CHAPTER XI
INTO THE FORBIDDEN HILLS
Terry's two black pistols, canteen and packed saddle bags lay on thetable. Without a word he snapped holster and canteen into his beltholes and the Sergeant picked up the bags and extra gun. As he blewout the light Terry first realized that dawn had come. They hurriedsilently to the cuartel, in front of which the sixteen impatientMacabebes were drawn up, each equipped for the field and holdingsaddled ponies. As he drank the coffee that the thoughtful Mercado hadprepared for him Terry gestured questioningly toward the ponies.
"I knew you would want to travel fast, sir, so I borrowed these poniesfrom planters. They are very angry about the ladrones, sir, and wereglad to help." He found ample reward for his foresight in Terry'sunspoken commendation.
Several brown heads appeared at windows to stare after the littlecavalcade that trotted down the side of the plaza at daylight and tookthe west trail into the brush. It was not a smart outfit, it lackedall of the flourish and the trappings of parade, but it did look eagerto use the carbines that flapped from pommel straps. Terry's compactgray set the pace for the dauntless men who rode behind him, and theSergeant brought up the rear snapping sharp-voiced invectives thatwithered three over-zealous riders.
A long trail lay before them. Terry maintained a steady trot that ateup the miles. The day grew hot, the brush thicker. Twice he halted thecolumn to water the ponies at shallow fords: once he stopped to smoothsaddle blankets and resaddle.
He felt the heat intensely. His skin seemed dry and hot, and heslanted his campaign hat low over his eyes to dim the glare of the sunand relieve the strain on his eyeballs, which ached fiercely. Hispony, having worked off its excess of spirit, settled down into atireless pace that tested the picked mounts the planters had selectedas their best, and the miles passed in silence save for staccatopounding of hoofs on hard packed earth and the swish of underbrushthat lined the narrow crooked trail.
At noon he drew up at Sears' plantation to freshen men and beasts.Sears tore out to meet them, greeted Terry enthusiastically and raninside again to hurry his cook while Terry superintended the care ofthe ponies. When Sears' foreman bore the soldiers into the cookshackfor a hot dinner of rice and fish Terry passed up the high stairwayand into the cool house, there to sink into a big chair, faint.
Sears was energetically speeding his boy in the laying of his"company" linens and silver. He lumbered over to Terry and in hisenthusiasm shook hands again. Feeling the hand hot to his touch, heglanced keenly down into the burning eyes.
"Man, you're sick! You shouldn't be out in the sun in thiscondition!"
Terry mustered a weak laugh but Sears insisted: he poured out a stiffdrink of Scotch and when Terry refused this he half wrecked hismedicine chest in search of aspirin. He found only two tablets, andthese Terry swallowed obligingly, finding almost instant relief as theperspiration cooled his parched skin.
Sears' anxious hospitality suffered during lunch as despite a braveshow of appetite Terry ate nothing, but briefly outlined the situationthat was taking him into the foothills.
"So they are coming this way?" Sears exclaimed. "I hadn't heard it yetbut I knew something was up. Last night some Bogobos--they are fine tome since you--since I--" he floundered a moment, "I mean they're fineto me. Well, anyway, last night they came to tell me that two strangenatives, both armed, had ridden past here toward the foothills: didn'tknow who the pair were--you may, though, as they described one ashavin' a white eye."
Terry nodded: "That is Malabanan, Sears."
Sears whistled: "Pwhew! I am gettin' some likely neighbors--probablythe other was his side-kicker, that laughin' devil of a Sakay! Well,anyway, that's not all, Lieutenant. About two hours ago my foreman sawyour Moro boy, Matak. He was ridin' that black pony of yours andstopped to ask my foreman if he had seen two natives ridin' by,describin' Malabanan. Then he beat it after 'em."
Terry was watching through the open window and when he saw his menemerge from the shack he rose apologetically, listening attentivelywhile Sears told him the best trail to the three abandoned shacksthat Terry sought. Sears, distressed in the helpless way of physicallybig men, detained him while he refilled his canteen with fresh waterand sought Terry's habits long enough to again try to press a Scotchupon him.
"Sears, that aspirin fixed me up. I wish you would give me a couplemore of those tablets."
Further search proved fruitless, he had no more. He turned to Terrywith a sorrow out of all proportion to the situation.
"Lieutenant, I haven't got any more. But here's some quinine--take afew grains every few hours--it may help you."
Terry thrust the vial of capsules into his shirt pocket and afterthanking Sears hastened outside to where his men were tighteninggirths under the watchful Sergeant's eye. Sears hovered over Terry,offering advice, expostulating, as Terry mounted and gathered rein.
