rry's quiet approach he turned to address him abstractedly in the
liquid Spanish of cultured Filipinos.

"Buenas Noches, Senor Teniente."

Terry answered in the same tongue: "Good Evening, Senor Ledesma. A
fine night."

The natives' vague fear of the dark--wrought into instinct by a
thousand generations of ancestors who crouched at night around
flickering campfires in jungles through which crept hostile men and
marauding beasts--had fastened upon him, stripping him of the thin
veneer of civilization the Spaniards had laid but lightly over the
Malayan barbarism. He shifted uneasily, looked out over the starlit
sea.

"Teniente," he murmured, "I like not the night. The dead rise ... some
sing ... some complain ... drift through the black mists searching for
those they have long lost ... the vampires seek for unprotected
children.... I like not the night...."

Lost in the ghastly realms of native ghostlore, he ignored the
American. Terry rounded the deck once and when he came again to where
Ledesma had stood he found him gone to seek the cheer of lighted
cabin. Terry stopped at the forward rail, his face upturned to the big
stars which burned in the soft depths of the warm sky: the Southern
Cross poised just over the crest of Apo. Below, on the black sea, the
thrust of the vessel threw up a great welt which bordered the wedge of
disturbed waters: phosphorescence gleamed like great wet stars. The
tips of cigarettes glowed on the forward deck where members of the
crew lay prone, exchanging occasional words in the hushed voices races
not far from nature use in the still hours of the night.

The morning would find him in a strange place, among strangers ... he
leaned upon the rail in a sudden excess of yearning for those whom he
loved, summoned the spirits of those who loved him. They came to him
through the night--Susan fretting, Ellis affectionately gruff, Enrico
boisterously cheerful, Father Jennings wise, patient, watchful.
Another, fairer, unutterably dear, hovered near him: he strove, as of
old, to bridge the gap--and was baffled, as of old.

The eight bells of midnight roused him from his dejected reverie: he
straightened from the rail. The Cross had dipped into the clouded
crest: miles to the west a shorefire bit into the black mantle that
draped the Gulf. The low wailing of an infant and the guttural
endeavors of the mother to soothe it came up from the forward deck
where the native passengers lay sprawled in