There was another worry, too. Though there was nothing in the eternally verdant land in which he was living to make the fact seem real, the calendar indicated that Christmas was less than two weeks distant, and for the first time since the days when she had first intruded upon his boyish consciousness as something different, something wondrously dear and fine and unattainable, he had sent Deane nothing.
He was awakened before daylight by the arrival of a spent Bogobo runner bearing a note from Doctor Merchant:
Dear Lieut:—
Can you come to Dalag for a day? These people are panic-stricken, won't do a thing I order, won't take treatment, but are trying to exorcise the devils of disease by all sorts of queer rites.
I hate to ask you to come but your influence among them is so great that it seems justifiable to ask it.
If you do come, bring your mosquito net—don't fail to do this. The disease is mosquito-borne, and fatal if untreated. The temperature runs are terrific—highest I ever saw.
Merchant.
Terry rode out of Davao at seven o'clock, bound for Dalag. Within a mile he overtook Lindsey, who had spent the night in town. They rode together several miles to where the trail, soaked with the night's rain, forked toward Lindsey's plantation: the sun shone white hot, the earth steamed through its mat of decayed vegetation.
They drew rein at the fork, dismounted. Lindsey broke the silence in which they had ridden following Terry's brief explanation of his mission.
"Terry," he said, "you're too young for all this worry."
Terry's face relaxed into a slow grin: "Lindsey, how old are you?"
"But your work is different—and you are different, Terry."
Terry's bantering grin gave way to a smile of singular sweetness, the queer smile which deepened the depression at the corner of his mouth.