se who
belonged to it, whom Cairns had observed heretofore, were
thick-skinned; men of unlit consciousness and hardened hearts,
gruelling companions to whom there was no deadly sin but physical
cowardice, and only muscular virtues. Bedient was not of these, neither
in body, mind nor memory, aspiration, language nor manner. And yet
_they_ believed in him, accepted him in a queer, tentative, subdued
fashion; and he spoke to them warmly, and of them with affection. All
this needed a deeper and more mellowed mind than Cairns' to
comprehend; though it challenged him from the first moment in that
swiftly-darkening night. "It's too good to be true," was his
oft-recurring sentence.... Though apart, Bedient was not scoffed. Could
it be that he was so finished as a cook, as a friend, as an
indefatigable--so rhythmically superior, that the packers took no
offense at his aloofness? Certainly, Bedient felt no necessity of
impressing his values upon his companions, as do those who have come
but a little way in culture.

Somehow, Alphonso smelled of roses that night, as the two lay together
in that little plaza, where the mules were picketed and the satisfied
infantry slept. In the jungle (which seemed very close in the
moonlight), bamboo stalks creaked soothingly and stroked each other in
the soft night winds, and the zenith sky boiled with millions of
white-hot worlds.... Are not the best dreams of this earth to be heard
from two rare boys whispering in the night? They have not been
frightened by their first real failure, and the latest, most delicate
bloom of the race has not yet been brushed from their thoughts. Curled
within their minds, like an endless scroll, are the marvellous
scriptures of millenniums, and yet their brain-surfaces are fresh for
earth's newest concept.... What are they whispering? Their voices
falter with emotion over vague bits of dreaming. They ask no greater
stimulus to fly to the uttermost bounds of their limitations--than each
other and the night. Reason dawns upon their stammered expressions, and
farther they fly--thrilling like young birds, when their wings for the
first time catch the sustaining cushions of air.... These are the
vessels of the future--seals yet unbroken.

THIRD CHAPTER

RED PIGMENT OF SERVICE

Bedient explained that he had come to the Philippines pleased with the
thought of seeing his own people, the Americans. He realized that he
was not seeing them at their best under mar