ing animals
and in picking it up and running for our lives, in order to avoid being
trampled by the maddened beasts in their furious and unexpected
onslaughts. The men at the ends of the nose-ropes were as helpless to
control their infuriated charges as a trout fisherman who has hooked a
shark. With horns interlocked and with blood and sweat dripping from
their massive necks and shoulders, they fought each other, step by
step, across the width of the arena, across a cultivated field which
lay beyond, burst through a thorn hedge surrounding a native's patch of
garden, trampled the garden into mire, and narrowly escaped bringing
down on top of them the owner's dwelling, which, like most Moro houses,
was raised above the ground on stilts. It looked for a time as though
the fight would continue over a considerable portion of the island, but
it was brought to an abrupt conclusion when one of the bulls,
withdrawing a few yards, to gain momentum, charged like a tank
attacking the Hindenburg Line, driving one of its horns deep into its
adversary's eye-socket, whereupon the wounded animal, half-blinded and
mad with pain, turned precipitately, jerked the nose-rope from its
owner's grasp, and stampeding the spectators in its mad flight,
disappeared in the depths of the jungle.

[Illustration: The bull-fight at Parang

There was a sudden bellow, the two great heads came
together with a thud like a pile-driver, and the fight was on

The spectators were kept at a distance by Moro horsemen
under the Panglima]

"That," announced the Governor, "concludes the morning performance.
This afternoon we will present for your approval a programme consisting
of pony races, a carabao fight, a shark-fishing expedition, and, if
time permits, a visit to the pearl-fisheries to see the divers at work.
This evening we will call on the Princess Fatimah, the daughter of the
Sultan, and tomorrow I have arranged to take you to Tapul Island to
shoot wild carabao. After that----"

"After that," I interrupted, "we go away from here. If we stayed on in
this quiet little island of yours much longer, we shouldn't have any
film left for the other places."

CHAPTER II

OUTPOSTS OF EMPIRE

We sailed at sunset out of Jolo and all through the breathless tropic
night the _Negros_ forged ahead at half-speed, her sharp prow cleaving
the still bosom of the Sulu Sea as silently as a gondola stealing down
the Canale Grande. So oppressive was the night th