Terry

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

He saw that the wind had blown shut the door into Terry's room.
Knowing his habit of ventilation he rose to open it, and as it swung
ajar he saw that Terry was not there.

He stood in the dim room a moment, staring out of the window at the
triple rows of huts which the moonlight had transformed into elfin
playhouses. Perplexity as to Terry's whereabouts gave way to deep
anxiety. Then his eyes caught the flicker of something white in the
shadowy grove that fronted Ohto's house. Looking closely, he watched
it flutter away among the trees, then a darker figure emerged from the
spot.

It was Terry.

The Major's big hands closed hard upon the bamboo sill. Ahma! Terry!
For the first time in his passionless life he felt the fangs of the
green-eyed monster.

An impulse to deceive, unusual with him, hurried the Major into the
folds of his blanket before Terry entered, but by the time Terry had
thrown himself upon his couch the Major was ashamed of the duplicity
and spoke to uncover the deceit.

"Terry, what was that infernal sound that waked me up a while ago?"

"The gale playing on the Agong, Major."

The Major said no more but tossed on the hard couch until daylight
shot through the trees. He rose at once and in a few minutes Terry
joined him, a little hollow-eyed with fatigue. The Major pointed at
his soiled shirt and breeches, then at the soaked leggings and shoes.

"Man, you're a sight! Fall in the creek?"

Terry grinned contentedly. "No. This waiting was getting
monotonous--so I fixed up a sign for them!"

"That infernal noise, you mean?"

"No. The wind always does that."

"Well, what did you do?"

Terry's grin broadened. "I'm not going to spoil it for you by telling,
but if you stick around you'll see a sizeable 'natural' phenomenon
within a day or so. In the east, too, the most favorable quarter!"

The Major could extract nothing further from him, so desisted after an
irate: "Well, you let me in on these stunts after this. You're all
in--and here I lay sleeping all night!"

Terry sobered. "Major, we did not need you--we got along all right."

"We?" Heartsick, the Major sought to plunge the iron deeper. But Terry
had slipped out to clean up at the creek before the girls should come.

That morning they noted that for the first time a number of warriors
hung around the village, watching the hut where the white men lived
with a studied insolence that proved their hostility. Pud-Pud was of
them, and loudest in his talk. At noon a large crowd had gathered,
composed of those most inimical to the strangers.

While the two stood near the entrance to their shack watching the
eddying currents of almost naked humanity they saw Pud-Pud detach
himself from his companions and swagger toward them, spear in hand.

The crowd watched him eagerly as he advanced to test the mettle of the
pale outlanders: Pud-Pud had boasted that he would end this suspense.

The insolent savage advanced, stopped ten feet from them and
brandished his weapon, his attitude one of utter contempt. He spat at
them.

Rage suffused the Major's face and his hand crept into his shirt
front, but before he could withdraw the gun Terry whispered a
restraining caution.

"I know him, Major,--a grandstander."

Terry stepped in front of the Major and returned the savage's stare. A
moment they battled, then the Hillman saw something in the white face
that disconcerted him, so that his offensive black eyes lost their
hint of insult, wavered, fell. As Terry moved toward him slowly,
Pud-Pud hesitated, then gave way before the stern visage of the
approaching American.

Terry, boring him with cold gray eyes, came faster: retreating rapidly
to maintain his distance from the white man, Pud-Pud hurried his
backward pace toward the ring of silent Hillmen who watched them.
Heedless of his steps, conscious only of an overwhelming desire to
maintain a safe distance from this purposeful white man whom he had
affronted, Pud-Pud backed away, eyes fastened upon the pale avenger.

Moving suddenly to the right, Terry forced him to alter the direction
of his hurrying footsteps. The rapid heels hit a bowlder and Pud-Pud
fell backward into one of the cooking places, his spear flying
aimlessly into the air as the sitting portions of his anatomy came
into contact with the red hot stones.

One howl and one swift contortion of outraged flesh lifted him from
the spot and he escaped through the crowd, followed by the mocking
laughter of the Hillmen. Terry picked up the spear and crossed the
circle of savages to hand it to the largest and loudest savage in the
group to which the braggart had belonged. He looked him full in the
eye with a significance fully understood by the onlookers, then
turned his back upon him and returned to the Major.

The Major was convulsed: "I saw what you--had in mind--when you
circled him toward it," he laughed. "It must have been hot with
nothing but a red G-string between his rump and those coals!"

