"Yes, they wait three weeks before reporting his disappearance—the best officer in the Service—sick—alone in the woods!—no rations, no—nothing, except a canteen and a pistol! If I were governor I'd fire the whole damned crew down there!"
The Governor regarded him with wise patience till he choked into silence. "No, Major. There was no fault. The Sergeant reported in Davao that Terry had gone to Dalag to see the doctor, so it was not until Merchant finished his work there that they learned from him that Terry had not reached him. It was no fault of any one, Major; just hard, hard luck. Now, I have been thinking over your request to go in search of Terry's—in search of Terry, and I have decided. The despatch boat is now at the wharf subject to your orders. She makes something over twenty knots."
"Governor, I'm—I appreciate your—Governor, it means a good deal to me!"
"I will not detain you, Major. You do as you find best when you reach Davao. Pacify the planters first—this report says that they are wild with grief and rage. Of course you will take temporary command of Terry's Macabebes. The entire company is there now and with them you could doubtless smash your way up into the Hills. I had other hopes, hopes of winning them peaceably—hopes in which Terry figured.... Well, I know you are anxious—so run along."
He rose and came around the big desk to take the Major's hand in a fatherly farewell. After the Major had torn out of the room the Governor closed the door and stood at the window looking out over the busy Straits, his face older, stripped of the optimism with which he invariably confronted all of these young men who were associated with him in the Moro task. Sometimes it all seemed so hopeless, so futile.
For a long time the Governor stood at the window. He was facing westward toward India, that mystic ever-ever land that had been the goal of all the nations since before Columbus and was finally won by the steady strength and genius of a meager island people. But its cost—its cost in fair-haired, ruddy-cheeked youth! As in other matters of government we had learned colonization at Mother England's knee, had sought to apply her precepts, to avoid her mistakes: but there was no avoiding that penalty, that expenditure of young men. Quotations from the interpreter of the white man's burden came to his lips: "'The deaths ye have died I have watched beside.'" He whispered the line over and over again.
He was still gazing somberly over the wide waters when Bronner rushed down the pier below him and leaped into the cockpit of the power boat. An orderly followed on the run and dumped the Major's luggage into the boat. A Moro cast off the restraining hauser and the snowy hull leaped forward, nose high in the air. When it reached a point opposite where the Governor stood its stern was buried deep by the terrific thrash of the screw, and borne on the swift ebb tide it streaked out of sight into the west, like a thing alive. The Major was off—the Constabulary guards its own. When one falls, others search, and bury, and avenge.
The Major settled on the stern seat for the long ride. He had his thoughts, thoughts that set his jaws till they ached. The motors roared as they coursed through a shifting panorama of islands, little heavens of cool verdure as seen from the power boat which rode low, rising and falling gently in the smooth swells which ribbed the Celebes from horizon to horizon. From the low seaboard they looked back upon a thin trail of white dashes which marked the wake their speed had traced upon the tops of the oily undulations. Adams, the mechanician, a slim, clean-cut young fellow, scarce glanced at Bronner through the passing hours but hovered over his engines, absorbed in their operation.
The night passed, and the day was nearly done as they shot up to the little wooden dock at Davao with a grinding of gears in reverse. Adams silenced the motors, then turned in stiff fatigue to the Major with an expression that transfigured his greasy features.