Stanley Portal Hyatt

“ Ten thousand pesos, eh?” The Consul whistled in what struck Mr Gobbitt as a most undignified manner. “A big sum that. Was he—do you think he was mixed up in any sort of graft here—corruption, you’d call it—with the officials?”
There was wrath on Mr Gobbitt’s face as he got up from his chair. “Sir, members of our firm are not mixed up in such things .... No, sir, I do not smoke; nor will I have a whisky-and-soda. I, myself, drink only at meals.”
When he had gone, with such dignity as a large and perspiring man, who wears a frock-coat in the Tropics, can command, the Acting-Consul yawned again. ”

“ Jimmy suddenly became busy with a cigarette he was rolling. "You are living a respectable life now," he muttered, weakly evading the question.
But Lalage smiled bitterly, and then, with a sudden change of expression, she laid her hand on his, very gently. "No, Jimmy dear, let's be straight, even amongst ourselves. You are all right, because you're a man, and men are allowed to do these things; but they would all treat me as a bad woman, as something rather worse than a dog. Even you, dear, don't respect me, in your heart, although I have tried to make you." ”

“ Inside, a number of rooms were partitioned off, and in the largest of these Dolores Lasara lay dying.
Felizardo himself met them outside, looking as an old man does look when the greatest sorrow of his life is coming upon him; but his eyes brightened when he saw the priest. “I thank you, my friends,” he said to Don Juan and John Mackay. Then he saluted the priest. “You are an American, Father?” he asked.
Father Doyle nodded. “I am an American, yes; but first I am a priest of the Holy Church.” ”

“ Yet, none the less, he would gladly have made peace with the family, just as May and Walter would have made peace with him, had Ida's bitterness not rendered that so hard as to be almost impossible. She was too good a woman to overlook his sin, or to allow anyone else to overlook it. She believed in the punishment of the sinner, not in his pardon, and she did not think that Jimmy had suffered enough; possibly she believed that he had not suffered at all, for had he not in the end received a thousand pounds which should, by rights, have gone to her own children? ”

“ It became a case of the butt-end against the bolo, and, naturally, the bolo won. A few seconds afterwards, the corporal, one of his white troopers, and a native sergeant were the only survivors in sight, standing with their backs to a huge tree.
The corporal had drawn his pistol with his left hand, but a slash from a bolo had taken off three of his fingers before he could fire, though he was hardly conscious of the fact. All he knew was that he must die like a soldier of Spain, with his sabre in his hand. ”

“ In reply to the telegram, Jimmy wired that he would be at the hotel at nine o'clock. He had given up all idea of going to the office that night, or, rather, of ever going there again. He must get away, at once, from everything which might remind him of the old life. He must cut himself adrift from it, immediately, altogether, if he wished to preserve his sanity. For himself, he cared nothing, at least at the moment; but, though he might never see her again once she had left London, he had to provide for Lalage. ”

“ From Felizardo’s own village, from every village for miles round in fact, you can see a great range of mountains, rugged and forbidding, beginning practically at the shore of a huge bay and running inland for many miles. The lower slopes of the range are covered with dense jungle; but when you have climbed a thousand feet or so, you leave all this behind, and find bald rock, and lava-beds, and ashes, for there are half a dozen active volcanoes there, as well as many which are merely quiescent, and hot springs, and geysers, and other dangers to life and peace of mind. ”

“ The detail was coarse and roughly finished, the red-brick walls, as always, an offence to the eye; big texts seemed to squirm, like semi-paralysed eels, over the chancel arch and round the East window. The latter, off which Jimmy could hardly take his eyes, was a veritable triumph of the Victorian tradition. Its colouring was gruesome, its design grotesque; and yet it was a source of great pride to the congregation as a whole, having been put in to the memory of a banker who had left nearly a million. ”

“ It was not a fight: it did not last more than a few seconds; then, as he wiped his bolo on the white tunic of his attacker, Felizardo looked at the man beside the fire: “And you now?” he asked.
The other shook his head, and sheathed the bolo, which, despite the woman’s efforts, he had drawn.
“You are the better man,” he replied. “And he,” nodding towards the body—“he was a scoundrel;” whereat the woman gave a queer little sob, gratitude, relief, horror perhaps, which brought Dolores running to her side, and they cried together ”

“ Jimmy, remembering all that Lalage had done for him during the past three months, cut her short savagely. "That's a lie. She's been everything a woman should be to me."
His sister laughed in bitter scorn. "And to half a dozen other men as well. Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, what a fool you are, how you've been fooled. Do you think she's been true to you? Do you think a vile creature like that could be true to anyone? No, I will speak for all your swearing at me. Do you think that whilst you have been slaving at that office at nights she has been at home thinking of you? Oh, you have been a blind fool! ”

“ She was, as usual, on the veranda, behind the light matting blind, when an unwonted commotion made her start up quickly. The dogs had awakened to fresh life, and were barking noisily. A native, who had spread his net across the roadway that morning, with the intention of repairing it, and had then gone to sleep over his task, came to his senses suddenly, and began to gather in his property, as a small party of native soldiers, headed by a white officer, swung down the street. Mrs Bush lay back in her chair, and watched through the blind with languid interest. ”

“ The night he dined at Drylands, Jimmy barely thought of Lalage. He was excited, and yet, at the same time, conscious of a feeling of restfulness, somewhat akin to that he had experienced when he first saw the shores of England on his return from South America. Once again, it seemed as if he had been a long time in the wilderness, and was getting back to his own people at last. Vera Farlow was of those who stand above suspicion. It was impossible to picture her knowing anything about life in a flat ”