But the incident was significant of the attitude of many of the
Hillmen. Inside the hut they examined their pistols carefully, Terry
insisting that the Major take two of his extra magazines.

The Major, in grim mood, left for a long walk. In crossing the
clearing he purposely cut straight toward a group of warriors who at
the last moment stepped sullenly aside to let him pass. Surlily
pleased with his little victory, he crossed the broad plateau and
struck down the slope, unconscious of his direction in the worried
fumbling of his problems and his hurt. He started down the first great
incline, distrait, sorely troubled. He crossed a green expanse where
grass had sprung up over the site of an abandoned clearing, and as he
reached the trees which marked its edge he was startled by the sudden
appearance of two Hillmen who stepped out to confront him, pointing
their spears toward the village in unmistakable gesture.

As he angrily struck another course he realized for the first time how
complete his absorption in Ahma had become. He had forgotten that he
and Terry were prisoners, had lost sight of the mission that had
brought him into the Hills.

Chastened, he slowly retraced his way to the edge of the woods and sat
down upon a windfall to think it all out. He blamed only himself. Her
interest in him, he thought dully, had been but a friendship natural
toward the friend of the one for whom she cared. Little things came
back to him: her expression when she watched Terry approach, the
sympathy that existed between them, little understandings which he had
attributed to nothing more than longer acquaintance. It suddenly
occurred to him that she had helped nurse him when he was ill. And it
came to him that he had given little thought to the days when Terry
had fought off death, had been heedless of what those days must have
been when Terry looked from the mountain deep into the valley of the
shadow, he groaned aloud.

He shook his head, miserably: "Here I've been, mooning around like
a--like a--and left him to do all the worrying--all the planning! Last
night I slept while he--" He cursed himself for a fatuous fool.

When he rose, the bitterness of spirit had left him, and his sacrifice
had been made, but his lips were white with suffering.

As he neared the village his course took him about the base of the
crag, and as he rounded the western side he heard the murmur of
subdued voices. He slowed and approached cautiously. A jutting
buttress of rock masked the talkers until he was almost upon them, and
as he turned this corner he halted in a wretched pang of the jealousy
he thought he had subdued.

Terry and Ahma sat on a bench of rock, their backs to him, unaware of
his presence. Terry's trim head was bent forward as if he studied the
western horizon; she leaned against him in gentle contact of firm
white shoulder.

For a moment the Major's heart thumped painfully, then the confusion
of the unwitting eavesdropper compelled him to make his presence
known. He did so with that fine discrimination and artful delicacy he
summoned in times of emotional stress.

"Hello," he said.

Both turned, and rose, unembarrassed. Terry's welcome shone in his
face, and Ahma was radiant with a quick emotion which, true to the
traditions of those among whom she had been reared, she made no effort
to dissemble or restrain. The Major dropped his eyes before the gaze,
noting, dully, how wind and sun had faintly tanned the neck and
shoulders and limbs. Sun and wind were patent, too, in the vigor and
elasticity of the slim, loose clad form.

"I'm teaching her English, Major," Terry said.

For a moment she maintained her searching of the Major's averted eyes,
then spoke a word to Terry and turned to go. A few steps took her to
the buttress, where she stopped and turned her eyes full upon the
Major, and spoke in English, teasingly:

"Hello, sir."

The Major answered in a voice that sounded harsh in his own ears and
watched her disappear around the corner. Then he spoke to Terry
without facing him.

"She does speak English!"

"Not much, yet. She really meant 'good-by.'"

They started toward the village slowly, each wrapped in his own
meditations. Passing round the eastern side of the cone, Terry halted
to gaze searchingly at the Great Agong hung over the stone platform
far overhead. Anxiety was evident in his manner as he hastened to
catch up with the Major, who had walked on.

The throng had gathered earlier than usual, the clearing was packed
more densely than upon any previous afternoon. The two Americans
avoided the clearing, passing to their shack directly through the
woods.

The Major dropped down on his bench and pillowed his head on what
remained of his pack, staring up at the grass roofing. Shortly the
serving woman appeared with their suppers, but neither moved, so she
placed the two bowls on the floor mat near where Terry sat and
withdrew noiselessly.

As the sun sank below the trees, the Major stirred out of his
melancholy and twisting over on the hard cot sought the reason for
Terry's long silence. Terry sat, as always, at the top of the crude
steps, gazing over the trees. The Major was shocked at the utter
dejection of the slumped figure, the pain that showed in the set
muscles of the thin face.

