I strolled on into darker High street.  Suddenly on a veranda above there broke out a wild unearthly screaming.  Two negroes were engaged in savage, sanguinary combat.  Around them in the dim light thrown by a cheap tenement lamp I could make out their murderous weapons—­machetes or great bars of iron—­slashing wildly, while above the din rose screams and curses: 

    Yo——­Badgyan, ah kill yo!

I sped stealthily yet swiftly up the long steps, drawing my No. 38 (for at last I had been issued one) as I ran and dashed into the heart of the turmoil swallowing my tendency to shout “Unhand him, villain!” and crying instead: 

“Here, what the devil is going on here?”

Whereupon two negroes let fall at once two pine sticks and turned upon me their broad childish grins with: 

“We only playin’, sar.  Playin’ single-sticks which we larn to de army in Bahbaydos, sahgeant.”

Thus I wandered on, in and out, till the night lost its youth and the last train from Colon had dumped its merry crowd at the station, then wound away along the still and deserted back road through the night-chirping jungle between the two surviving Gatuns.  There was a spot behind the Division Engineer’s hill that I rarely succeeded in passing without pausing to drink in the scene, a scallop in the hills where several trees stood out singly and alone against the myriad starlit sky, below and beyond the indistinct valleys and ravines from which came up out of the night the chorus of the jungle.  Further on, in American Gatun there was a seat on the steps before a bungalow that offered more than a good view in both directions.  A broad, U. S.-tamed ravine sank away in front, across which the Atlantic breeze wafted the distance-softened thrum of guitar, the tones of fifes and happy negro voices, while overhead feathery gray clouds as concealing as a dancer’s gossamer hurried leisurely by across the brilliant face of the moon; to the right in a free space the Southern Cross, tilted a bit awry, gleamed as it has these untold centuries while ephemeral humans come and pass their brief way.

It was somewhere near here that Gatun’s dry-season mosquito had his hiding-place.  Rumor whispers of some such letter as the following received by the Colonel—­not the blue-eyed czar at Culebra this time; for you must know there is another Colonel on the Zone every whit as indispensable in his sphere: 

Gatun, ... 26, 1912.

Dear Colonel:—­

I am writing to call your attention to a gross violation of Sanitary Ordinance No. 3621, to an apparent loop-hole in your otherwise excellent department.  The circumstances are as follows;

On the evening of ... 24, as I was sitting at the roadside between Gatun and New Gatun (some 63 paces beyond house No. 226) there appeared a mosquito, which buzzed openly and for some time about my ears.  It was probably merely a male of the species, as it showed no tendency to bite; but a mosquito nevertheless.  I trust you will take fitting measures to punish so bold and insolent a violation of the rules of your department.