CHAPTER XVII
"SUS-MARIE-HOSEP!"
Terry was happily engaged in remaking the Major's old pack for his ownuse when the Major entered the torchlit shack. It lacked an hour tilldawn. Outside, the main clearing was dark, but the big fires whichilluminated the surrounding trees revealed the excited natives stillcelebrating Ahma's nuptials in the clearing around Ohto's house.
Terry straightened up from his task and studied the face of hisfriend: fatigue and happiness had softened the serious lines that hadgiven the Major an appearance of age beyond his years.
"Major, isn't the ceremony finished yet?"
"No, it takes forty-eight hours to get married up here--and only twohours to get buried! But a month ago I would have said that it wasabout the correct ratio, at that."
Terry grinned as he finished the pack and threw it on the floor nearthe door, then sat beside the Major on the cot.
"Major, I want to send up a gift for Ahma by the first runner thepostoffice people send through. It's hard to decide what to give her,because she is entirely different from other girls, and the usualbridal gifts would hardly do. Can't you help me out?"
For a minute the Major pondered heavily: "How about a mirror? She istwenty years old and has never seen her own reflection."
"Just the thing! Enter the civilizing influence of vanity in the HillCountry!"
Terry drew a notebook from his shirt pocket. "Major, I have jotteddown a list of things we are going to need for this work up here. Ithought it would be better if I had a definite program to submit tothe Governor, with estimate of appropriations necessary, and so on.First I listed those things you will need in order to build andfurnish your house: cook stoves, lamps, dishes, window glass, and soon. I think I have included everything, so just run over those thingsyou will need to begin this work."
For an hour earnestly they discussed the problems the Major wouldconfront pending Terry's return to take up the work. They listed awide variety of needs--pigs, chickens, medicines, books, tools, seeds:contingent upon the Governor's approval, they outlined several monthsof planting, trail making, establishment of regular communication withthe lowlands, selection of school teachers, of a health officer--allof the varied instruments needed for the initial work of elevating thetribesmen out of their barbarism.
Dawn had dimmed their torches when they finished. For a while they satsilent, Terry happy in the outcome of this strange adventure in theHills, the Major thrilling with the joy that had come to him.
The Major broke the silence: "Terry, I AM a chump! All this time I'veforgotten to tell you that a captain's commission is waiting youracceptance in Zamboanga!"
He went on, slowly: "Are you sure that you can come back here for ayear--after your honeymoon? Maybe she--your wife--won't wish to come."
"Yes, she will." Terry was confident. "It will be for only one year,and then--"
"And then what?" the Major demanded after a while.
"Then--back home, among my own people. I left home foolishly, Major. Iwas restless--looking for a dragon to slay. But I have had a year inwhich to think--and I see things differently. During the time I wassick up here I--I ... well, I know now that a man need not cross theworld to find service: he can be just as useful in preventing bunionsas in--as in such lucky ventures as this."
"Preventing bunions?" The Major was puzzled.
But Terry did not answer. He had risen to finish his preparations forthe journey down.
"Just one more thing, Terry. You promised to tell me how you startedthat little avalanche--the 'sign.'"
Something of the serenity faded from Terry's face as he turned toexplain: "I had been up there several times, and had noticed a deepcrevice that split the platform from the parent rock. It would havefallen within a few months. I carried up some softwood wedges, drovethem into the fault, poured in a lot of water and expansion did therest."
The Major visualized the toil and peril of lugging heavy logs up thespiral trail at night. "Why didn't you let me help?" he demanded.
"Well, Ahma kept guard for me, and that was enough. If I had beencaught I could probably have talked myself out of the scrape, but itmight have gone harder with you. Luckily the timbers I used for wedgeswere buried in the slide."
The Major's face clouded swiftly: "Say, Terry! That scoundrel Pud-Pudsaid that he saw you that night--he can ruin the thing yet if hetalks!"
Terry shook his head, a little sorrowfully: "No, Pud-Pud will nevertalk to anybody about anything again. I got to Ohto too late: they hadalready executed sentence."
"What did they do with him?"