The Major sat up. "What is the matter, Terry? You aren't sick?"

"No, Major. I'm all right." His tone was weary.

"What is the matter! Is this suspense--"

Terry shook his head. "No, Major. It's something else--something home.
I expected--I hoped for some news before I came up--news I did not
receive."

A flash of memory, and the Major asked: "A cable?"

At the bare nod of head he jumped upright and reaching into his hip
pocket brought out his purse to extract the cablegram he had brought
up but forgotten. Crossing the little room, he dropped it on Terry's
knees.

Terry ripped open the envelope, hesitated, then unfolded the message.
And as the Major looked on, every vestige of care and patient
suffering left the white face, the wistful line was ironed from the
corner of his mouth and Terry stood up a joyous, vibrant youth.

He had read:

Lieut. Richard Terry, P.C.

Davao, Mindanao, P. I.

At last the perfect Christmas gift. Am sailing immediately
to claim it. Arriving Zamboanga January twenty-sixth with
Susan and Ellis.

DEANE.

He carefully refolded the sheet and placed it in his shirt pocket,
then turned to the Major, his eyes darkened with such a joy as the
Major had never seen.

"This message will cost you a wedding present, Major!"

"What now?" asked the Major. Things were moving too fast since he
reached the Hills.

"It is from ... a girl. I left home--oh, foolishly. But she is on her
way over here, with my sister and brother-in-law. That's where the
present comes in!"

"But--but--what about Ahma?"

"Ahma?" Terry asked, in his turn astounded. In Terry's bewilderment
the Major understood that his own unhappiness had been unfounded. At
his shout of delight the Hillmen all turned toward the white men's
hut, wondering at the joyous antics of the strange pair.

In a few minutes the Major had calmed sufficiently to discuss their
affairs.

"But, Major," Terry asked him, "why did you think that we--Ahma and
I--that we--you know?"

"Why, everything. I saw you leave her early this morning over there in
the woods. Then, this afternoon--the way you sat together, and--and
everything!"

"Last night--why, she helped me fix up that 'sign' I told you about:
and to-day we were talking about you--she has asked me a million
questions about you--and about white girls. She has a jealous streak
in her--as you will learn!"

More explanations, and Terry suddenly reverted to their plight.

"Now everything depends upon that sign I fabricated. If it fails--or
if an unfavorable natural sign comes first.... You know I must be in
Zamboanga on the twenty-sixth, some way."

He lapsed into reverie. The Major fidgeted, reached for his hat and
stepped to the door, a bit shamefaced.

"Terry," he said, awkwardly, "if you don't mind I think I'll run over
toward Ahma's house. There is a lot to talk over with her now and I
guess I--"

His words were drowned in a resounding crash that blotted out all
other sounds. The village shook with the jarring impact of some vast
missile striking near, the air filled with the roar of shattering
rock and heavy rumble of sliding earth.

The Hillmen bounded upright at the first terrific crash and stood
transfixed, witless, superstitious fear written upon every brown face.

A dead silence followed the dying out of the last thunderous echoes,
then a child whimpered, another, and the women took up the whining
note. A warrior, one of the sub-chiefs from a neighboring village,
raised a braceleted arm in astounded gesture toward the crag.

"The SIGN! The SIGN!" he shouted.

The thousand heads raised as one, and taking up the cry, surged toward
the great cone, sifting through the timber like brown seeds through a
screen.

CHAPTER XVI

CIVILIZATION DAWNS IN THE HILLS

When the tumult had subsided, the amazed Major wheeled to face Terry's
quizzical grin.

"Well, Major," he said, "there is their merry little 'sign'! The darn
thing worked!"

The Major pulled him toward the door. "Come on," he exclaimed. "Let's
see what happened."

He hurried down the short ladder ahead of Terry and raced through the
strip of woods to where the mob was packed about the base of the cone.
The Major smashed an unceremonious pathway through the brown jam and
in a moment they stood at the foot of the crest.

A large segment of the huge pillar of rock had broken off and in
falling had carried thousands of tons of shale and eroded stone. The
immense rock, whose fracture and fall had precipitated the slide, lay
directly under the Tribal Agong, at which the Hillmen were staring up,
dumfounded.

Following their upward gaze the Major saw that the fallen stone had
formed the platform beneath the Agong, which now pivoted on its
granite bracket over a cliff which fell sheer for hundreds of feet
before curving into the stiff slope where crag fused into tableland.
The great black gong hung directly over them. Looking closely,
Bronner saw that it swung slowly in the evening breeze, and moved by
the same impulse that had impelled him the first time he stood beneath
it, he shouldered their way through the crowd to a safer position.

