One of the results of the new policy towards Felizardo was a decision to abandon the post at Silang, which, never of any great value, had now become quite useless.

    “You will take over the command at Calocan,” Commissioner Furber wrote to Captain Hayle. “The officer who is there now is going to the Island of Leyte, and you will replace him. There are good quarters in what used to be the barracks of the Guardia Civil. You had better march overland, as we cannot spare a coastguard steamer at the moment.”

Basil received the news joyfully. He was utterly weary of doing nothing, and seeing nobody, at Silang; moreover, at Calocan he would at least be in touch with Igut, where Mrs Bush was; whilst, most important of all, the route overland to Calocan lay through Igut. His men also were pleased. There were stores and spirit shops at Calocan, institutions conspicuous by their absence at Silang, whilst some [222]of the company, at least, had already made an impression on the local inhabitants of the new station, when they had acted as guard during the hanging of Juan Vagas and his fellow-insurrectos, loading with ball cartridge to keep the swaying crowd in order. They would be able to swagger through the streets, and attract the attention of all the prettiest girls, especially if, as seemed likely, their captain succeeded in getting new uniforms issued to them.

“We had better burn the stockade, Senor,” the old serjeant said, when he was told of the forthcoming move. “If we leave it, who knows but that some ladrone band may use it as headquarters, and then it will be no easy task to retake it.” So they collected brushwood and grass and piled it high against the walls, and when the last man had left, Basil himself set fire to it, greatly to the disgust of some of the young men of Silang village, who had already decided to make the place into a robbers’ castle.

Up on Felizardo’s mountains they saw the smoke, and reported the fact to the old chief, who nodded and said: “I am glad. Silang was no place for a brave man like that. Down at Calocan, which I know well, he may find work to do. There are insurrectos in the town itself, and ladrones in the bush, the two working hand in hand. Possibly, he may build up the gallows again, for the third time. Who knows? There are many in Calocan who need hanging, even [223]as it used to be thirty-six years ago, when I worked in the warehouse of Don José Ramirez. The old corporal of the Guardia Civil kept order well in those days, and I think this young captain of the Constabulario will keep order too. They need a strong man. There should always be a gallows at Calocan, as I, Felizardo, have reason to know.”

Basil halted for the night at Igut, staying with Don Juan Ramirez, but he did not have a meal in Mrs Bush’s house, nor did she ask him to stay for one, Captain Bush himself being away at San Francisco, higher up the valley. Still, they had a long talk, sitting out on the balcony, where all men might see them.

“I am glad you wrote,” he said suddenly. “I wanted to do so myself often, but, somehow, I was afraid to begin. What made you do it?”

She looked away towards Felizardo’s mountains. “I had news for you,” she said in a low voice, “the news of what had happened up on the mountain-side, where my husband and Lieutenant Vigne went after the outlaws.”

For a while neither of them spoke. Then “They are the only letters I get,” he said abruptly. “There is no one else, there never was any one else, and there never will be.”

Mrs Bush did not look round. It was the first time he had given any hint of his feelings, at least in words, and she dare not let him see her face, distrusting herself. When at last [224]she did speak it was of her husband. “I am sorry John is away,” she said; “you might have liked to hear his account of the great and inglorious expedition against Felizardo?…. And so you are going to Calocan. It will not be so dull there as at Silang. You will be much nearer Manila. Calocan—was not that where they executed those insurrectos who tried to burn this town? Yes, I thought so. You were going to tell me one day why you were so bitter against that man Vagas.”

Basil muttered something inaudible, and got up suddenly, whereupon Mrs Bush, feeling she had already punished him sufficiently for his outburst, for which she was partially responsible, made him sit down again, and from that point onwards they avoided dangerous subjects. Only, when he got back to Don Juan’s, the old Spaniard’s quick eyes saw that there was something wrong, and knowing much concerning Captain Bush, was sorry for Mrs Bush and Basil Hayle. Still, as he said to himself, it was a good thing that the Constabulary officer was not quartered in Igut itself, for any man with eyes in his head could see that, perhaps unknown to himself, Basil Hayle had become a convert to the code of the Bolo, and that, sooner or later, he would kill Captain Bush. His very quietness was in itself a dangerous sign; or at least old Don Juan, who knew most things connected with such matters, looked on it in that light. [225]

Basil saw Mrs Bush once more, early on the following morning. He had drawn his men up in the plaza, and was about to start, when he caught sight of her in the doorway of her house. He told the old serjeant to march the company off down the Calocan road, then himself went across the square to say farewell.

“Is it au revoir again?” he asked.