"Shot him full of darts and turned him loose in the Dark Forest. So Iconfessed to Ohto that I contrived the 'sign.' Of course I made himunderstand that you had nothing to do with the--trickery."
"What did he say--what is he going to do about it?" The Major wasanxious.
"He had known about it all the time--his men have trailed every stepwe have taken, watched everything we have done."
A slow blush mounted the Major's rugged features as he thought of thepossibility that secret onlookers had witnessed his meeting with Ahmajust before the wedding ceremony when he had sought to teach her theWhite Man's customs of caress. The flush persisted as he turned toTerry.
"There's one thing I forgot to ask you to buy for me. I want a goodtalking machine, with plenty of records." He paused, then continuedabstractedly: "She can keep it in her house."
Terry looked up in astonishment. "In _her_ house? Aren't you bothgoing to live in the same house?"
"No. Not till you send a missionary up here to marry us. I don'tfigure that two days of savage rites constitutes a marriage--but I'mgoing to have a deuce of a time trying to explain it to Ahma!"
Terry nodded sympathetically and walked the springy floor a dozentimes, nonplussed by the Major's dilemma. Pausing in his preoccupationbefore the open window he noted vaguely that the nuptial fires wereyellowing before the approach of dawn: a moment and he startedviolently as the solution struck him and he whirled upon the dejectedgroom with beaming countenance.
"Say!" he shouted, "I'm certainly not going down with you two onlyhalf-married--she a bride and you not a groom! You forget that asSenior Inspector of Constabulary I am an ex-officio Justice of thePeace! Come on!"
He lifted the Major by the arm and shot him through the doorway withan exuberant shove that left him no alternative save a jarring leap tothe ground. Terry landed beside him as light as a cat, and catchinghim by the elbow he hurried him on through the woods and into thefading light of the big fires that burned before Ohto's house.
Terry, his eyes dancing joyously, broke up the dance with which ahundred Hill People were keeping the ceremonial pot boiling, anddespatched two women to fetch the bride, who had sought a briefrespite from the interminable ritual. Shortly Ahma appeared beforethem, her dark eyes shadowed with fatigue, but radiant withexaltation.
Understanding from Terry's few words that the Major desired that theybe united also in accordance with the rites of his own people, shestepped quietly before Terry and took the Major's outstretched hand.The crowd of natives, who had crowded about them, waited the alienritual curiously.
Ahma was clad in the white costume in which the Major had first seenher. A scarlet hibiscus blossom, the Hillmen's nuptial flower, wasthrust in her black hair, but there was no other addition to her scantcovering.
Possessed of a sudden spirit of banter Terry turned to the Major:"Before I begin, Major, I wish to congratulate you upon having won tothe bliss of matrimony without violating that bachelor formula whichyou so often boasted."
"What formula?"
Terry's voice deepened in mimicry: "'No petticoats for mine!'"
A moment he enjoyed the Major's embarrassment, then composed himselfto the business in hand, happy, confident.
But--the competent Terry fumbled. Swept away in the exuberance ofhaving found a way out for the Major, he had forgotten that, neverhaving exercised his legal privilege of joining in marriage in aprovince
where all of the natives were either Catholic or Mohammedan,he was wanting in the phraseology the ceremony demanded.
Vainly he sought inspiration in a sky chill with the pale lights ofdaybreak. He shuffled his feet nervously, scowled at the ring ofbrown-skinned spectators, looked at his watch. As the sweat of worryappeared upon his white forehead he drew his handkerchief and wipedhis face vigorously, then blew his nose resoundingly. This last deviceseemed to serve.
He turned to the serene couple who waited patiently: "Do you, JohnBronner, take this woman, Ahma--Ahma of the Hills, to be your lawfulwedded wife, to love and cherish and to--er--provide for?"
"I do," said the Major. He was proud of Terry--trust the Constabularyto see a thing through!
Terry was triumphant in his success. He unconsciously drew up hisslim, muscular figure as he turned to the bride, focussing his gazeupon the blossom in the waves of jet locks that tumbled smoothly aboutthe downcast head.
