As they neared the ford Terry heard a sharp out-cry from one of the guards, followed by the sharp crack of a rifle. Whirling, he saw the brush on his right agitated by the movements of a figure that crashed unseen through the tangle of vegetation. Two soldiers flung themselves off their ponies and leaped in pursuit, pausing fruitlessly for sight of the fleeing form and dashing on with trailed rifles. The aggressive Mercado galloped up, shouting an explanatory "Sakay!" as he charged straight into the brush.
Terry sped down the trail toward the river, emerging on the bank just as the lithe Sakay burst from the brush. Laughing derisively at Terry Sakay leaped toward the stream, reached the bank in four great bounds and leaped far out from the low edge. As the bandit's powerful body curved in the air Terry's pistol barked twice before the supple form straightened to strike the pool in a perfect dive.
Terry leaped down the bank to cover Sakay when he should rise. Leaning over the ledge he distinguished the white-clad figure sliding gracefully through the dark depths with the momentum of the dive: ten feet, twenty, thirty, then it slowed, started to rise.
But as he watched, tense ... there was a rush of a massive armored body through the shadowed depths, a great scaly thing swirled the limpid pool, a flash of hideous teeth—and the white form was gone.
Spellbound with the unutterable horror of what he had seen, Terry watched the waters become quiet again, but turned away, aghast, when bubbles rose like tiny silver globes against the jet depths. When he turned back there were no more bubbles.
He sank down on the bank, sickened. The Macabebes had come up with their meek prisoners and waited at the ford, restless, their eyes fixed on the oily pool. Even Mercado was anxious to be gone. Unaffected by the terrible fate of the bandit he had hunted, he viewed the approach of sunset with vague concern, for this was the nearest that he had ever been to the edge of the Hill Country.
Terry strove to rise, and at last realized that he was ill. He sank back, dazed with the sudden force of a fever that coursed through his body achingly, that throbbed in his head with a tumultuous roar. He tried again, but fell back, dizzy. He rested till his head cleared, then sat up and called Mercado to him. His voice came weak.
"Sergeant," he explained, "I do not feel—like going in to-night. You push on—rest at Sears' to-night. Keep the prisoners in his corral under guard. He will look after Señorita Ledesma and the men. Tell him that I request that he come here and dynamite this pool—thoroughly. Push on to Davao next morning and send for Ledesma to get his daughter; and if I am not there by that time, you send a brief report of this affair to Zamboanga. Understand?"
"Yes, sir, but you look sick, sir!" A quick concern flooded the Macabebe's heavy face.
"Yes—I do not feel—very well. I am going to cut across country to get to Doctor Merchant tonight. It is only six miles straight through the woods."