"You need not worry about its falling, Major. It will hang there for a
thousand years."

"I know it, but it gets me just the--what's that they're yelling?" he
exclaimed, as a swelling chorus of guttural shouts rose from the
excited throng.

"They are saying that the Tribal Agong can never be sounded
again--without the platform they can't reach it." As a new phrase was
caught up and repeated by hundreds of voices he added: "And now they
are calling for Ohto to interpret the sign!"

Several of the older savages tore out of the densely packed throng and
sped toward Ohto's house. In a few moments one of them returned and
announced that the chieftain would arrive shortly. The two white men,
absorbed in the drama, did not notice that four of the warriors who
had summoned Ohto had returned by another path and taken up their
position behind the captives, spears in hand, grim.

Ohto advanced slowly through the trees and emerged into the open space
about the crag. The Hillmen gave way respectfully and he walked to the
base of the cone through a wide lane opened up for his passage. Age
slowed his steps but he walked erect, his head held high in simple
dignity and gratitude for the silent homage his people offered.

Pausing near the base he surveyed the evidences of cleavage of the
ancient rock, the tribe's historic rallying point. Then he raised his
eyes to the Agong.

The dense circle of Hillmen bated their breath while the beloved
patriarch communed with the spirits of the long line who had heard the
happy song of the bronze-lipped gong. A deep hush pervaded the
plateau, now lighted with the last white rays of the dipping sun.

The sage turned to his people, his furrowed face burdened with an
added melancholy. His voice came low and weak, so that the assemblage
bent forward in strained silence to hear his fateful words. Terry
gripped the Major's arm, whispering the translation.

* * * * *

"Listen, my children. We asked for guidance, and a sign is sent to the
east of Ohto's lodge--a happy omen.

"The breaking of this age-old stone betokens the breaking of our
ancient custom ... no longer will we bar the stranger from the Hills
... and those who are with us now may go in peace, or stay in peace."

He paused, and a great sigh of relieved suspense rose from the throng.
The four armed men left their position behind the two white men and
melted into the dense circle.

Terry gave the Major's arm a last ecstatic squeeze. "It's working out
just as we planned! I'll be back soon."

He raced through the trees toward Ohto's house, returning in a couple
of minutes to find Ohto still standing with bowed head before his
people.

A rustle of whispers roused him, and he raised his silvered head to
behold the loveliness of his stolen foster-child. Summoned by Terry,
Ahma had come out of the shadows of the trees and stood at the forest
end of the lane made for Ohto's passage through the crowd.

The old man extended his hand toward her in compelling gesture and she
went to him with the agile swiftness of a half-wild thing. A moment he
lightly stroked the rippling mass of hair, then he turned to his
people again.

"Ohto said that the Tribal Agong would ring for the marriage of this
white daughter of our tribe--but now--"

They followed his sadly expressive gaze to where the gong hung far out
over the cliff, inaccessible to human touch.

"Daughter, it _will_ be rung for you ... somehow.... Ohto has said it.
I hope to live to hear it rung ... when you have found him who is to
share your house--and after that, I do not care."

He paused again--lost in a patriarch's vague memories of other years.
Retrieving his vagrant thoughts, he caught the frank message of the
upturned face, a message which startled as it pleased him.

"Ah! You have found him, then? Let him step forth."

Ohto searched every brown face in the hushed circle, but none stepped
forward.

Ahma slowly turned her head toward where the two white men stood
apart, her eyes fastened upon Major Bronner. Terry gently pushed him
forward. Trembling, his tanned face bloodless, the Major advanced and
took her outstretched hand.

Ohto studied the Major, then turned to Terry. For a long moment he
searched the lad's strong face, a deep disappointment in his own,
before he again faced the two before him.

"I had not thought of this. But it will do. It is as it should
be--white will be happier with white. But ... will she stay until Ohto
joins his fathers?"

The Major hesitated, then answered the sadly anxious question with a
nod. He had no voice.

"Then she is yours ... after you have found a way to ring the Tribal
Agong for her marriage. Ohto never spoke in vain. Ring the Agong
first."

The Major's glance swept from Ahma to the lofty gong. His triumphant
joy gave way to deepest dejection. He saw no way to fulfil the chief's
requirement, and he turned despairingly to Terry, who had shouldered
through the crowd and stood beside him.

