Terry Part 17

Sir:

At eight o'clock last night Malabanan left here with a newcomer named Sakay and 22 of his "laborers."

From my post I could not see if they were armed.

They have not yet returned. (9 A.M.)

I will follow in banca. They sailed south in a large lorcha.

Will report further when I return.

"47"

Leaving his unfinished dinner, he paced the floor. The midnight departure of Malabanan with his chief lieutenant and a majority of his followers might mark the beginning of outlawry, or it might be a legitimate excursion into the deepsea fisheries. Yet the secreto had said nothing of nets, and a party of twenty-four men would be in each others' way. Terry hastened over to the cuartel, checked up the patrol chart, then called the Sergeant, who verified the position and route of each of the two-man patrols who were covering the countryside.

Satisfied that his men would discover and report the landing of any strangers within a few hours after they touched soil, Terry returned to the house.

He sat on the wide ledge of the window, thinking. The night seemed unusually warm despite the stiffening breeze which blew off the Gulf; he opened the collar of his blouse.... Where was Malabanan--what was he doing? He saw a man's form outlined against the bright Club window and answered the arm waved at him: it looked like Lindsey, he thought.... "Give 'em plenty of rope and if they make a break--Smash 'em!" He shivered at the thought of sighting a gun against a fellow man, and again in sudden rush of memory of the night in Zamboanga....

He saw Lindsey appear again at the Club window to peer in his direction, then turn abruptly. In a moment he saw him leave the Club and cross the plaza, hatless.... Deane--why had no letter come--he had expected one, wanted one....

He slid off the window ledge as Lindsey came in, sincere and direct as usual.

"Terry," he began, "I saw you sitting here alone and came over to ask you to join us at the Club."

"I can't, Lindsey."

Lindsey studied the unusually pallid skin: "Why not?" he demanded.

"You're working too hard, Terry, and worrying too hard. Let's forget it all for an hour or two!"

"I'm much obliged, Lindsey, but I can't come to-night."

"The fellows asked me to get you, Terry. They think it is queer you come so seldom."

Understanding something of Terry's weariness of spirit he strove hard to persuade him to spend the evening in the pleasant Club, but was unsuccessful. Desisting, he talked a few minutes with Terry and then left, a little embarra.s.sed, wholly disappointed.

Alone again, Terry slumped into a big cane chair drawn up by the table. His cheeks burned; he thought, vaguely, that he must have shaved too closely. Loosening his stiffly starched blouse, he crackled the letter from Ellis, opened it without much interest: then his whole being tensed.

Crampville, Nov. 23, 191-.

Dear d.i.c.k:

Everything lovely here--and things are going to pick up with you when you read this!

Yesterday Deane's father came in the bank and asked to see me confidentially. Thinking he had come on bank business I took him into my private office. Well, he just sat there facing me for several minutes, not knowing how to begin. You would have thought he had been robbing a train or something, he looked so absurdly guilty!

I just sat there watching him, taking a most unchristian joy in his trouble, whatever it was: I have had it in for him ever since--since you know what. I liked the way his Adam's apple chased up and down his throat.

Finally he swallowed hard and began: "Ellis, I came over to--to ask you to--to send over that fox skin that Terry gave Deane last Christmas."

Just like that! It sure was a pill for the old boy to swallow but he went the whole hog like the old Puritan he is. Once started he kept going, though still phased. Said that he was glad that you had found something worth doing and were doing it well, that he took a lot of interest in your goings-on--as he called it--and that Deane always read your letters aloud. And the last thing he said before he went out was that he hoped you would soon get s.p.u.n.k enough to write her some letters she "wouldn't dast read out loud!"

He said THAT about my brother-in-law! Great leaping frogs!

What is the matter with you?

Get busy! Write--and make 'em sizzle!

ELLIS.

P.S.--I forgot to say that I am sure she made him come to see me. Also that Sue took the skin over last night. And also that Bruce is more than professionally interested in the nurse he imported from Albany to look after his office.

It has been some time since he hung around Hunter's--and as to why, I do not know, but I sure am some little guesser!