"Lieutenant," he said, "you know the ford is just above the pool theycall the 'Crocodile Hole.' Cross the ford, come back along the bank,and you'll find a trail leadin' to the three shacks in the woods."
"I know, Sears. Thanks. Good-by."
"_Adios_," Sears called. Then he stood watching the little band trotthrough the gate and into the woods. His eyes moistened, he raised hisbig fist against an invisible foe.
"If they get him--" he muttered through lips that trembled unashamed,"if they get that boy--that sick boy, I'll--I'll--we'll ... and Ididn't have any medicine for him--the only thing he ever asked mefor--or ever asked anybody for!"
* * * * *
For the first time Terry urged the gray. Matak over two hours ahead ofhim and mounted on the next best pony in the Gulf ... Malabanan hoursahead of Matak, riding toward the Ledesma girl held for him in one ofthe three shacks.... He pushed the pony hard across the openclearings, recklessly forced him through the underbrush that infrequent areas obliterated the trail. They were now well inland andmounting a perceptible grade toward the foothills: the sluggish streamthey had paralleled all day ran swift here. Once, where the trailtwisted near the bank, they heard the rush of rapids, and a milefarther on they came in sight of a curiously soundless waterfull. Theyhad reached the Bogobo country but the afternoon quiet was unbroken bythe sound of agongs. Fear had reached the foothills.
His pony was too much for the courageous but smaller mounts of theMacabebes and Terry gradually drew ahead. He must overtake Malabananbefore nightfall.... Ledesma had not put his confidence into words,but he had looked it--had trusted him ... the pony's head and neckdripped, a welt of lather fringed the saddle blanket over the withersand down both shoulders. The Sergeant, seeing his men fall behind,galloped up into the lead and cursed them on with graphic phrasesculled from the English, Spanish and Malay tongues. But it wasuseless: the gray pony carried its desperately anxious rider fasterthan their jaded mounts could travel. Terry drew out of sight, butthey rode on.
All through the afternoon Terry had been dimly conscious that theheadache had returned, that his face was flushed and hot, but the fastpumping blood seemed to energize his faculties. Never had he felt sokeyed-up, so sinewy of nerve.
The hours flew with the miles. At five o'clock he crashed out of thewoods into an open spot where the trail bent down toward the river toskirt a deep black pool--the Bogobos' Crocodile Hole, which none ofthem would ever approach. It was a roughly circular depressionextending from bank to bank, a hundred feet in diameter; it lay justbelow the ledge of rock that made a low-water ford but which, at highwater, was the brink of a falls which had worn a deep hole in the softriver bottom.
Terry slowed his steaming pony as he rounded the pool. Stories that hehad overheard flashed across his mind, ghastly stories whispered bytremulous native lips into credulous brown ears, of the size of theThing which dwelt here, of its age, its incredible scaly length andgirth, its patient devilish cunning; of the toll it had taken of threegenerations, tales you would not care to hear--like that of the oldblind Bogobo who lost his way, and groping for the trail
with nakedhands--no, you would not care to hear such appalling tales.
Riding the river ledge above the pool he glanced down into the deep,quiet waters but his thoughts snapped back to the present as his ponybalked at the edge of the ford. The gray had never balked at water,and attributing the display of vice to fatigue, he tried to gentle himinto the shallow water, then touched him with spur--minutes wereprecious now. Driven by the steel, the gray stepped gingerly into thestream, took several steps, then snorted as he wheeled back to thebank. Terry swung him back sharply and sent the spur deep into theflanks of the trembling beast: half wild with the unaccustomedpunishment he dashed into the water and splashed across in frightenedbounds that took him up the opposite bank into the brush.
Terry brought the pony round and stroked its neck soothingly to calmthe unaccountable terror apparent in the nervous tossing of head anddistension of red nostrils. As he guided him along the bank a sound ofdisturbed water brought Terry's head up sharply: heavy ripples circledaway from a spot near the opposite shore just under the ford. As hepeered keenly he discerned the indistinct outline of something thatlooked like a heavy log sink slowly into the dark depths. The ponyfretted until they left the river-bank to follow an old trail that ledinto the woods.
Here Terry held him to a walk, riding cautiously, pausing at each turnof the trail to scrutinize every inch of brush intently, ears alert tofaintest sound. He knew he was nearing the deserted huts. He advancedseveral hundred yards thus, searching for the clearing, listening.Discerning well ahead a space where the sky was open above a clearedarea he dismounted, hurriedly knotted the reins to a sapling, snatchedhis extra pistol from the saddle holster, then crept forward throughthe early forest twilight, wary, both pistols at full cock.