"And do you, Ahma of the Hills, take this man, John Bronner, to beyour wedded lawful husband, to love and to--er--care for whenhe--er--is sick?"
She caught the groom's whispered instructions and grasped thewonderful import of the unknown words that Terry had spoken. Twice hersilent lips formed the two words of response in soundless practice,then she looked up squarely into Terry's eyes and pronounced them.
"I do."
Either the clear voice was too rich with gladness, or else she shouldnot have turned the starry eyes so suddenly upon him. Lost for a longmoment in the splendor of the vision opened up to him, he forcedhimself back to the duty of the minute. But he was off the trackagain.
He floundered for an opening. Bits of biblical and legal phrasesraced through his tortured brain, but none seemed appropriate to thissituation. The haunt of the dark eyes obscured his vision, the limpid"I do," filled his ears. "I do." The significance of the words broughthim back to the point of interruption, and he turned to them,desperate, vague.
"You do? You do, eh--you both do ... well, ... join hands! I do sayand declare this twenty-third day of January that you are man and wifein accord with the law of this land, and now--"
He glared at the grinning beneficiary of the service, and finished:"And now--and now what I--what God and I have joined let no man putasunder ... till death do us part ... so help me God, Amen!"
In an agony of torment he ripped through the crowd and raced to theshack, where the Major joined him after taking Ahma into Ohto's house.It was now broad daylight, and the huts were emptying of the crowdwaking to take up the burden of fiesta.
Terry buckled up his pack, joining in the Major's mirth.
"But you are married all right. I will send you up a certificate assoon as I reach Zamboanga, all signed and sealed and everything."
They became serious in thought of imminent separation. Now that thetime had come Terry dreaded leaving his friend alone in the Hills.
"I will relieve you in three months, Major," he said.
"You needn't hurry--don't forget I'm on a honeymoon, too!"
Terry hesitated, then risked the question that had been botheringhim: "After we come--what are you going to do? Will Ahma be ready togo below?"
"No, she will not. I am figuring on leaving her here a fewmonths--your wife can teach her to--to dress, and all that. And Ican't take her away so long as Ohto lives. After that, I want to takeher to the States. She learns fast, Terry,--and I want her to seeEurope--she will learn a lot there, too!"
The old woman brought them their breakfast. The Major hurried throughthe meal and left to secure a guide to take Terry down, explainingthat he would join him in the woods. Terry ate under the sorrowingeyes of the faithful woman, and when he finished he presented her withthe only gaud that remained to him, the gold medallion from his fob.She scurried out to display it, the proudest woman, save one, in allthe Hills.
Slinging the pack across his shoulders he turned for a last look atthe little hut that had sheltered him. Within its cramped walls he hadsuffered, had known grave peril, and great joy. A hint of the oldwistfulness flickered about the corner of his mouth, then he left thehut and strode through the clearing into the woods, halting to wavecheerfully at the Hillmen who somberly watched the departure of theirfuture chief.
He dipped over the edge of the plateau and found the Major awaitinghim with Ahma and the young warrior who was to guide him down. Fromwhere they stood at the edge of a wide glade they could see far downover the tops of the trees that matted the slope. In the clear morningair the mists which gleamed over the distant Gulf shone white asbillowed snow. There lay Davao! Davao, then Zamboanga, then--! Afiercely glad light blazed in Terry's gray eyes, then darkened inanticipation of leaving the Major alone and with that melancholy withwhich all men face the knowledge that even as Life turns the pages ofexistence into its happiest chapter, she closes each finished pageforever.
The Major spoke first. "This guide knows the shortest route. He willtake you safe past all the man traps--you should sleep but one nighton the trail. Give my regards to Lindsey, Sears,--everybody."
Ahma looked from one to the other, not quite understanding what theysaid, but understanding fully what they did not say. That showed inthe face of each.
"Major, I have never said anything about your--how I feel about yourrisking the Hills to search for me, when it meant almost certaindeath."
Death!... For an instant the Major again stood helpless in the darkwoods behind Lindsey's plantation embraced in coils of steel thatquivered, and heard the crash of delivering shots.... He searched thewhite face, in which the lines of suffering from a chivalrouslycontracted fever still lingered. An extraordinary warm cataractsuddenly obscured his vision.
"Sus-marie-hosep!" he spluttered. "Good-by."
Their hands gripped hard in an abiding friendship, then Terry turnedto Ahma doubtfully, at a loss as to how to bid adieu to this creatureof the Hills who knew so few of the white man's words or usages. Hefound, too, a source of embarrassment in her new capacity of wife. Asshe gazed up at him he looked away in boyish confusion.
The Major grasped the situation and addressed her very slowly inEnglish: "Ahma, say good-by to him."
As she nodded brightly, understanding, the Major turned to Terry asproud as Punch: "You see--she is learning fast! Can't you imagine her,all dressed up and everything, in Europe?"
Terry focussed his eyes safely upon the white line that marked thepart in her hair, and carefully pronounced each English word.
"Ahma, I am leaving for a while. Understand?"
She bobbed the dark head: "I do," she said.
The memories wrought by the limpid "I do" were a bit unsettling. Headdressed the jet locks again: "Good-by."
She looked at the capable hand he extended toward her, puzzled at thegesture, then looked at the Major. He said a single word in dialectand her small white teeth glistened in a smile of comprehension. Sheapproached close to Terry.
"I know. You say--good-night. I know how--to good-night."
Her concentration upon the unaccustomed pronunciations was bewitching.To relieve the strain of embarrassment he felt in her closeness tohim, he turned to the grinning Major.
"As you say--she _does_ learn quickly," he offered, rather vaguely.
She came closer still. "Yes, I know--how to--good-night!" she trilled:"Good-night is kiss!"
She called it "Keez" but Terry understood. If he did not then he didan instant later when he felt the clasp of warm round arms, themolding pressure of a soft form and the swift impress of fullsensitive lips.
Loosed, he straightened up. His blush was explosive. Bewildered, heshrugged the light pack higher on his shoulders and gestured hisreadiness to the warrior who had stood watching the inexplicable waysof these strange white folk.
Following the Hillman, Terry set off across the glade. Midway down thegreen sward he wheeled.
"I should say she DOES learn fast!" he called. "You won't need to takeHER to Europe!"
The two stood watching him as he followed the powerful
little savage.As the forest swallowed up the slim form the Major blinked rapidly,and gripped the little hand he held.
"Sus-marie-hosep!" he exclaimed huskily. "But won't they be glad tosee him in Davao! And in Zamboanga!"
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FOX SKIN
Terry pushed the hardy Hillman to his limit, so that when night fellthey were far down among the foothills, the Dark Forest behind them.At daylight the Hillman was proudly mounting homeward, Terry's belttightly buckled about his naked trunk. The white man's lastdispensable possession had gone as a reward for the service.
Terry's joyous urge carried him swiftly, so that in an hour he droppedout of the foothills and into the heat of the jungled lowlands. Atnoon he climbed Sears' steps and dropped into a porch chair, hisclothes wet with perspiration and torn by contact with brush andthorn, for he had cut straight through the woods.
He had nearly emptied Sears' water bottle when he saw the big plantercoming out of a wonderful growth of hemp. Sears advanced slowly, deepin thought, not looking up till he had mounted the last step. At sightof Terry's grinning features he recoiled violently, then as the ladrose, he jumped forward to wring his hand furiously. Incapable ofcoherent speech for several minutes, he at last mastered his vocalcords.
"Man! I thought you were a ghost!" he cried.
Terry sketched his journey into the Hills, and added a brief accountof the experiences he and the Major had undergone. Learning that theMajor was also safe, Sears called a Bogobo boy and issued instructionsthat sent him scurrying into one of the Bogobo huts. In a few minuteshe returned bearing a small agong and striker.
Under Sears' directions he hung it upon a pole in front of the houseand struck it sharply, again and again. As the deep notes carried outthrough the still, hot woods Sears motioned to him to desist andturned to Terry.