Terry had never questioned the decision he thought she had made that Christmas eve in returning the fox skin, had thought it hers, and final. As the burden of a year fell from him he sat quietly, smoothing at his stubborn, crown lock, the wistful twist of mouth ironed out by a faint smile. He bent to read the letter again but after a few lines the words were blurred out by a salty rush to his steady gray eyes.

Rising, he went into his bedroom and closed the door quietly behind him, emerging in a few minutes. Perfect peace lay in his eyes and they shone with the light that will never die in this world as long as men live, and women.

Two days to Christmas, he thought, and he had sent her no remembrance.

He stood at the window, tasting the cool thickness of the evening, breathing the fragrance of ylang-ylang: leaf and frond, stirred by the monsoon, purred in gentle contact. In the starlight the old stone church outlined its old-world, old-time architecture in friendly shadows which veiled the pitiful scars and age-stains: the bamboo shacks across the square--wry, flimsy, s.m.u.tted by a hotly jealous sun--had yielded to the magic of the night to become little golden houses in which the fairies abode till the morning stars should fade.

A present for her ... he pondered long, the while he stifled his desire to go outside and shout the joy that tugged at his restraint.

Suddenly he started, tightened as the idea fastened upon him, then fairly ran to his desk. A hurried search for cable blanks and he wrote in desperate haste that consumed four misused forms before he accomplished an intelligible message:

Miss Deane Hunter, Crampville, Vermont.

Christmas greetings from palmed coast to snowy sh.o.r.e. Please cable will you accept so humble a Christmas offering as an equal share in the future of one

RICHARD TERRY.

b.u.t.toning his blouse as he ran, he raced down out of the house and over to his orderly room, where he typed the message and sent it out by a soldier. The dozen Macabebes lounging in the _cuartel_, who had sprung to attention when he pa.s.sed, stared at him and then at each other--this joyous, whistling boy was new to them! He crossed the dark plaza: natives, looking out of raised windows, wondered who that Americano was who walked in and out of the shadows of the great acacias, singing:

When in thy dreaming Moons like these shall shine again:

Being natives they did not understand the English words, but being natives and instinctively attuned to the most ancient of emotions that throbbed in the low baritone, they listened silently and stared out into the night long after the singer had pa.s.sed.

He reached the house, hesitated. Lindsey had said that the fellows wanted him to come over to the Club ... he had neglected opportunities to be with these good friends. He sailed his cap up through an open window and crossing a corner of the square went up into the gayly lighted building.

That night at the Club became a sort of tradition in the Gulf. They still tell, wonderingly, of how he entered--a laughing, mischievous, fun-loving boy, and of how the crowd welcomed this new Terry that none of them had ever known before. They talk, still, of his deviltries, the clean jests and keen wit he whetted--always at his own expense, and as rough old Burns put it the next morning when they talked it over: "And he niver took a drink and he niver cussed once, I'll be ---- if he did!" As the story of Terry's night at Club spread over the Gulf all of the planters found excuses to bring them into town afternoons in the hope of being present when he came again. They rode in by pony or launch every night for two weeks, and then they ceased coming.

For two hours he held them in the spell of his infectious deviltries.

Irrepressibly gay, impish, it seemed as if he vented all of the stored up boyishness in him, spilled it in one heaping measure. Story followed story, in quickly shifting brogues that rocked the building with the sidesore laughter of the transported audience; they followed him through a seemingly inexhaustible series of anecdote, through a dozen ridiculous parodies he sang to a one-handed accompaniment chorded on the battered piano the while he pantomimed with free hand and roguish face.

"Why," whispered the astonished Cochran, "the--the--son of a gun!"

The uproar stilled suddenly as, seated at the old piano, he forgot them for a moment, saw a vision on the white wall that was not visible to the others. A few deep chords from knowing fingers, then his low voice, rich with the depth of his happiness:

Love, to share again those winged scented days, Those starry skies: To see once more your joyous face, Your tender eyes ...

The song, or something in the deep voice, pulled at the heart-strings of those lonely men, who, womenless, never discussed women. Burns sniffled, then glared belligerently at the others.

Cochran whispered to Lindsey: "Just what is there about--about that boy? Is it because he's so pale?"

"Yes, that's it--you poor fish! But it's about time you quit pinching my arm--it's getting numb!"