Terry Part 35

"Take little boat Major come in. She still here."

Terry jumped up from the dinner table and hurried to the dock and found the speedboat tied up alongside. After a hurried conference with Adams he raced back to the house, where the forehanded Matak was already packing his bags. Terry added a steamer trunk which held his civilian clothes, and as dusk fell master and man stepped aboard the frail craft. Adams was ready. A sharp thrust of foot quickened the engine into life, and they swung in a short circle. Straightening, motors roaring, the stern sucked deep as they sped in swift flight into the south.

From his seat in the stern Terry watched the light fade out of the western sky. The stars invaded the deserted field and dimly outlined the rim of the mountains, a smooth line save where Apo reared high in the west. For a moment the dark peak seemed lonely to him, but he knew that the Major was happy on the pine clad height.... After Ohto's pa.s.sing, his own responsibility, the guidance of a child-tribe, would be a heavy one ... a year of that, perhaps, and then--but first ...

his heart throbbed in vivid realization of all that awaited him in Zamboanga.

Adams hovered about his engines, happy in Terry's return and in this opportunity to render him service. Matak stretched out on a cross seat, unhappy in the deafening roar of the motors and the rhythmic rise and fall of the speeding craft in the smooth landswells.

As they rounded Sarangani in the middle of the calm moonlit night Adams left the c.o.c.kpit long enough to cover Terry with a thick blanket, for he had succ.u.mbed to the monotonous chorus of the motors and the lull of the bewitching night at sea.

As the calm weather held, Adams steered straight for Zamboanga, putting out to sea in the little motorboat. When Terry woke Basilan was in sight, and at five o'clock they rushed down the tidal current of the Straits and eased into the slip alongside the dock.

Adams, grimy, worn with his long vigil, grinned contentedly under Terry's warm thanks. Leaving Matak to secure a bullcart to transport his luggage to the Major's house Terry hurried down the dock and entered the Government Building. The clerks had left for the day but at Terry's knock the Governor himself threw wide the door.

Profound thankfulness lit Mason's intellectual face. Grasping Terry's hand he led him into the office.

"And the Major?" he questioned.

"Well--and very happy, sir!"

Keen-eyed, observant, in the moment of welcome the Governor had sensed the new Terry, read the new contentment and confidence manifest in his face and bearing.

In a few minutes Terry had sketched his experiences to his eager auditor. The Governor contented himself with a bare outline, though his eyes glistened. The Hills opened!

"Captain Terry," he said, "come in to-morrow and tell me the details--I will give you the entire morning. To-morrow I will try to tell you how happy I am in your safe return, and in the service you have rendered this Government."

He rose, beaming with the news it was his privilege to impart.

"You had best run along now, Captain. You will find three anxious--friends--awaiting you at the Major's house. They expected to arrive to-morrow but caught the transport and docked yesterday. They will be relieved to see you, for I had to tell them something of the uncertainty we felt regarding your--whereabouts. Take my car, and run along!"

And Terry ran along! He flew down the steps and into the automobile and in three minutes was leaping up the stairway into the Major's house.

Ellis, fatter, somehow absurd in tropic whites, met him at the entrance. Meeting halfway around the world from where they had parted, choking with the end of the dread suspense into which the Governor's guarded references to Terry's disappearance had plunged him, Ellis'

big heart thumped in glad relief, but true to the traditions of his lifetime environment he strove to repress it, to appear as casual as though they had been in daily a.s.sociation. Pumping Terry's hand spasmodically, he measured the ecstatic lad with extravagant care, studied him from crown to heel.

"d.i.c.k, how do you do it?" he asked.

"Do what, Ellis?" Terry's voice was unsteady, too.

"Keep so fit in this oven of a country--you're as hard as nails!"

Terry's unsteady laugh rang through the big bungalow: "Go on, you fakir--you're crying right now!"

Ellis was. He turned away as Susan rushed out of an adjoining room.

Laughing, sobbing, she threw herself upon her brother, held him away to study his appearance, hugged him tighter, pouring out a volume of questions she offered him no opportunity to answer.

