rugged 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 knob 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 knob 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 r