The Hillmen had accepted Ohto's interpretation unquestioningly. Their
chief had spoken. The unexpectedness of the new phase, the avowal of
love by the tribe's adopted daughter for one of the outlanders, had
appealed to the keen sense of the dramatic that is shared by all
primitive peoples. Their brown skins coppered by the rosy glow of the
setting sun, they stood in strained suspense awaiting the climax.

All but Pud-Pud. He jostled an avenue through the innermost ring of
Hillmen and leaped out in front of Terry, brandishing a short blow
tube he carried and laughing in shrill derision.

"Ya, white men! Now ring the Agong! Ring the Agong and get your woman!
I saw! I watched! And I laughed because I knew the Agong would never
ring again! Yeah! Now ring it!"

The Major was in no mood for finesse: with a vicious shove he sent the
vindictive Pud-Pud sprawling, then turned to Terry, worriedly.

"What are we going to do?"

Terry shook his head, at a loss. This was a contingency he had not
foreseen. He glanced penitently at the melancholy girl, at the old man
who waited, swept the circle of tense faces, then resumed his hopeless
contemplation of the gong overhead.

Swiftly Ahma broke the tableau. Dropping the Major's hand she darted
forward to where Pud-Pud had risen to his knees, her white foot
flashing up to dash from his lips the blow tube he leveled at Terry.
The venomous dart sped aimlessly into the air and fell outside the
ring of Hillmen.

Pud-Pud's violation of the sanctity of council roused Ohto to a wrath
terrible to see. All of the savagery, all of the unbridled fury of a
primitive, passionate nature mounted to his wrinkled face as he
pointed to the culprit with a majestic gesture that summoned the four
armed men. At a word they hustled the terror-stricken savage away to
await Ohto's judgment.

Ahma calmly returned to the Major's side and together they resumed
their hopeless contemplation of the Agong. He peered up till his neck
ached.

"Terry," he whispered, "to ring it you have to strike that little knob
in the center, don't you?"

"Yes."

Then inspiration shone in the Major's face. He eyed Terry covertly.

"Wish we had a rifle," he suggested.

Terry caught his meaning. He fingered his holster but shook his head.
"It can't be done, Major."

"Sure it can--sure _you_ can! I've seen you shoot!"

Terry shook his head but the excited Major insisted: "Try it. Rest
your gun on my head. Sure you can do it--and think what it will
mean--the Hills opened up for all time--think what it will mean to the
Governor--and to the Service!"

The hushed crowd stiffened as they saw the two white men draw back a
hundred feet, wondered as to the character of the strange black thing
the smaller drew from his leather pocket. They watched intently,
thinking to see sorcery wrought before their eyes.

Terry cocked the weapon and resting his wrist upon the tall Major's
head, sighted carefully. A thousand pairs of eyes focussed upon him.
Could the slim white man ring the gong by pointing a magic finger?

The Major, braced for the shock of explosion, felt the iron wrist
tremble, grow limp and lift away. He wheeled around to find Terry
shaking his head, uncertain, faltering. He slowly holstered the gun.

"Major, I keep thinking how I have deceived--this fine old man," he
said.

The Major stared at him, then exploded: "By making this 'sign' that
saved your life--and mine? Sus-marie-hosep! I've heard of those New
England consciences but--Sus-marie-hosep!"

Disgust, dismay, affection swept in succession across the Major's
countenance: affection held. He laid his hand upon Terry's shoulder as
he played his ace:

"Terry, I thought you had a date in Zamboanga on the twenty-sixth!"

The crowd then saw the white youth stiffen with swift decision, saw
him whirl to face the crag. For a moment he stood with eyes riveted
upon the Agong till the little knob swung toward him, then he bent
slightly at the knees and his hand swept back with a swiftness that
seemed to bring the pistol leaping to meet the extended arm. It raised
to the darkening sky, and the Hills awoke to the resounding crash of
white man's weapons. Six times Terry shot, but only the first two
reports were heard, for the others were swallowed in the booming of
the Agong.

The sound beat down deafeningly, seemed to enfold them bodily in its
mighty volume, blotting out all else. From the sounding board of cliff
it smote upon their ears in thunderous, sustained, musical tone.
Slowly, the note lessened in volume, deepened, and tumbled down in
vibrant waves that rolled on and on. The sonorous reverberations died
out, then surged again and again in ever fainter, ever deeper tones.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16