Terry Part 29

Terry lapsed silent and sat in the door, chin in hand. Soon the increasing wind drove the Major under his blanket again, and overcome by a curious feeling of comfort and security in the mere presence of the slight figure huddled at the door, he soon fell asleep.

Terry, unmindful of the chill breeze, remained in the doorway, deep in thought. Suddenly he brought his hand to his knee in quick decision, and after tip-toeing over to the Major to be sure that he slept, he silently departed the hut and skirting the edge of the moonlit clearing, disappeared into the lane that led to the house where Ahma lived.

Toward morning the Major woke with a start, bewildered by an unearthly sound that smote his ears. The wind had risen to a gale, tearing the fleece from the sky, so that the moon peered down upon a sea of treetops turbulent with the buffets of rushing air.

He sat up straight to relieve the thunderous humming in his head, then comprehending that the amazing sound was a reality, he strove to solve the source of the bewildering tones. A deep, low murmuring filled the air, swelling in volume with each heavier gust which drove over the mountain: the sound deepened and strengthened, mounting to a sustained musical rumble that almost stupefied him.

"Ooooommmmmm-ah-oooommmmmmmm-ah-oooooo-ommmmmmm." The m.u.f.fled volume diminished, increased again with fresh burst of fleeting wind, and as the wind subsided suddenly, the vibrant note fluttered, died away.

The Major had lived too long and too much to believe in the supernatural but in the dark he found relief in the sound of his own voice.

"Sus-marie-hosep!" he breathed. "Some ghost! No wonder they believe in signs up here!"

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 pa.s.sionless 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 att.i.tude 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. .h.i.t 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 att.i.tude 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 pa.s.s. 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 gra.s.s 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 b.u.t.tress 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.

"h.e.l.lo," he said.

Both turned, and rose, unembarra.s.sed. 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 b.u.t.tress, where she stopped and turned her eyes full upon the Major, and spoke in English, teasingly: