Terry / A Tale of the Hill People

by Charles Goff Thomson

Terry leaped full into the clearing and covered the ladrones, who stood paralyzed by the swiftness of the tragedy, stunned by the dramatic appearance of the young American whose pistols were famed throughout the Gulf, and as they hesitated the Macabebes smashed out of the fringe of timber, threw themselves off their reeking ponies and moved to surround the band.

Sakay, supporting the girl as a screen, drew back toward the nearest of the huts and opened fire at Terry with a rifle. The ladrones scattered for cover and in a minute the woods rang with their fusillade and with the deadly volleys sent in answer by the Macabebes.

It was a brief combat. Though outnumbered nearly two to one the soldiers were disciplined and highly trained marksmen. In a moment six of the bandits were on the ground, nine threw up their hands in surrender and the balance fled through the woods. The Sergeant, who had been slugging away with his rifle with a calculating attention to the details of marksmanship belied by the fierce joy in his brilliant black eyes, ceased firing at Terry's shouted command and detached eight of his man, who caught up some frightened ponies and raced through the woods to head off the fleeing brigands.

Sakay, using the fear-crazed girl as a shield from behind which to shoot at Terry, found his aim thwarted by her struggles. Seeing Terry advancing straight upon him and fearful of exposing himself to the fire of the two black pistols, he dropped his rifle and holding the girl directly in front of him, called out in English:

"I surrender! I surrender! I surrender, Lieutenant!"

His deep anxiety subsiding when he realized that he would suffer no immediate harm, Sakay threw the girl from him with a brutal force that sent her prostrate and was promptly rewarded by the husky Mercado, who had been under American tutelage long enough to understand the virtue and the technique of what is vulgarly known as "a good swift kick."

The Sergeant escorted Sakay into the group of prisoners rounded up by the four soldiers and set them to digging a grave for the six, who, with Malabanan, would "never appear before the court." In a few minutes the pursuit party rode into the clearing herding all but three of the criminals who had fled: those three were carried in and placed alongside the grave.

Terry worked over Matak, who had been merely stunned. In a few minutes the Moro recovered fully and went back to secure Terry's pony, which he had abandoned near the ford.

While the Sergeant attended to the duties of identification and burial of the dead Terry led the girl into one of the huts and quietly comforted her. She told him of the ordeal of her forced journey through the greater part of a day and a night, of the captors who leered at her but remained aloof because of fear of Malabanan, of being waked from sleep at Malabanan's arrival just before Matak appeared. Malabanan and Sakay, worn with the night's ride, had stopped during the noon hours to rest in the woods.

When it came time to go, Terry placed the girl on his pony, declining another mount, as his head now ached too fiercely to withstand jolting in the saddle. He set off in the lead, afoot, followed by the prisoners under escort, Mercado bringing up the rear with the girl.