"Listen!" he exclaimed, intent, his hand on Terry's shoulder.
In a moment another agong, somewhere close to the south, soundedseveral times, then another further away, then another, another. Soonthe noon stillness of the brush pulsed with the mystic multi-tones ofscores of far agongs rung from plantations. Slowly the murmur grew ashundreds of agongs rung by Bogobos in the foothills took up thesignal, flooding the hemplands with a glad, bronze chorus.
Sears gripped Terry's shoulder hard, his eyes brimming.
"That's the signal we fixed up," he said. "Welcome home!"
He hovered over Terry, questioning, commenting, incredulous over theMajor's marriage, overjoyed that the quinine he had given Terry hadbeen a factor in his recovery. After lunch Terry borrowed Sears' bestpony and rode away with the planter's profane benedictions in hisears.
He rode hard, but each familiar landmark, each twist in trail, eachsight of river, each expanse of glistening hemp plants, thrilled himwith a sense of homecoming. Once, drawing up to cool and water hispony, he caught the sparkle of the sunny Gulf, his nostrils sensed itstang, and with the surge of thanksgiving for the wonderful goodfortune that had attended him, he first realized the strain of thepast weeks.
Great as was his hurry to reach Davao--an hour's tardiness might meanthe loss of the weekly steamer--he spent a half-hour with Lindsey, whohad ridden out to the trail in the hope of intercepting him. FromLindsey he learned more of the suspense that had hung over the Gulfsince his disappearance, the deep anxiety that had spread among theBogobos and silenced every agong in the foothills.
"And Terry--the night the Giant Agong rang up there--we most wentcrazy!"
"We wondered if you heard it, Lindsey."
"Heard it! Heard it? It reached clear over on the East Coast. Boyntonheard it over there."
Terry pressed on. Three miles below he found Casey was out to meethim, and further on, Burns. At four o'clock he dismounted to greetsome Bogobos whom he overtook on the trail. Pushing Sears' littlebrown hard, he rode into Davao at five o'clock.
The plaza was crowded. Warned of his coming by the agong chorus, thewhole town had turned out, Americans, Filipinos, Chinese, severalSpaniards and Moros. The sleepy, dusty square waked to their noisywelcome.
"_El Solitario!! El Conquistador del Malabanan!_"
Laughing, misty eyed with the warmth of their greeting, he stood inthe center of the jostling crowd, shaking hands, calling each white,native and Mongolian by name. Then the Macabebes claimed him and swepthim into the privacy of the cuartel.
The jealous Matak had waited till Terry entered the house that hiswelcome might be unshared.
"Master, I know you come back. All time I know," he assured himgravely, then looked him over and sent out for the barber. Solemn andefficient as ever, he hustled his master under the shower, helped himinto the first starched clothes he had known in five weeks, then wentinto the kitchen to frighten the cook into greater haste inpreparation of dinner.
Barber shears, soap and clean linens restored Terry to his usualnattiness, and he delighted the cook with the zest with which heapproached a good dinner after the weeks of the crude andundiversified fare of the Hillmen. Halfway through dinner he beckonedto Matak who stood with folded arms near the kitchen door as matter offact as though the routine of the household had never been disturbed.
"Matak, when is the mail boat due?"
"She come this morning, go noontime."
And this was the twenty-fourth. Terry's keen disappointment wasapparent to the watchful Moro.
"Master, you want go to Zamboanga?" he said.
"Yes. I must go as soon as possible, Matak."
"Take little boat Major come in. She still here."
Terry jumped up from the dinner table and hurried to the dock andfound the speedboat tied up alongside. After a hurried conference withAdams he raced back to the house, where the forehanded Matak wasalready packing his bags. Terry added a steamer trunk which held hiscivilian clothes, and as dusk fell master and man stepped aboard thefrail craft. Adams was ready. A sharp thrust of foot quickened theengine into life, and they swung in a short circle. Straightening,motors roaring, the stern sucked deep as they sped in swift flightinto the south.
