; detached four of the twenty men whom he had retained for pursuit and sent them to guard the heedless doctor who labored with his sick at Dalag. The four warriors marched off cursing picturesquely at the luck which took them away from the combat group.
An air of expectancy hung over thecuartel. Terry, grave, smoothly efficient, sat in the orderly room studying maps and keeping the Sergeant and the clerk busy as he wove a net of patrols of gulf and coast and foothills which would cover every inch of terrain within the night. In the big squad room the fierce little Macabebes joked with each other as they repolished stainless rifles and repacked field equipment under a zealous corporal's eye. Outside, a knot of frightened natives occluded each window facing the plaza, peering in at the laughing soldiers,dully wondering at the makeup of these men who grinned at the prospect of facing the dread ladrones.
Every loose string tightened, every loophole closed, Terry left thecuarteland crossed the plaza toward his quarters. Preoccupied, he noted that for once all of the phonographs were silenced, the plaza deserted; and already the town's doors and windows were closed against the coming night. The impact of Malabanan's first blow, struck thirty miles south, had been felt in native Davao. His face hardened.
He strove hard, under Matak's urgings, to do justice to the perfect dinner. But a dull headache had fastened across his forehead, a symptom he attributed to his long ride over the scorching beach and to loss of sleep.
He had spread his net, the quarry could not escape capture, he had but to wait as patiently as possible for information as to their whereabouts: some time during the night word must come from launch or patrol, from planter or Bogobo.
Another thought had pressed all day—the answer to his cable. He sent Matak to the postoffice, hopeful, nervous. But nothing had come. Rising, he found the room stifling, and he reached for his hat to go out. Matak noticed that he had forgotten his sidearm and delayed him long enough to lift it off the wallhook and fasten the belt about his waist.
The sun had set. As he walked aimlessly across the town he noticed that all of the little stores, whose main trade came during the evening hours, were boarded tight. He wandered down to the little dock and out to its end, looking over the rippled waterswith eyes that ached strangely. The light faded swiftly, taking with it the pall of oppressive humidity and freeing the Gulf to the coolness of approaching night. None of the fishing craft which usually dotted the gulf at this hour had ventured out. Malabanan had indeed made himself felt.
Terry stood near an upended pile, numb with disappointment over the expected cablegram. The dusk yielded in the distance to a darkness which crept toward him over the ever diminishing circle of water.
Suddenly his dulled faculties registered an insistent warning of danger, he caught the slight creaking of a board behind him. Aroused, he whirled to face two figures which had halted ten feet from him in attitudes expressive of the stealth of their approach. In the dusk he distinguished two unusually large natives dressed in coarse unstarched crash, and wearing shoes. Each carried a bolo thrust in braided hemp belts.
For a tense moment they maintained the pose in which he had surprised them, then the shorter of the two, who was a pace in front, took a slow step backward, uneasy in being the closer to the young American whose eyes drilled him through the gloom.
Terry, idly fingering his pistol belt with his left hand, shifted his gaze to the larger of the pair, then unconsciously took a step forward to better see that queer face. In the shock of surprise he stopped short and his right arm jerked back into a curious position that brought the hand below and behind his holster.The left eye of the big Tagalog glittered white in the night!
His impetuous, fearless step toward the pair had broken the spell which held them motionless. The white-eyed native hesitated, glanced uneasily at Terry's holster, then spoke in brief gutturals to his companion. Lifting his hat in salutation he bade Terry a suave "Buenas Noches, Señor," and turning, walked off the dock, his consort close behind him.
Through the soft darkness Terry saw them mount two ponies which were tethered to a tree near the end of the wharf, and heard the shrill, mocking laugh aimed back at him by the smaller of the two as they galloped away into the night.
As he made his way rapidly across the poorly lighted town he gave no thought to the fact that the pair had evidently meant him harm, speculating upon the peculiar birthmark in the eye of the larger Tagalog and wondering if he could be the man for whom Matak had sought so many years.
He found Matak sitting crosslegged upon the floor fastening brass buttons into some uniforms which had just returned from thelavendera. Terry stopped before him:
"Matak, I want to thank you for reminding me of my gun. As it happened, it didn't do any harm."
Stepping to the window he blew a blast upon his whistle, an unusual summons that brought Mercado running across the plaza in most unsoldierly fashion. Entering, he cracked his heels in salute, his eye agleam with hope that the break had come. Terry dismissed Matak from the room before addressing him.
"Sergeant, do you know anybody in this Gulf who has an albino left eye—an eye that is all white but the pupil?"
"No, sir."
"Who might know?"
"The Chino Lan Yek, sir. He knows everybody—everybody owes him money, sir!"
"Fetch him here."
In a few minutes Lan Yek stood before Terry, his Mongolian imperturbability shaken by this night summons from an officer of the law. With the natives' love of ragging a Chinamen, Mercado had been very stern and mysterious concerning his mission—and Lan Yek knew a thing or two about opium smuggling that bothered him as he faced the American.
Terry repeated his inquiry regarding the identity of the white-eyed native, and Lan Yek's response was startlingly illuminating.
"Yes, me know him. Me know white-eyed fellah. His name Malabanan!"
Malabanan! This had been the "visit" they had told Ledesma's wife they would pay Terry.
"Lan Yek, when did you see him last?"
"To-night he come, buy cigalet, no pay—talk 'Melican talk—tell me 'Go to Hell.'"
