her feet and ran blindly into
the arms of a laughing rough whom Terry recognized as Malabanan's
companion at the dock--the sardonic Sakay.

For a moment the tableau held. Terry could not see Matak's face but he
heard the tense fury of the voice:

"Malabanan, you speak English?"

Malabanan looked him over insolently before answering: "Yes."

Moro met Tagalog in the Bogobo's country on the common ground of the
American-brought English tongue!

"Malabanan, you know me?"

"No."

"You remember one night--nine years now--on Basilan? You remember kill
old man, old woman, then girl on boat? You remember kill little boy,
too, and throw in sea?"

The Moro's voice dripped with the released passions of nine years of
brooding over terrible wrongs. As he saw the light of recollection
appear in the desperado's dark face, he struggled to speak the words
that had been dammed up so long:

"Malabanan, I am that boy.... Now you die!"

He snatched the long knife from the scarf knotted about his waist in
Moro fashion, his knees bending under him in a tigerish crouch as he
slowly circled toward his powerful enemy. Malabanan drew his great
bolo with a contemptuous sneer at the little Moro and before Terry
could have interfered had he wished, they leaped at each other. Matak
dodged down under the first awful sweep of the gleaming bolo and as
he came up he struck at Malabanan, not with the classic downward
stroke, but UP!

As the glittering blade went home, deep, Malabanan threw the Moro from
him with a convulsive heave that crashed him senseless against the
stump of a charred tree. His colorless left eye, lusterless in strange
contrast to the baleful fire that glowed in the right, Malabanan
gathered his fast ebbing strength in a last effort and staggered
toward the unconscious Moro, his glittering weapon upraised, heedless
of the pale American who stepped out with a rasping: "Halt!"

But he sank limp as Terry's heavy pistol roared a message he did
heed--though never heard--sagging down to sprawl across the Moro's
legs.

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