Terry Part 26

"He loves Ahma with all of the wild love of a savage for the young he has cared for since infancy. He seems to consider her happiness even above the wishes and welfare of the tribe."

"Terry, you said this girl is 'different.' How different?"

Terry shrugged his shoulders, rose and secured their hats before answering.

"You will probably see her to-night, Major. Come, I want to show you the Tribal Agong."

Leaving the shack they threaded through the tiers of huts and crossed through the fringe of trees that surrounded the village, coming out at the foot of the cone. The huge monolith rose some eight hundred feet above the tableland on which the village was built. Its symmetrical slopes were smooth and steep. A goat could not have found footing anywhere upon its precipitous sides.

A winding shelf had been cut out of the rock to serve as a trail. It wound round the cone a dozen times in an ascent of several hundred feet where it terminated, high above where they stood, in a niche twenty feet square. Niche and trail had been chipped out of solid rock and were worn smooth by the rains of many years. Here and there the smooth surface was checkered with fissures, marks of erosion and earthquake.

The Major, head bent far back, breathed deeply:

"Sus-marie-hosep!" he exclaimed.

High above the spot where they stood a granite arm had been carved over the rock platform in which the winding trail ended, and from this arm a mammoth bronze agong hung suspended over them.

"Why, I always thought those stories of the Giant Agong were just--why, how in thunder did they get it up there? And how did they cast it? Why--Sus-marie-hosep!"

The Major gazed up till the muscles at the back of his neck ached: "Why, it must be fifteen feet in diameter--that striking k.n.o.b is--why, the thing must weigh six or seven tons!"

With this last thought the Major moved uneasily to one side. Terry grinned at him.

"I felt that same way when I first stood under it, but I've been up there. That flimsy-looking arm on which it hangs is two feet thick and chiseled out of solid granite to form a bracket. I think you are right about its size--the striking k.n.o.b in the center is about six inches wide."

The Major shook his head, still bewildered: "Terry, I feel as if this is all a dream--being up here on Apo, this cold air, the smell of the pines, and now this thing here--Sus-marie-hosep!"

"The old Bogobo woman who told me of hearing the Agong insisted that she would live to hear it rung again. It is never rung except at the marriage of a chieftain or the birth of his heir. These Hillmen fairly worship it. They have the most absurd legends as to how it was cast and hung up there, and of the reasons for the wonderful tone they say it sounds. They believe that the souls of all the dead limocons live on in it forever and that when it is sounded they all burst forth in song."

The sun exhausted its last white rays and sank below the low hills beneath them. Terry moved forward into the narrow trail and indicated to the Major that he should follow. They ascended slowly, the shelf narrowing so that by the time they had mounted twice about the base of the crag they were forced to advance by careful side steps, their backs against the cliff. Terry stopped at the fourth spiral, his hands gripping the jagged projections, his back tight against the cliff, and when the Major reached his side he nodded significantly toward the horizon.

The Major slowly withdrew his eyes from the dizzying abruptness of the fall beneath them, and followed Terry's rapt gaze. The great panorama of the Gulf lay unfolded beneath their aerie.

The sun, glowing pink against the crag, cast its huge shadow over the now tiny huts beneath them. Dusk was already falling over the great sloping forest that stretched from beneath their feet far into the Mindanao fastnesses and ended in a dim horizon where pink-blue of sky melted into the misted billows of distant hills. Far southward the Celebes was faintly outlined, a frosted mirror framed by primeval verdure, and to the east the slopes extended down mile upon mile, flattened, then leveled to edge the great sweep of the gulf.

They stood tight against the clear crest while the swift shadows gathered the Gulf into its fold. The little valleys faded, and blackened, and the lower hills disappeared. The gulf narrowed, shortened, and dissolved into the night. The dark crept swiftly up the slopes as if envious of the ruby crown set on Apo's forehead by the abdicating sun.

A steady wind, cool and fragrant with the odorous pines, streamed against them, forced their bodies hard against the crag. The Major, enraptured of the vast grandeur, voiced his exaltation.

"Jiminy!" he said. "The top of the world! An empire!--an empire of hemp! And our flag covers it all!"