Terry gestured his dismissal and the nervous Celestial scurried away, relieved that the interrogation had not been intimate.
Terry briefly recounted to Mercado what had occurred on the dock, ordered him to send out a patrol at once to circle the town at a distance of five miles to discover if possible upon what trail the pair hadridden out, emphasizing that the patrol was to return and report to him, regardless of the hour of arrival.
"And hold the men in instant readiness. I may need them at any moment during the night."
There was at least one supremely happy man in the Gulf that night, for the Sergeant's joy was a living thing as he departed to put the orders into effect.
A moment later Terry heard the kitchen door open slowly, and looking up he beheld the mottled face and burning eyes of the Moro. It was manifest that Matak had overheard Lan Yek. He stood in the doorway battling for his voice.
"Master," he said huskily, "I knew you would help me find him."
Gratitude suffused his face, then receded before the tide of Mohammedan fanaticism and fury which welled up from his bitter heart. Stepping backward, he kept his eyes fastened upon Terry till he had passed through the door into the kitchen.
Terry was deeply disturbed by this unforeseen turn of events. He had decided against informing Matak until he had lodged Malabanan safely behind prison walls, then to confront him with the Moro and if he proved to be Matak's long sought enemy, he would add the charge of triple murder against the desperado. The day of private vengeance must pass in Mindanao—vengeful killings were murder, punishable as murder.
He called to Matak, then again, but there was no answer. He hurried into the kitchen, into Matak's room, then down into the double stable back of the house. But Matak was gone, and so was Terry'sspare pony. Realizing the futility of searching for him in the night, he composed himself as best he could. It added another phase to the exigency—everything now rested with the patrols who were tirelessly combing the Gulf to discover the new rendezvous.
He strove for patience, but waiting is hard. He picked up a volume of poems, discarded it impatiently for a magazine, threw this back on the table and withdrew from the glare of the lamp which added to his insistent headache. Looking out on the dark town he saw that even the Club was unlighted, the first time since his arrival in Davao. His jaw tightened as he pictured the isolated planters sitting through the night, rifles on knees, listening for hostile movements in the jungle surrounding their hardwon acres.
Drawing up a big cane chair he sat in the shadow looking out into the dark. The sky was like a vast black colander perforated haphazardly with a myriad brilliant openings which paled and glowed. The crescent of the young moon hung over the faintly outlined mountains: he watched it slant slowly down till its lower point was absorbed in the heavy mist which blanketed Apo.
Malabanan loose with his ravaging band ... Matak, alone, searching for him in the night ... Ledesma's daughter, that gentle, big-eyed girl, at the mercy of such beasts ... would the patrols never return? He rose and paced the floor, frantic with the enforced inaction. Schooling himself to a semblance of patience, he sat through another long hour.
Why, he thought dully, should he have had thepresumption to expect an answer to his cable ... she was too kind to cable "no" ... her letter of explanation would be a month in coming.... He watched as the mists around Apo gathered, thickened, darkened: the banks were flashlighted into white billows, then the soft rumble of thunder rolled down the slopes, a vanguard of the rainstorm which rustled the forest tops as it swept down nearer, louder, to expire as it touched the edge of the town: a few drops splashed heavily on the tin roof of the silent house, then the stars shone more brilliantly than before and Apo loomed sharp against a cleared sky.
It was a long night. At last he rose wearily and seated himself at his desk, shading his dulled eyes. A moment of indecision, and he wrote to his sister.
Dear Sue-sister:Sometimes your sweet letters breathe the fear that harm might befall me. You need not worry.I live in a lovely land, a land of sunny days and balmy nights, a land of courteous, friendly folk.I live in a land where pneumonia is unknown, or sunstroke: cholera perished in boiling water, and behind our mosquito nets we laugh at malaria.Should other dangers threaten, I have my company of loyal Macabebes: laughing fighters, stern lovers, they guard me while I sleep. They like me, I think.Nothing but Old Age can befall me here; and I think the Fountain of Youth lies not where old Ponce searched—but here, on Apo's towering crest. I am going there to search ... some day ... before I am too old.I have but one fear: that you and the others whom I love may some day cease to—
Dear Sue-sister:
Sometimes your sweet letters breathe the fear that harm might befall me. You need not worry.
I live in a lovely land, a land of sunny days and balmy nights, a land of courteous, friendly folk.
I live in a land where pneumonia is unknown, or sunstroke: cholera perished in boiling water, and behind our mosquito nets we laugh at malaria.
Should other dangers threaten, I have my company of loyal Macabebes: laughing fighters, stern lovers, they guard me while I sleep. They like me, I think.
Nothing but Old Age can befall me here; and I think the Fountain of Youth lies not where old Ponce searched—but here, on Apo's towering crest. I am going there to search ... some day ... before I am too old.
I have but one fear: that you and the others whom I love may some day cease to—
His head ached intolerably. He dropped his pen in sudden listlessness, crossed aimlessly to the window. Dawn wavered over Samal. The plaza was dark save for the lights which blazed in the cuartel to show that the Macabebes, too, had kept the long vigil.
Suddenly he saw four fagged little Macabebes emerge from the shadowed street and enter the path of light which streamed from the wide cuartel door. Shoulders drooping under heavy packs after the long night's hike, they staggered into the building.
A moment, and a fiercely glad yell rose from the barracks, and the Sergeant bounded out of the doorway to speed toward Terry's house. Terry straightened his relaxed muscles as the Sergeant burst into the room.