CHAPTER VII
THE PYTHON
Nothing could be more impersonal than the manner in which the Major inspected the company. He was very curt and official: no detail eluded his attention, no fault of equipment, quarters, drill or training escaped comment and correction. The command was in fine shape but it is a service in which there is but one standard—perfection, and perfection may never be attained. The inspection consumed the morning, but when they sat at lunch in Terry's quarters, rank had perished again.
At two o'clock they set off leisurely for Lindsey's, Terry quiet, the Major jovial at the prospect of a drive at the wild boar. They jogged through the hot afternoon over a trail winding under a canopy of foliage shrill with the plaint of myriad insect life. An hour out and the Major was nearly unseated as his pony shied violently from a three-foot iguana that scurried across their path in furious haste. Farther into the woods, and they drew rein, listening to the mystic tone of a Bogobo agong rung at minute intervals: Terry judged the gong to be six miles distant westward, the Major contended for half a mile, north of them. Such is the weird quality of the agong in the forest.
At four o'clock they drew up at Lindsey's roomy, thatched house set in the middle of his clearing and in a few minutes Lindsey, soaked with perspiration, hurried out of the tall growth of hemp ripening in his south field.
"I feared you might not be able to make it," he smiled. "You can never tell what the next day may bring you Constabulary fellows!"
He called his head native, a stocky Visayan, and ordered him to start the beaters out, explaining to his guests that they would take their places in an hour. The three then strolled through the streets of the little village Lindsey had built for his laborers and their families, a double row of neat bamboo huts, grass roofed, of which he was very proud. Returning, they passed a huge machine rusting under a rough shed, Lindsey's ill-fated hemp machine, introduced a little too early to an ignorant people.
Lindsey unlocked a trunk and brought out three high-powered rifles, two of them borrowed, contrary to the law of a land where firearms must be zealously protected against falling into hostile hands. He led the way through the long rows of abaca which drooped listless fronds in the quivering heat, and into the cool woods which surrounded his fields. They went on for a half-hour into deeper jungle, emerging into a strip of natural clearing from which they could hear the beaters converging toward them. Lindsey stationed Terry at the left end of the break, Bronner in the center where the shooting should be best, himself taking the right end.