The quiet intimacy of the group was jarred by the sudden jangle of a telephone. Wade jumped up with a muttered excuse but before he had crossed to the open door it rang again, insistent. They heard his murmured "hello," then an incredulous "What!" in higher pitch. He appeared at the door, pale, excited.
"Governor Mason," he exclaimed, "Captain Hornbecker reports that there is a juramentado loose between here and Zamboanga!"
At the startling intelligence the Governor's feet rapped to the floor: the Major jumped to his feet, astounded.
"Why," he protested, "who ever heard of a Moro running amuck at this time of night!"
"Hornbecker insists that it is true, nevertheless. He has sent a detachment out after him but was worried because the Governor and you might have started before he got word for you to wait."
The Governor shook his head decidedly: "We will not wait. Please call my car."
The Major's protest against the Executive's endangering himself died in his throat at a quiet look from the Governor. They hurried to the car, Wade delaying them a few seconds while he secured three heavy pistols, handing one to each of the two officers. They found Matak waiting in the seat beside the driver.
A sharp order from the Governor and the chauffeur shot them out of the reservation and into the provincial road. The big Renault roared through the night, the kilometer posts flitting by like specters, the headlights tunneling the cocoanut groves through which the white highway spun.
The four Americans crouched low in the tonneau to escape the blinding rush of air that eddied over the windshield. They shot over a bridge, tore through a dark village, rounded a corner at top speed and took the grassed shoulder of the road as the little chauffeur twisted the wheel to avoid a bewildered carabao which blocked the middle of the highway. A sickening skid, and they were back in the road. At the end of a roaring flight down a long straightaway they rounded a sharp curve into a short stretch terminating in a nipa village which seemed to leap toward the rushing car. As the powerful lights swung upon the widened road which formed the village street the alert driver saw that which brought foot and hand to the brakes in a frantic effort that brought the car to a grinding, sliding stop and tumbled the Americans to the floor of the tonneau.
Crouched in the middle of the road a Moro, gone amuck, darted fanatic glances in search of the Christians he had vowed to die killing, his eyes bloodshot with the self-inflicted torture of the juramentado rite. He balanced a great two-handed kris that gleamed like a row of stars where the headlight struck its polished corrugations.