From his seat in the stern Terry watched the light fade out of thewestern sky. The stars invaded the deserted field and dimly outlinedthe rim of the mountains, a smooth line save where Apo reared high inthe west. For a moment the dark peak seemed lonely to him, but he knewthat the Major was happy on the pine clad height.... After Ohto'spassing, his own responsibility, the guidance of a child-tribe, wouldbe a heavy one ... a year of that, perhaps, and then--but first ...his heart throbbed in vivid realization of all that awaited him inZamboanga.
Adams hovered about his engines, happy in Terry's return and in thisopportunity to render him service. Matak stretched out on a crossseat, unhappy in the deafening roar of the motors and the rhythmicrise and fall of the speeding craft in the smooth landswells.
As they rounded Sarangani in the middle of the calm moonlit nightAdams left the cockpit long enough to cover Terry with a thickblanket, for he had succumbed to the monotonous chorus of the motorsand the lull of the bewitching night at sea.
As the calm weather held, Adams steered straight for Zamboanga,putting out to sea in the little motorboat. When Terry woke Basilanwas in sight, and at five o'clock they rushed down the tidal currentof the Straits and eased into the slip alongside the dock.
Adams, grimy, worn with his long vigil, grinned contentedly underTerry's warm thanks. Leaving Matak to secure a bullcart to transporthis luggage to the Major's house Terry hurried down the dock andentered the Government Building. The clerks had left for the day butat Terry's knock the Governor himself threw wide the door.
Profound thankfulness lit Mason's intellectual face. Grasping Terry'shand he led him into the office.
"And the Major?" he questioned.
"Well--and very happy, sir!"
Keen-eyed, observant, in the moment of welcome the Governor had sensedthe new Terry, read the new contentment and confidence manifest in hisface and bearing.
In a few minutes Terry had sketched his experiences to
his eagerauditor. The Governor contented himself with a bare outline, thoughhis eyes glistened. The Hills opened!
"Captain Terry," he said, "come in to-morrow and tell me thedetails--I will give you the entire morning. To-morrow I will try totell you how happy I am in your safe return, and in the service youhave rendered this Government."
He rose, beaming with the news it was his privilege to impart.
"You had best run along now, Captain. You will find threeanxious--friends--awaiting you at the Major's house. They expected toarrive to-morrow but caught the transport and docked yesterday. Theywill be relieved to see you, for I had to tell them something of theuncertainty we felt regarding your--whereabouts. Take my car, and runalong!"
And Terry ran along! He flew down the steps and into the automobileand in three minutes was leaping up the stairway into the Major'shouse.
Ellis, fatter, somehow absurd in tropic whites, met him at theentrance. Meeting halfway around the world from where they had parted,choking with the end of the dread suspense into which the Governor'sguarded references to Terry's disappearance had plunged him, Ellis'big heart thumped in glad relief, but true to the traditions of hislifetime environment he strove to repress it, to appear as casual asthough they had been in daily association. Pumping Terry's handspasmodically, he measured the ecstatic lad with extravagant care,studied him from crown to heel.
"Dick, how do you do it?" he asked.
"Do what, Ellis?" Terry's voice was unsteady, too.
"Keep so fit in this oven of a country--you're as hard as nails!"
Terry's unsteady laugh rang through the big bungalow: "Go on, youfakir--you're crying right now!"
Ellis was. He turned away as Susan rushed out of an adjoining room.Laughing, sobbing, she threw herself upon her brother, held him awayto study his appearance, hugged him tighter, pouring out a volume ofquestions she offered him no opportunity to answer.
Five minutes, and she recovered sufficient reason to catch thesignificance of Ellis' vehement gestures toward the second of the rowof four bedrooms that opened off the sala. Understanding, she leftTerry and followed Ellis into their room, closing the door with a bangintended as a signal to another who listened.
Terry waited, idly stroking the long frond of an air plant that hungin the wide window near where he stood. He wondered, vaguely, that heshould be so collected, almost unconcerned, in the face of whatawaited him. He saw the door open slowly, wider, then arrest as if thehand on the knob had faltered, and in the instant his self-possessiondeserted him.
His heart skipped a beat, then accelerated into a heavy thumping thatseemed to fill the room with pulsing muffled roar. He moistened hislips as the door moved again, opened wide.
Deane stepped into the room, pale, her wide blue eyes fixed upon him.Slender, rounded, white of arm and throat, she had fulfilledgloriously all of the fair promise of her youth. The rich heritage ofwomanhood had stamped the softly curved form and the sweetly pensiveface. Virginal, she was a mother of men.
He faced her from the window, powerless to move, to speak, but therewas that in his eyes that made words unnecessary. Scarce breathing,atremble, she saw the steady gray eyes blaze with a light no other hadever seen, ever would see.
To him she suddenly became unreal, and his mind reverted to anotherhour when they had stood facing each other. Again she stood beforehim in the dimlit hall, sobbing, and with the memory came a surgingrealization of what he might have lost. Unconsciously his last wordsto her, spoken that Christmas night, sprang brokenly to his lips as heheld out his arms:
"Don't wait, Deane-girl, don't wait."
With the sudden deepening of the wistful lines of his mouth she felt aburning rush of tears, and at his words she crossed to him, starryeyed, full red lips aquiver.
There never was a merrier party of four than theirs that night. Thequestions flew back and forth, answers clipped short by new and morepressing queries. Ellis and Susan were full of the newcomers' interestin the country, its peoples and customs. Deane, quieter, wasinterested most in Terry's work, in Davao, in the story of the Hills.Terry learned of the home friends. Father Jennings, Doctor Mather, Mr.Hunter, a score of others, had sent messages to him. Deane had broughtspecial greetings from his friends on the Southside, and a garishpicture of little Richard Terry Ricorro. Half of her larger trunk wasfilled with silver and linens which had poured in when news of thepurpose of her journey had sifted through Crampville.
They were seated on the cool veranda at coffee when the Governor's cardrew up outside the gate, and the chauffeur entered with a note.
Dear Captain Terry:
This car is yours throughout the stay of your--will not the word "family" soon properly cover all three of them?
Please use it freely. I have another entirely suited for my present needs.
I am very happy to-night, happy in your safe return and in the achievement you have wrought in the name of the Government it is my unmerited privilege to head. And this happiness will be the greater for knowing that you are driving through this glorious evening by the side of her who came so far to join her life with yours.
MASON.
After Terry had read the note aloud Deane added her pleas to his thatSusan and Ellis should share the car with them. But they would havenone of it. When Susan wavered, Ellis became emphatic.
So the two rode through the tropic night alone, that night and duringthe glorious evenings that followed for a week. They came to knowevery village along the ribboned roads, each grove of tall palms, eachstretch of beach where smooth highways ran along the coast. She lovedthe island empire.
They talked as such do talk. The third night, as they rolled throughthe moonlight down the San Ramon road, he found courage to broach theone subject he had hesitated to mention.
"The Governor wants me to stay a year," he faltered. "A year up in theHills."
She had expected it, was ready. She looked full up at him, and in thesoft light her lovely face shone with a strange beauty that humbledhim.
"Dick, 'and thy people shall be my people.'"
* * * * *
They planned their house in the Hills, bought and stored picturesqueodds and ends of furniture and fittings; brasses, embroideries,carved teak: and he outlined their honeymoon, which was to be athree-months' ramble through Japan, the magic lover's land. Theyarranged no exact itinerary, just a wandering through Miajima, Kyoto,Nikko,--a score of out of the way places.
The mornings he spent with the enthusiastic Governor, planning,discussing. Two tons of supplies went out to the Major the fourth day.
"I put in an assortment of presents for him to give to the Hillmen,"the Governor told him. "And plenty of matches--you say they went wildover those he packed up. They will be rich!"
"Governor, the Hillmen are the richest people I have ever seen."
The Governor was puzzled: "How?"
"They have everything they want. Land for the clearing, a spear,cotton growing wild on trees for such clothes as they wear, meat inthe forest, bamboo to cut for shelter against wind and rain, uplandrice springing up from barely scratched soils. No social striving, nopolitics, no taxes. All their wants are satisfied--was Croesus asrich?"