Mrs Bush nodded. “Of course. It is always au revoir—with you.”

“Will you send to me if anything happens? I can get over in a few hours by boat,” he said suddenly.

Mrs Bush tried to smile. “What should happen? And yet,” her eyes grew suspiciously soft, “you came once before, when I had not sent, on the morning of the great fight in the plaza here, and saved us all.”

Basil flushed. “So you will send?” he persisted.

She held out her hand. “Yes, I will send—if necessary.”

Then he hurried after his men, and in due course marched them into Calocan, where he took possession of the old barracks of the Guardia Civil, in which the Spanish corporal had lived for many years. The people of Calocan had hewn down and burned the new gallows, which he had caused to be erected a few months before; and when he made his first tour of inspection round the town, the men [226]shambled away, cursing under their breath, whilst some of the women shouted “Hangman.” But Basil did not trouble, remembering who it was he had hanged—Juan Vagas, whose share of the plunder of Igut was to have been Mrs Bush. His men, on the other hand, did not take matters so quietly, and there were many bruised heads and sore backs in Calocan before an understanding was reached.

Before Basil had been at Calocan a week, the old Spanish priest died, and there came to replace him a young American, Father Doyle. As the latter was the only other white man in the place—unless one included, as no sane man would do, Messrs Lippmann & Klosky, who now occupied old Don José’s premises, opposite the site of the gallows—there presently sprang up a great friendship between the Constabulary officer and the padre, and, although they were of different creeds, the priest soon learnt of the great secret, or rather the great sorrow, in the other’s life, and, being broad-minded, sympathised with him deeply, which, possibly, like Basil’s infatuation itself, was most wrong and improper.

Father Doyle had been in Calocan a couple of months when the chance of his lifetime came. Probably most men, nine out of ten perhaps, have one great chance, sooner or later; and yet it is doubtful whether one in ten realises when that chance has come, and whether one in a hundred profits by it to the full. Some are so [227]amazed that they rush off to discuss it with their friends, or stay at home and ponder over it, until the psychological moment has passed; others are too dull, or too heart-broken, to understand that it has come at all, having often got beyond the stage when hope is a living thing; whilst yet others are suddenly filled with a blind self-confidence which ruins everything.

Father Doyle’s chance came in the form of a message from Felizardo, brought to Calocan by no less a person than old Don Juan Ramirez, the nephew of that Don José Ramirez whose junior clerk Felizardo had once been. Dolores Lasara was dying, and Felizardo wanted a priest—a white priest, not a mestizo like the padre at Igut, or like Father Pablo, whom Felizardo himself had slain in the house of the Teniente of San Polycarpio.

Don Juan found Father Doyle in the old barracks, dining with Basil Hayle, and delivered his message at once, adding: “I have a launch waiting to take you as far as Katubig. A Scotchman, John Mackay, a hemp-planter, will be waiting there to go up with us.”

Father Doyle, who had risen from his seat, looked from Don Juan to Basil Hayle, a question in his eyes. “But this Felizardo——” he began.

“The old chief’s word can be trusted. He will not harm you,” Basil said, and then was sorry he had spoken, for that was not the question at all. [228]

“I was not thinking of that. It never occurred to me,” the priest answered simply. “I was thinking that this man had killed a priest, and was outside the Church.”

Don Juan, understanding the momentary confusion in the other’s mind, laid a hand on his arm. “Dolores Lasara never killed a priest, Father,” he said, “and it is Dolores who is dying.”

Ten minutes later the launch was on its way to Katubig. Basil went down to the beach to see them off. He was longing to ask Don Juan about Mrs Bush; but, somehow, he could not get the words out, and the old Spaniard, being fully occupied with the matter in hand, forgot to mention the Scout officer’s wife; although he had intended to tell the Constabulary officer how, on hearing that Dolores Lasara was at the point of death, Mrs Bush had volunteered herself to go up to the mountains and nurse her, knowing, as she did, of the great love there had been between Felizardo and the daughter of the Teniente of San Polycarpio. But if Don Juan did not tell Basil Hayle then, he told Felizardo himself later, and the old chief did not forget, as he proved afterwards.

At Katubig, which was now being rebuilt, they found John Mackay, who had been Mr Joseph Gobbitt’s companion in the adventure of the head-hunters. Also, they found half a dozen of Felizardo’s men and three horses. [229]

“It is not far,” the leader of the outlaws said. “If the Reverend Father and the other Senors do not mind travelling in the dark, we shall be there in two hours. The road is easy enough for horses—when one knows it.&rdquo............