Five minutes, and she recovered sufficient reason to catch the significance of Ellis' vehement gestures toward the second of the row of four bedrooms that opened off the sala. Understanding, she left Terry and followed Ellis into their room, closing the door with a bang intended as a signal to another who listened.

Terry waited, idly stroking the long frond of an air plant that hung in the wide window near where he stood. He wondered, vaguely, that he should be so collected, almost unconcerned, in the face of what awaited him. He saw the door open slowly, wider, then arrest as if the hand on the k.n.o.b had faltered, and in the instant his self-possession deserted him.

His heart skipped a beat, then accelerated into a heavy thumping that seemed to fill the room with pulsing m.u.f.fled roar. He moistened his lips as the door moved again, opened wide.

Deane stepped into the room, pale, her wide blue eyes fixed upon him.

Slender, rounded, white of arm and throat, she had fulfilled gloriously all of the fair promise of her youth. The rich heritage of womanhood had stamped the softly curved form and the sweetly pensive face. Virginal, she was a mother of men.

He faced her from the window, powerless to move, to speak, but there was that in his eyes that made words unnecessary. Scarce breathing, atremble, she saw the steady gray eyes blaze with a light no other had ever seen, ever would see.

To him she suddenly became unreal, and his mind reverted to another hour when they had stood facing each other. Again she stood before him in the dimlit hall, sobbing, and with the memory came a surging realization of what he might have lost. Unconsciously his last words to her, spoken that Christmas night, sprang brokenly to his lips as he held out his arms:

"Don't wait, Deane-girl, don't wait."

With the sudden deepening of the wistful lines of his mouth she felt a burning rush of tears, and at his words she crossed to him, starry eyed, full red lips aquiver.

There never was a merrier party of four than theirs that night. The questions flew back and forth, answers clipped short by new and more pressing queries. Ellis and Susan were full of the newcomers' interest in the country, its peoples and customs. Deane, quieter, was interested most in Terry's work, in Davao, in the story of the Hills.

Terry learned of the home friends. Father Jennings, Doctor Mather, Mr.

Hunter, a score of others, had sent messages to him. Deane had brought special greetings from his friends on the Southside, and a garish picture of little Richard Terry Ricorro. Half of her larger trunk was filled with silver and linens which had poured in when news of the purpose of her journey had sifted through Crampville.

They were seated on the cool veranda at coffee when the Governor's car drew up outside the gate, and the chauffeur entered with a note.

Dear Captain Terry:

This car is yours throughout the stay of your--will not the word "family" soon properly cover all three of them?

Please use it freely. I have another entirely suited for my present needs.

I am very happy to-night, happy in your safe return and in the achievement you have wrought in the name of the Government it is my unmerited privilege to head. And this happiness will be the greater for knowing that you are driving through this glorious evening by the side of her who came so far to join her life with yours.

MASON.

After Terry had read the note aloud Deane added her pleas to his that Susan and Ellis should share the car with them. But they would have none of it. When Susan wavered, Ellis became emphatic.

So the two rode through the tropic night alone, that night and during the glorious evenings that followed for a week. They came to know every village along the ribboned roads, each grove of tall palms, each stretch of beach where smooth highways ran along the coast. She loved the island empire.

They talked as such do talk. The third night, as they rolled through the moonlight down the San Ramon road, he found courage to broach the one subject he had hesitated to mention.

"The Governor wants me to stay a year," he faltered. "A year up in the Hills."

She had expected it, was ready. She looked full up at him, and in the soft light her lovely face shone with a strange beauty that humbled him.

"d.i.c.k, 'and thy people shall be my people.'"

They planned their house in the Hills, bought and stored picturesque odds and ends of furniture and fittings; bra.s.ses, embroideries, carved teak: and he outlined their honeymoon, which was to be a three-months' ramble through j.a.pan, the magic lover's land. They arranged no exact itinerary, just a wandering through Miajima, Kyoto, Nikko,--a score of out of the way places.

The mornings he spent with the enthusiastic Governor, planning, discussing. Two tons of supplies went out to the Major the fourth day.

"I put in an a.s.sortment of presents for him to give to the Hillmen,"