"Then you do not believe in civilizing them--it means introducing newwants--some of which they never will satisfy!"
"Yes, I do, Governor. Civilization means doctors, less suffering,longer life: schools and books: agriculture and better diet: commerceand clothes: churches, and morality--and soap!"
The day came when Terry and Deane drove down the San Ramon road wherethe Governor had preceded them, with Ellis and Susan and a score ofthe new friends they had made in Zamboanga. Wade had insisted that hisspacious bungalow be the scene of their wedding.
Even before he had wrought the house into a fairy-land of palm andcadena and hibiscus the great flowered sweeps of lawn and grove set bythe sea had been an ideal se
tting. Ellis, given his choice offunctions, had elected to officiate as best man, so the Governor washappy in giving the bride away. Susan cried, as matrons of honoralways do, as she stood with them in the fret-work of shadows underthe palms which stirred gently in the off-sea breeze.
None of those most concerned remembered many of the details of theevening, excepting Matak, who met there a young Moro maid and foundher fair.
They returned to Zamboanga under enchanting stars, and at nine o'clockthey saw Ellis and Susan leave, for they were returning home at oncethrough the Suez, taking steamer first for Borneo and Java. Their ownboat left an hour later for Manila, Hong Kong and Nagasaki.
Bidding Ellis good-by, Terry woke from the dream in which he had movedthrough the afternoon.
"Ellis, do not sell the shoe store. We may be home in a year, and I'llwant to pitch into something."
"But you'd never fool with that after--after all this over here!"
Terry laughed happily: "You never can tell, Ellis. I am learninglessons every day!"
Later, Ellis sought to dry Susan's tears. "Dick, you're a fine lover!After all these years of search for things for Deane you failed togive her a wedding gift!"
Terry flushed miserably, for it was true. But Deane thrilled the morehappily for the utter absorption in her that had expelled all otherthings from his mind: she knew that Susan had prompted him to bothengagement and wedding rings.
From the pier they watched Ellis and Susan at the rail till thealtering course of the brilliantly lighted steamer swept them fromsight.
An hour later their own liner carried them northward through the darkStraits.
The deck was deserted, dark. They sat close, in long steamer chairs,watching the mysterious coastline of Mindanao, the shadowy masses ofdistant mountains that seemed less substance than opaque obstructionof the warm, starry sky. Neither spoke. It was the hour of fullestgratitude, of mutual dedication. The night about them was filled withthat humming heard only on a big ship plowing through a calm sea aftersundown, the drone of light winds through lofty rigging, the heavyslipping of displaced water, the muffled roar of great enginesthrobbing in the deep hold.
Eight bells rang the midnight hour. Deane rose, whispering that shehad a few things to unpack, bidding him come in ten minutes. Leaningover him, she smoothed his hair lightly with her two hands, curlingabout her fingers the obstinate scalp lock that always would standforth from his crown. Reaching up, he took her cool hands and heldthem tightly against his cheeks. Releasing her, he watched theprogress of the buoyant form down the long deck, his soul lit with theflame that warms all mankind.
The moon, in its last quarter, peered over the dark rim of themountains. When its lower tip cleared, he rose.
When he joined her in their stateroom, her eyes filled happily as shewatched the fine, white face.
The fox skin lay on the cabin floor before her berth.
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[Transcriber's Notes:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully aspossible, including obsolete and variant spellings and otherinconsistencies. The transcriber made the following changes to thetext to correct obvious errors:
1. p. 70, "Sear interrupted" changed to "Sears interrupted"2. p. 81, "wierd-shaped" changed to "weird-shaped"3. p. 96, "guaged" changed to "gauged"4. p. 189, "move toward the fringe" changed to "moved toward the fringe"5. p. 200, "spit into two factions" changed to "split into two factions"6. p. 207, "beneath their eerie" changed to "beneath their aerie"7. p. 219, "the swind swept crag" changed to "the wind swept crag"
End of Transcriber's Notes]
Terry Page 17
