The Major grasped the situation and addressed her very slowly in English: "Ahma, say good-by to him."

As she nodded brightly, understanding, the Major turned to Terry as proud 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 the part in her hair, and carefully p.r.o.nounced 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. He addressed the jet locks again: "Good-by."

She looked at the capable hand he extended toward her, puzzled at the gesture, then looked at the Major. He said a single word in dialect and her small white teeth glistened in a smile of comprehension. She approached close to Terry.

"I know. You say--good-night. I know how--to good-night."

Her concentration upon the unaccustomed p.r.o.nunciations was bewitching.

To relieve the strain of embarra.s.sment he felt in her closeness to him, 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 did an instant later when he felt the clasp of warm round arms, the molding pressure of a soft form and the swift impress of full sensitive lips.

Loosed, he straightened up. His blush was explosive. Bewildered, he shrugged the light pack higher on his shoulders and gestured his readiness to the warrior who had stood watching the inexplicable ways of these strange white folk.

Following the Hillman, Terry set off across the glade. Midway down the green sward he wheeled.

"I should say she DOES learn fast!" he called. "You won't need to take HER 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 to see him in Davao! And in Zamboanga!"

CHAPTER XVIII

THE FOX SKIN

Terry pushed the hardy Hillman to his limit, so that when night fell they were far down among the foothills, the Dark Forest behind them.

At daylight the Hillman was proudly mounting homeward, Terry's belt tightly buckled about his naked trunk. The white man's last dispensable possession had gone as a reward for the service.

Terry's joyous urge carried him swiftly, so that in an hour he dropped out of the foothills and into the heat of the jungled lowlands. At noon he climbed Sears' steps and dropped into a porch chair, his clothes wet with perspiration and torn by contact with brush and thorn, for he had cut straight through the woods.

He had nearly emptied Sears' water bottle when he saw the big planter coming out of a wonderful growth of hemp. Sears advanced slowly, deep in thought, not looking up till he had mounted the last step. At sight of Terry's grinning features he recoiled violently, then as the lad rose, he jumped forward to wring his hand furiously. Incapable of coherent speech for several minutes, he at last mastered his vocal cords.

"Man! I thought you were a ghost!" he cried.

Terry sketched his journey into the Hills, and added a brief account of the experiences he and the Major had undergone. Learning that the Major was also safe, Sears called a Bogobo boy and issued instructions that sent him scurrying into one of the Bogobo huts. In a few minutes he returned bearing a small agong and striker.

Under Sears' directions he hung it upon a pole in front of the house and struck it sharply, again and again. As the deep notes carried out through the still, hot woods Sears motioned to him to desist and turned to Terry.

"Listen!" he exclaimed, intent, his hand on Terry's shoulder.

In a moment another agong, somewhere close to the south, sounded several times, then another further away, then another, another. Soon the noon stillness of the brush pulsed with the mystic multi-tones of scores of far agongs rung from plantations. Slowly the murmur grew as hundreds of agongs rung by Bogobos in the foothills took up the signal, flooding the hemplands with a glad, bronze chorus.

Sears gripped Terry's shoulder hard, his eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g.

"That's the signal we fixed up," he said. "Welcome home!"

He hovered over Terry, questioning, commenting, incredulous over the Major's marriage, overjoyed that the quinine he had given Terry had been a factor in his recovery. After lunch Terry borrowed Sears' best pony and rode away with the planter's profane benedictions in his ears.

He rode hard, but each familiar landmark, each twist in trail, each sight of river, each expanse of glistening hemp plants, thrilled him with a sense of homecoming. Once, drawing up to cool and water his pony, he caught the sparkle of the sunny Gulf, his nostrils sensed its tang, and with the surge of thanksgiving for the wonderful good fortune that had attended him, he first realized the strain of the past weeks.

Great as was his hurry to reach Davao--an hour's tardiness might mean the loss of the weekly steamer--he spent a half-hour with Lindsey, who had ridden out to the trail in the hope of intercepting him. From Lindsey he learned more of the suspense that had hung over the Gulf since his disappearance, the deep anxiety that had spread among the Bogobos and silenced every agong in the foothills.

"And Terry--the night the Giant Agong rang up there--we most went crazy!"

"We wondered if you heard it, Lindsey."

"Heard it! Heard it? It reached clear over on the East Coast. Boynton heard it over there."

Terry pressed on. Three miles below he found Casey was out to meet him, and further on, Burns. At four o'clock he dismounted to greet some Bogobos whom he overtook on the trail. Pushing Sears' little brown hard, he rode into Davao at five o'clock.

The plaza was crowded. Warned of his coming by the agong chorus, the whole town had turned out, Americans, Filipinos, Chinese, several Spaniards and Moros. The sleepy, dusty square waked to their noisy welcome.

"_El Solitario!! El Conquistador del Malabanan!_"

Laughing, misty eyed with the warmth of their greeting, he stood in the center of the jostling crowd, shaking hands, calling each white, native and Mongolian by name. Then the Macabebes claimed him and swept him into the privacy of the cuartel.

The jealous Matak had waited till Terry entered the house that his welcome might be unshared.

"Master, I know you come back. All time I know," he a.s.sured him gravely, then looked him over and sent out for the barber. Solemn and efficient as ever, he hustled his master under the shower, helped him into the first starched clothes he had known in five weeks, then went into the kitchen to frighten the cook into greater haste in preparation of dinner.

Barber shears, soap and clean linens restored Terry to his usual nattiness, and he delighted the cook with the zest with which he approached a good dinner after the weeks of the crude and undiversified fare of the Hillmen. Halfway through dinner he beckoned to Matak who stood with folded arms near the kitchen door as matter of fact 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 was apparent to the watchful Moro.

"Master, you want go to Zamboanga?" he said.

"Yes. I must go as soon as possible, Matak."