“ A few seconds more, and the ropes would have been down, when a boudjon brayed out with startling suddenness from the line of bush which formed the top end of the little plaza, and, as men looked round in astonishment, they saw what seemed to be innumerable white-clad bolomen, jumping up out of the long grass into which they had crawled from the jungle, whilst, in the background, was a little old man on a grey horse. ”

“ A policeman on point duty eyed him curiously, yet with no hint of suspicion. Most men, and practically every woman, remembered Jimmy's face when they met him a second time. He was not handsome, far from it; but, in some indefinable way, his grey eyes suggested sympathy, whilst the poise of his head spoke of determination verging on obstinacy.
He was looking at the scene as a whole, rather than at individuals, and the policeman remarked, with a kind of grim satisfaction, that he let the women pass him unnoticed. ”

“ Felizardo smiled grimly. “And I killed a priest, for her,” nodding towards Dolores.
Carlos leaned forward quickly. “Are you named Felizardo? I thought so. Even here, on the mountains, we hear things .... Let me, let us, stay here with you in this cave—as I said, you are the better man and can take it if you will—but I can help you; and the women will not be lonely.”
For answer, Felizardo held out his hand; and so was started his band, which afterwards became the most famous in the Islands. ”

“ Consequently, the discovery of Jimmy's double life had filled her with both sorrow and loathing; sorrow at the thought that a Grierson should have been so weak and foolish, loathing at the conduct of the woman who led him astray. She was sitting very grim and upright in the client's chair when Jimmy came in; whilst Walter was at the other side of the table, nervously playing with his eyeglasses and wishing inwardly he had telegraphed for his wife, a proposal which May had vetoed. ”

“ In a flash, he understood how it was that Felizardo had been ready to take to the hills for the sake of Dolores Lasara. Then he told her of Felizardo’s daughter, and of Felizardo’s letter.
“Of course I believe,” she said, when he had finished. “It is just what one would expect of Felizardo .... Oh, we hear a great deal about him here, from the servants. No, Captain Hayle, you must not worry, really you must not. I know it is horrible, to lose your men in that way; but you had to obey orders. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have made an excuse for not going; but you are different.” ”

“ Kelly knew nothing of Lalage, but he understood what the sudden brightening of Jimmy's face meant.
"Been hard up?" he asked, with a smile. "Why didn't you come to me, as I told you to do? Of course, you'll find it an uphill game, and I would advise you to leave it now, at the start, if I were not sure you would succeed in the end. You'll have a hard fight, because you've got ability and experience of the world, and those will tell against you at first." ”

“ Yes, I can get you a good man—several, if you like, men you can trust. There’s John Mackay, a Scotchman, and Lucio Morales, a Spaniard—either would do well; and I would take the opinion of either as final. Only, let me warn you, Mr Gobbitt, that this is a risky form of speculation. Hemp pays well enough until the insurrectos, or the pulajanes, or the ladrones come along and burn your place and cut your men’s throats. It’s all very well for Furber and Gumpertz and the rest to say the Islands are at peace. ”

“ He remembered how he had felt when he had parted from Lalage, the fever and the agony of it, the sense of utter desolation and hopelessness. And from that he came to think of Lalage herself. She had never turned on him because he drank. Far otherwise. The knowledge had made her more tender, more watchful over his comfort, more anxious to shield him from worries which might drive him into the power of his enemy. ”

“ Basil stopped abruptly. “What is that?” he demanded of his serjeant.
The man made an expressive gesture. “The Boudjon, Senor, the alarm-horn. Now, every one of these ladrones knows we are coming. Either we shall see none at all, or we shall see too many.”
Basil muttered an oath, then, “Come on,” he said. “The quicker we move, the better our chances;” but already his own hopes of another successful fight had vanished. Obviously, Felizardo’s men were not to be caught asleep a second time. ”

“ That night, Jimmy hardly closed his eyes, being occupied with the problem of inventing an excuse for getting back to town. The evening post had brought him no letters; and, though it was improbable that Lalage would have any real news for him, he was terribly worried at her silence. Lying then through the long hours, praying for the sleep which would not come to ease him from the hideous pain of jealousy, he suffered as few men can suffer in their lives. ”

“ In his stockade at Silang, Basil Hayle waited anxiously for news of the result of the great expedition against Felizardo. As an officer of the Philippines Constabulary, he felt he ought to hope that the band of outlaws would be broken up, and their chief either captured or killed. As a man, he could not disguise from himself the fact that he would be extremely sorry were any ill-luck to befall the old chief, who had proved his friend on so many occasions. The idea of Felizardo being taken and hanged, as Juan Vagas had deservedly been hanged, was absolutely repulsive to him ”

“ Kelly would have warned him bluntly not to endanger his prospects by being a fool; a mental specialist would have explained that the shock of John Locke's death, coming on top of the ten years of almost continual overstrain in bad climates, had temporarily affected his balance, an opinion with which Lalage herself would have agreed, knowing, after all, nothing of men's love; but neither opinions nor diagnosis would have altered Jimmy's determination.
He had put in two days of almost savagely hard work. Without money he would be helpless. ”

“ The Spaniard smiled. “Head-hunters—hundreds of them they say, more dangerous than any bolomen. I have never been there to see. No, Senor; but I have heard often. What are they, Senor? How much you Americanos have to learn about these Islands! Why, just savages—quite different from the Filipinos—nearly naked. Their pleasure in life is to collect heads, just as your great men collect millions of dollars.” ”