Creeping round the first bend in the trail he searched the nearthickets with penetrating keenness: he knew Malay treachery. His eyes,flashing from side to side, focussed upon a dim, motionless figureoutlined in the shadow beneath the trunk of a large tree that stood onthe edge of the clearing. His back was to Terry and he seemedengrossed in some silent drama that was being enacted in the clearingout of Terry's field of vision.
Terry crept toward him soundlessly and when he had covered half of thedistance that separated them he was overjoyed to recognize him asMatak. As Terry's lips parted in a low call, Matak glided from thetree like a swift shadow just as a shriek of pain and terror rent thesilence of the woods, followed by a vowelled curse and the sound of aheavy hand on naked flesh.
As Terry sprang forward to the edge of the clearing he heard behindhim the distant sound of ponies driven recklessly through theunderbrush, and knew that the Macabebes were coming up!
He halted at the edge of the clearing, unobserved by the crowd ofbandits who had sprung out of the three disused huts when Matak leapedinto the open: with ready rifles and bolos they awaited the command oftheir white-eyed leader, who stood in front of them, startled, butcoolly confronting the Moro. Ledesma's daughter, who had fallen underMalabanan's heavy blow, staggered to her feet and ran blindly intothe arms of a laughing rough whom Terry recognized as Malabanan'scompanion at the dock--the sardonic Sakay.
For a moment the tableau held. Terry could not see Matak's face but heheard the tense fury of the voice:
"Malabanan, you speak English?"
Malabanan looked him over insolently before answering: "Yes."
Moro met Tagalog in the Bogobo's country on the common ground of theAmerican-brought English tongue!
"Malabanan, you know me?"
"No."
"You remember one night--nine years now--on Basilan? You remember killold man, old woman, then girl on boat? You remember kill little boy,too, and throw in sea?"
The Moro's voice dripped with the released passions of nine years ofbrooding over terrible wrongs. As he saw the light of recollectionappear in the desperado's dark face, he struggled to speak the wordsthat had been dammed up so long:
"Malabanan, I am that boy.... Now you die!"
He snatched the long knife from the scarf knotted about his waist inMoro fashion, his knees bending under him in a tigerish crouch as heslowly circled toward his powerful enemy. Malabanan drew his greatbolo with a contemptuous sneer at the little Moro and before Terrycould have interfered had he wished, they leaped at each other. Matakdodged down under the first awful sweep of the gleaming bolo and ashe came up he struck at Malabanan, not with the classic downwardstroke, but UP!
As the glittering blade went home, deep, Malabanan threw the Moro fromhim with a convulsive heave that crashed him senseless against thestump of a charred tree. His colorless left eye, lusterless in strangecontrast to the baleful fire that glowed in the right, Malabanangathered his fast ebbing strength in a last effort and staggeredtoward the unconscious Moro, his glittering weapon upraised, heedlessof the pale American who stepped out with a rasping: "Halt!"
But he sank limp as Terry's heavy pistol roared a message he didheed--though never heard--sagging down to sprawl across the Moro'slegs.
Terry leaped full into the clearing and covered the ladrones, whostood paralyzed by the swiftness of the tragedy, stunned by thedramatic appearance of the young American whose pistols were famedthroughout the Gulf, and as they hesitated the Macabebes smashed outof the fringe of timber, threw themselves off their reeking ponies andmoved to surround the band.
Sakay, supporting the girl as a screen, drew back toward the nearestof the huts and opened fire at Terry with a rifle. The ladronesscattered for cover and in a minute the woods rang with theirfusillade and with the deadly volleys sent in answer by the Macabebes.
It was a brief combat. Though outnumbered nearly two to one thesoldiers were disciplined and highly trained marksmen. In a moment sixof the bandits were on the ground, nine threw up their hands insurrender and the balance fled through the woods. The Sergeant, whohad been slugging away with his rifle with a calculating attention tothe details of marksmanship belied by the fierce joy in his brilliantblack eyes, ceased firing at Terry's shouted command and detachedeight of his man, who caught up some frightened ponies and racedthrough the woods to head off the fleeing brigands.
Sakay, using the fear-crazed girl as a shield from behind which toshoot at Terry, found his aim thwarted by her struggles. Seeing Terryadvancing straight upon him and fearful of exposing himself to thefire of the two black pistols, he dropped his rifle and holding thegirl directly in front of him, called out in English:
"I surrender! I surrender! I surrender, Lieutenant!"
His deep anxiety subsiding when he realized that he would suffer noimmediate harm, Sakay threw the girl from him with a brutal force thatsent her prostrate and was promptly rewarded by the husky Mercado, whohad been under American tutelage long enough to understand the virtueand the technique of what is vulgarly known as "a good swift kick."
The Sergeant escorted Sakay into the group of prisoners rounded up bythe four soldiers and set them to digging a grave for the six, who,with Malabanan, would "never appear before the court." In a fewminutes the pursuit party rode into the clearing herding all but threeof the criminals who had fled: those three were carried in and placedalongside the grave.
Terry worked over Matak, who had been merely stunned. In a few minutesthe Moro recovered fully and went back to secure Terry's pony, whichhe had abandoned near the ford.
While the Sergeant attended to the duties of identification and burialof the dead Terry led the girl into one of the huts and quietlycomforted her. She told him of the ordeal of her forced journeythrough the greater part of a day and a night, of the captors wholeered at her but remained aloof because of fear of Malabanan, ofbeing waked from sleep at Malabanan's arrival just before Matakappeared. Malabanan and Sakay, worn with the night's ride, had stoppedduring the noon hours to rest in the woods.
When it came time to go, Terry placed the girl on his pony, declininganother mount, as his head now ached too fiercely to withstand joltingin the saddle. He set off in the lead, afoot, followed by theprisoners under escort, Mercado bringing
up the rear with the girl.
As they neared the ford Terry heard a sharp out-cry from one of theguards, followed by the sharp crack of a rifle. Whirling, he saw thebrush on his right agitated by the movements of a figure that crashedunseen through the tangle of vegetation. Two soldiers flung themselvesoff their ponies and leaped in pursuit, pausing fruitlessly for sightof the fleeing form and dashing on with trailed rifles. The aggressiveMercado galloped up, shouting an explanatory "Sakay!" as he chargedstraight into the brush.
Terry sped down the trail toward the river, emerging on the bank justas the lithe Sakay burst from the brush. Laughing derisively at TerrySakay leaped toward the stream, reached the bank in four great boundsand leaped far out from the low edge. As the bandit's powerful bodycurved in the air Terry's pistol barked twice before the supple formstraightened to strike the pool in a perfect dive.
Terry leaped down the bank to cover Sakay when he should rise. Leaningover the ledge he distinguished the white-clad figure slidinggracefully through the dark depths with the momentum of the dive: tenfeet, twenty, thirty, then it slowed, started to rise.
But as he watched, tense ... there was a rush of a massive armoredbody through the shadowed depths, a great scaly thing swirled thelimpid pool, a flash of hideous teeth--and the white form was gone.
Spellbound with the unutterable horror of what he had seen, Terrywatched the waters become quiet again, but turned away, aghast, whenbubbles rose like tiny silver globes against the jet depths. When heturned back there were no more bubbles.
He sank down on the bank, sickened. The Macabebes had come up withtheir meek prisoners and waited at the ford, restless, their eyesfixed on the oily pool. Even Mercado was anxious to be gone.Unaffected by the terrible fate of the bandit he had hunted, he viewedthe approach of sunset with vague concern, for this was the nearestthat he had ever been to the edge of the Hill Country.
Terry strove to rise, and at last realized that he was ill. He sankback, dazed with the sudden force of a fever that coursed through hisbody achingly, that throbbed in his head with a tumultuous roar. Hetried again, but fell back, dizzy. He rested till his head cleared,then sat up and called Mercado to him. His voice came weak.
"Sergeant," he explained, "I do not feel--like going in to-night. Youpush on--rest at Sears' to-night. Keep the prisoners in his corralunder guard. He will look after Senorita Ledesma and the men. Tell himthat I request that he come here and dynamite this pool--thoroughly.Push on to Davao next morning and send for Ledesma to get hisdaughter; and if I am not there by that time, you send a brief reportof this affair to Zamboanga. Understand?"
"Yes, sir, but you look sick, sir!" A quick concern flooded theMacabebe's heavy face.
"Yes--I do not feel--very well. I am going to cut across country toget to Doctor Merchant tonight. It is only six miles straight throughthe woods."
The Macabebe led his charges across the ford, then, worried, returnedto Terry's side. Reassured somewhat by the brave smile, he mountedafter receiving a final injunction to take Matak in with him if theyovertook him. As the Macabebes herded their cowed prisoners into thewoods across from where he lay, Terry lay prone in another of theintermittent surges of mounting fever that robbed him of his strengthand faculties.
