Frightened beyond a white man's conception by the midnight visitation of ladrones within a half-mile of their village, cowed, witless, they were reassured merely by the uniforms the two riders wore—the red-piped uniform of the small, scattered force of five thousand Filipinos, who, ably officered, highly trained, intrepid, have never tasted defeat: have wiped out every murderous band that raised treacherous hand and then, outlawry scotched, have turned the power of their discipline against the scourges of diseases, floods, cattle plagues, typhoons. Unsung, unwept, they have carried on, their motto Service and their goal Success.
Terry, patient, reassuring, lingered till he had overcome their immediate fears, left them content with their faith in the protection he promised them. Hurrying on, Terry and his Sergeant shortly came to Ledesma's well kept plantation, and Terry turned his pony over to the Sergeant and approached the big bamboo house.
Ledesma, gray-haired, distinguished looking, bearing his grief with Tagalog stoicism, greeted him with the finished courtesy of the Spanish tradition and led him up the precarious slatted steps into the house. It was a house of desolation.
The mother lay moaning wretchedly upon the cane bottom of the carved mahogany bed which, with four chairs, a round table and a talking machine made up the furniture of the main room. Ledesma's son, a lad of eight, sat big-eyed and solemn near an open window, not fully understanding the blow that had fallen but vaguely frightened by his mother's lamentations.
The Tagalog, dignified in his suffering, answered Terry's brief interrogations intelligently but as he had been out on the gulf with his fishermen during the raid he had little to offer. Terry turned to the sobbing mother and in a few minutes she had quieted sufficiently to tell her story. He grew paler and grimmer as she dramatized the terror of the midnight entrance of the ominous shadows, the noiseless gliding of bare feet, the vicious whispered threats, the cries of the girl as they bore her away into the night and the long wait for Ledesma's return. Finishing her story, she sank back upon the great bed, moaning and muttering incoherently.
Ledesma elaborated her story with details she had told him. She had recognized neither shadowed forms nor whispering voices of any of the four who had entered the house while the others herded the stolen carabaos toward the waterfront. One of them had warned her that this was what would happen to all of the natives who made too good friends with the Americanos: and the biggest of the four had bent over her to whisper in the dark: "And the pale Constabulario won't be able to help you with his celebrated pistol—soon we will visit him!"
Terry soon realized that he was wasting valuable time here—and time was the big factor. He conferred with Mercado, who had been questioning the scared laborers, but equally without result: no one could identify any of the band, there was no evidence that would lead to Malabanan's conviction, though all were certain that the biggest figure had been his. Bidding Ledesma a hurried adieu he rode away. Time was pressing ... Ledesma's daughter must be rescued ... soon. He followed the trail of the stolen carabaos, the renewed lamentations of the distracted mother ringing in his ears.
Fifteen minutes along the plain trail torn through the brush by the driven carabaos brought them out on the beach. There the trail ended: it was for this that Malabanan had brought the big lorcha that the secreto had mentioned. A moment of thought and he swung northward toward Davao, again following the glistening beach. At noon, and low tide, they forded the creek and swung up off the beach to breathe the sweating ponies in the deep shade of a mango tree that spread high above the surrounding brush. Dismounting, they stood as in a huge green bowl: its bottom the smooth waters of the gulf, iridescent under a zenith sun and framed as far as the eye could reach with a slant of parched beach; the sides of the vast concavity were formed by the verdant mat of jungled slopes that rose with ever increasing abruptness to the far, somber-edged mountains.
The doughty Macabebe gave not a glance at the great panorama, busying himself in refolding the reeking saddle blankets and tightening girths, then lighted a casual cigarette. Terry, impatient of the necessary halt, paced the shadowed space restlessly after his first appreciation of the sun-drenched Gulf. He turned to the Macabebe with the first words they had passed since leaving Ledesma.
"Sergant, what is your opinion? Was it Malabanan?"