her in sea: then other
Filipino holding me hit me with bolo and throw me in too."

He whipped off his thin cotton camisa and exposed a deep scar which
furrowed his left shoulder. It had severed the clavicle, and
improperly knit, drew the left arm slightly forward.

"I swim ashore, two miles, to Lassak. Next morning I take boat, find
sister, bury her on beach. I, twelve years old, master."

He paused, a picture of implacable hatred and purpose.

"Master, I see Filipino who kill all three my family. He born with
left eye all white. I know him any time, any place. That nine years
ago. Nine years I no laugh, no sing, no play, no talk with Moro girls,
no marry--just listen--just look; listen for that laugh, look for big
Filipino with left white eye. Nine years I no tell anybody, just
listen, just look. I never find.

"But now I know I find him, soon. For I know you help Matak, master."

He had read the distressed white face correctly. Terry rose, placed
his hand upon the Moro's shoulder--the scarred shoulder--and looked
down into his now emotionless face:

"Yes, Matak, I will help," he said simply.

Content, the Moro turned silently on his bare heels and padded out
into the kitchen.

Usually Terry strolled the dark streets before going to bed, but
to-night a heavy downpour kept him indoors. Outside, the square was
loud with the drum-fire of the heavy fall on iron roofs, the rush of
water through shallow dirt gutters; inside, the big house roared, the
roof trembled overhead. He paced the floor, sleepless, worried with
thinking of Matak's terrible story, of the Doctor striving to succor
the stricken village, of Sakay's joining Malabanan.

There was another worry, too. Though there was nothing in the
eternally verdant land in which he was living to make the fact seem
real, the calendar indicated that Christmas was less than two weeks
distant, and for the first time since the days when she had first
intruded upon his boyish consciousness as something different,
something wondrously dear and fine and unattainable, he had sent Deane
nothing.

* * * * *

He was awakened before daylight by the arrival of a spent Bogobo
runner bearing a note from Doctor Merchant:

Dear Lieut:--

Can you come to Dalag for a day? These people are
panic-stricken, won't do a thing I order, won't take
treatment, but are trying to exorcise the devils of disease
by all sorts of quee