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 cla.s.sics for sepulchral pa.s.sages, 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 of the 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.

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 pa.s.sed from hand to hand till it reached Terry. He studied it, his head c.o.c.ked 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 a few 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 att.i.tude 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 cla.s.sic barnstorming att.i.tude and read his creation.

"CASEY"

The palm-fringed gulf of fair Davao-- The garden-spot of Mindanao-- Has been the Theater where Surprise Has pried apart our mouth and eyes.

But bounteous Nature, in her last, Has all her former deeds surpa.s.sed!

What now are Burbank's grafting deeds Marconi's stunts, whose genius speeds A message on a wireless tack And makes of s.p.a.ce a jumping-jack?

Where now does Edison hold sway?

Or radium's finder, Pierre Curie?

Does not this deed alone suffice To render all that men or mice Have wrought since days of Tubal Cain Infinitesimal, and vain?

No man before has seen a dam Provide the rudiments for a ham.

And not content with razor-backs Produce a quota for the tracks.

It seems like thistles yielding figs-- A blooded mare with sixteen pigs!

And Truth receives a serious jolt To find the seventeenth a colt!

Can anything on earth compare With this performance of a mare?

But hold! For while I eulogize, There is another claims a prize And puts to shame all gone before; I mean this humble Yankee boar!

What lowly hog did yet aspire To 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 edition A hint of such high pig-ambition!

Had he but lived in days gone by When Richard raised his voice on high And offered Kingdom for a Horse, To him he might have had recourse....

Imagine bristly Berkshire swine Upon the throne of Coeur de Lion!!

But, while we give our meed of praise To 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 head Outdid, when all is done or said, That cla.s.sic stunt--the herculean Minerva sprung from Jovian bean!

Where else but in the Philippines Amid these sunny tropic scenes That 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 br.i.m.m.i.n.g measure full He 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!

CHAPTER X

MALABANAN

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 hooked in 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 sh.o.r.e down which they rode. The tireless ponies--crooked of leg but splendid of head and eye in true indications of their heritage of coa.r.s.e 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 significantly at 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 rea.s.sured 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.