Receiving no answer, he carefully pivoted his head so as to face Terry, and was humbled by what he saw. Terry's face, white in the fast fading light, was exalted, glowed like that of an esthetic of the Middle Ages, his eyes shone with a vision wider than that disclosed from the mountain top.

"Terry, what do you see--in all this?" the Major asked.

The wind whipped his words into s.p.a.ce. He repeated, louder.

Terry stirred slightly, answered vaguely, his gaze still fixed upon the tremendous shadowed expanse below them: "I was thinking of a ...

dozen words ... spoken upon another mountain, words that seem very real ... and make one feel very small ... in such a place as this."

The Major puzzled, gave it up. He was on the point of asking explanation when Terry spoke.

"We had best get down from here, Major. It is getting darker."

It took them but a few minutes to work their way down, but the crag reared black against ten thousand stars when they reached the base. In the regions near the equator the sun courses in hot hurry.

Returned to the hut, the Major sat on the window ledge and Terry at the threshold. The night was chill with the clear crispness of alt.i.tude. The Major sniffed the pine-laden breeze gratefully.

"We have found a new Baguio," he said.

Terry a.s.sented, absentmindedly.

The Major nursed his empty pipe, studying the savages who grouped around the fires to warm their almost naked bodies. Occasionally one or two would detach themselves from the groups and approach near where the two white men sat illumined by the flames, staring at these strangers in frank curiosity, silent, inscrutable, unafraid. Noticing the glint of fire upon a nearby row of long-shafted spears which reared their vicious barbs eight feet above the ground into which they had been thrust, the Major spoke to Terry.

"Your pistol?"

Terry motioned toward his room; "In there. They never bothered me about it--probably don't know what a pistol is."

The Major, thinking of the sensation the opening of the Hill Country would create, of the Governor's joy when he should hear the news, of the added prestige for his Service, turned to Terry to express something of his thoughts. But he desisted when he saw by Terry's flame-illumined countenance that he had forgotten his presence, for there was something about the lean wistful face that made his detachment inviolable.

Soon the moon rose above the level of the plateau and flooded the village with a filtered glow. Terry rose.

"Ohto ordered me to bring you at moonrise." He waited until the Major had secured the gifts he had packed up, then led the way through the lane into the smaller clearing.

CHAPTER XIV

AHMA

In the center of the moonlit clearing there stood a larger house than any in the village. The soft beams of light reflected from the bamboo sides of the structure and the heavy dew on the thatched roof glistened like a myriad of fireflies. A wide path led to the porch, and near this there was set a tripod, fashioned of saplings, from which was suspended the little agong the Major had heard during the night.

As they neared the foot of the ladder that served as stairway the Major started violently as two brown forms appeared at their elbows; at a word from Terry they stepped aside to let the two white men pa.s.s, one calling softly to a guard stationed at the top of the ladder. The door was thrown open and they mounted the bamboo rungs and entered the house of Ohto.

Pine torches illuminated the room, which was some twenty feet square, roughly sided and floored with bamboo slats; there was no ceiling, so that a quarter of the high-pitched thatching of the house showed overhead. A dozen middle-aged Hillmen stood along the wall, evidently the influential men of the village. Across from them an aged Hillman sat in a rough-hewed, high-backed chair.

Terry advanced and addressed the old man, his whole manner bespeaking a sincere regard and respect; then he beckoned to the Major.

"This is Ohto," he said. "I will interpret for you if he does not understand your dialect."

The Major faced the fine, austere old patriarch. The brown face had been wrinkled bewilderingly by the heavy-handed years, but his eyes still glowed with something of the pride and spirit of his youth.

Wrapped in a thick blanket of hand woven _kapok_, he confronted them with that air of dignity and distinction common to those who from early life have dominated the councils of a community.

The Major silently tendered his gifts. Ohto motioned to one of his retainers and in a few monosyllables ordered their distribution among the people, the red cloth to the women, the beads to the children and the matches to be divided among the young men. As he retained nothing for himself the Major produced a new pocket knife he carried, and bade Terry make Ohto understand that it was for himself. The savage bent his h.o.a.ry locks over the treasure, examining the mysterious blades that opened and closed at his will, and accepted it as his own.

The Major attempted to address the chief in his scanty Bogobo, stumbled, and turned to Terry beseechingly.