He strove for patience, but waiting is hard. He picked up a volume of poems, discarded it impatiently for a magazine, threw this back on the table and withdrew from the glare of the lamp which added to his insistent headache. Looking out on the dark town he saw that even the Club was unlighted, the first time since his arrival in Davao. His jaw tightened as he pictured the isolated planters sitting through the night, rifles on knees, listening for hostile movements in the jungle surrounding their hardwon acres. Drawing up a big cane chair he sat in the shadow looking out into the dark. The sky was like a vast black colander perforated haphazardly with a myriad brilliant openings which paled and glowed. The crescent of the young moon hung over the faintly outlined mountains: he watched it slant slowly down till its lower point was absorbed in the heavy mist which blanketed Apo. Malabanan loose with his ravaging band ... Matak, alone, searching for him in the night ... Ledesma's daughter, that gentle, big-eyed girl, at the mercy of such beasts ... would the patrols never return? He rose and paced the floor, frantic with the enforced inaction. Schooling himself to a semblance of patience, he sat through another long hour. Why, he thought dully, should he have had the presumption to expect an answer to his cable ... she was too kind to cable "no" ... her letter of explanation would be a month in coming.... He watched as the mists around Apo gathered, thickened, darkened: the banks were flashlighted into white billows, then the soft rumble of thunder rolled down the slopes, a vanguard of the rainstorm which rustled the forest tops as it swept down nearer, louder, to expire as it touched the edge of the town: a few drops splashed heavily on the tin roof of the silent house, then the stars shone more brilliantly than before and Apo loomed sharp against a cleared sky. It was a long night. At last he rose wearily and seated himself at his desk, shading his dulled eyes. A moment of indecision, and he wrote to his sister. Dear Sue-sister: Sometimes your sweet letters breathe the fear that harm might befall me. You need not worry. I live in a lovely land, a land of sunny days and balmy nights, a land of courteous, friendly folk. I live in a land where pneumonia is unknown, or sunstroke: cholera perished in boiling water, and behind our mosquito nets we laugh at malaria. Should other dangers threaten, I have my company of loyal Macabebes: laughing fighters, stern lovers, they guard me while I sleep. They like me, I think. Nothing but Old Age can befall me here; and I think the Fountain of Youth lies not where old Ponce searched--but here, on Apo's towering crest. I am going there to search ... some day ... before I am too old. I have but one fear: that you and the others whom I love may some day cease to--