He paused, fretting, then turned his big bulk with surprising swiftness: "Well—say something! What are you going to do about this? Going to clean out the Hills? Or are you going to let—" he stormed on and on, checking the flow at last to press his hospitality upon the Major.
"Thanks, Medico, but I'll just sling my bag in Terry's house and sleep there to-night: and I can eat at the Club."
The doctor accompanied him as far as Terry's old quarters and passed on to his own house farther down the street. Matak, gloomy and wordless, relieved the Major of his bag at the door. The house was silent, and darkened by drawn pearl-shell shutters. The Major stood a moment at the doorway, half sickened by the unused appearance of the familiar cane chairs, table, desk, and bookcases, then he followed Matak into the bedroom he had used before. He cleaned up and changed to whites, and when he came out Matak had thrown the windows wide to the afternoon sun. But the house was thick with the uncomfortable silence that pervades unused, furnished habitations and unable to endure the room he hurried out and over to the cuartel.
The fiery little Macabebes seemed subdued. Mercado blamed himself for leaving his officer under the circumstances, was bitterly self-reproachful for not having sent a soldier with him. He went over the ground carefully but could add nothing but immaterial detail to what the Major already knew, but the Major remained in the little office until dark, listening with grim satisfaction to Mercado's account of the swift retribution that had followed Malabanan's testing of Constabulary strength.
He excused the Sergeant and sifted through the pile of official and personal mail which lay in the basket marked "unfinished." Sorting it, he came across a cablegram addressed to Terry and dated the morning that Terry had left in pursuit of the brigands.
"From the States, too," he muttered. Moved by an impulse and hardly conscious of what he did, he folded it twice and placed it in his purse.
In half an hour he had finished the few reports that must be executed, and rose to go. Mercado was waiting for him at the door.
"Sir," he said, standing stiffly at attention and watched by a score of Macabebes who knew his intention to draw the Major out, "we Macabebes are soldiers, sir—we never question. But if the Major comes to lead troops up—there, sir, to bury our Lieutenant, it is a Macabebe task! We loved him, sir."
The big Major looked down at the earnest veteran, touched by the dramatic simplicity of his appeal.
"Sergeant," he said, "if I do lead a force up there your Macabebes will be where they belong—at the front of the column!"