When the wave of fever subsided he rose weakly, took his bearings bythe low sun and crossing the ford struck straight into the woods inthe direction he knew Dalag to lie. Entrance into the deep woodsbrought instant twilight. He had covered a mile when a resurgent tideof fever brought him down on the thick carpet of dead leaves thatcovered the darkening forest floor, and for several minutes he laygripped in the sickening spasm that rioted through his veins androbbed him of all reason. When it passed he rose dizzily to stumble onunder the trees, which reached up toward a sky glorious with theflaming reds and deep pinks that mark the passing of a hot day overthe Celebes Sea.
He staggered on, conscious only of the necessity of getting to thedoctor and of the agonizing explosions in his head which threatened torend his skull asunder at each jarring footfall. The sky grayed,darkened. Dusk found him a short quarter-mile further on, whereanother surge of raging temperature brought him low. Another followedswiftly. When he rose at last, night had wrapped the thick woods inits black mantle, and he was no longer conscious of direction, or ofpurpose, or of self. He stumbled along dazedly, trying to recall thepurpose that had taken him into the woods.
The paroxysms passed. The fever had reached a consistent high level,lending him a singular buoyancy of body and of spirit, but his reasonwas gone. He walked faster and faster, his vision keen under the darkcanopy, his mind racing with disordered ideas, a kaleidoscope of longdisplaced memories. Often he stopped short, puzzled, vainly strivingto stem the fugitive currents of conceits in his efforts to rememberwhat purpose had brought him here. His head throbbed. He kept stepwith each pulsing ache--it seemed to help. He hurried on through thenight.
The way grew steeper, always he traveled up the ascent. Flooded withthe hot energy that swept through his arteries, each passing hourseemed to add to the fires that fed his strength.
The gray beams of early dawn, filtering through a now taller vault offorest, found him far up the slope and mounting still steeper grades.He could not quite remember what his mission was ... something thatthe Governor wanted, he thought, something he, too, wanted to do ...or was it a Christmas present for Deane....
He climbed higher, laughing, singing, talking loudly. Stumbling over alog his burning eyes had not seen, he turned in grotesque humor tooffer curtsy and abject apology, then hastened on upward. Later,carroming from a huge tree he had hit head on, he addressed it ingrave good humor: "Please keep to the right." His flushed face purplein the green light of the deep woods, he hurried on, again worryingover the nature of his forgotten mission and hysterically impressedwith its importance.
The sun rose high overhead but it was twilight in the deep forestthrough which he clambered, over decayed logs, through rankovergrowth, past little streams of filthy water flowing in sullensilence through channels overgrown with moss. No sounds of forest lifechallenged the vast silence of the damp and cheerless vault of green,no song of bird or shrill thrumming of insects that makes the tropicalforest a palpitant discordance during the hot hours of the day.
His laughter rang mockingly through the shadowed silence, the loudvagaries of his delirium carried far tinder the overhang of tunneledfoliage.
"It's all right, Sears ... poor little fox, you won't ... you need notworry about me, Doctor ... on Sunday, too--snowshoes and all.... LOOKOUT MAJOR!... and we need you here, Dick,--Ellis and Susan, FatherJennings, the foreigners--all of us...."
Always he kept his face turned toward the heights, and climbed. Theafternoon, waning, found him groping slowly upward, the furious energyof his fever wearing off. His voice was weaker but he babbledunceasingly, through dry lips parted in set fever-grin.
"I hope I did not miss, Sakay. I hope I did not miss.... 'Imaginebristly Berkshire swine upon the throne of Coeur de Lion!'--and ifthey make a break, SMASH 'EM!... Don't wait, Deane, don't wait."
Unaware of the ill omened forms which, surrounding him while still thesun was high overhead, had kept apace all afternoon with hisslackening gait, he halted under a huge tree, leaning against thetrunk in sudden weariness. His voice, weak, tremulous, carried to anaudience he could not see:
Just to know that years so fair might come again, Awhile ...
Oh! To thrill again to your dear voice-- Your smile....
At the end of the song his hoarse laughter rasped through, the woods.He sank down, tried to rise, then lay where he had fallen beneath thegreat tree. He lay still while the last white rays of the dying sunfaded from the topmost leaves far overhead, heedless of the narrowingcircle of eyes which flashed in the dusk.
Then, as he weakly pressed a hot hand against his scalding eyes in agesture of pain that was infinitely pathetic, the Hill People closedin.