Crossword-Solution: BARONG 6 letters, 4 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 9

Seven months in Luzon had brought him countless tales of this uncertain southland--tales of pirates, of insolent, murderous datos defiant behind their cotta fortresses, of kris and barong wielded by fanatic Moros gone amok; of pearls as large as robins' eggs, of nuggets tossed as playthings by naked children of the forests, of mysterious tribes who inhabited the fastnesses of inaccessible hills.

Human life is cheap among the Moros, and the inconvenience of that life standing between them and what they want is soon remedied by a _barong_, unless fear of punishment, prompt and pitiless, stares them in the face.

Every man there was armed with at least a _barong_ stuck into his broad sash, and many of them boasted a _kris_ and _campilan_ as well, while the brilliant colours of their costumes, and the still more gaudy _sarongs_ of the women, made them resemble a gathering of strange tropic birds, our European apparel looking singularly dull and sober beside their scarlets, greens, and purples.

Then came sword-dances with naked blades, when some young Moro advanced and retreated, leaped high in the air, or crouched on the ground, waving his _barong_ or _kris_ aloft, now retreating, now coming uncomfortably close to the little party of unarmed Americans, the flickering light gleaming redly on the glittering knife, and reminding one, with a horrid insistence, that the time and place were ideal for a wholesale slaughter.

One of the officers, while drawing out some change from his pocket to pay for a very handsome and expensive _barong_, came across a gold-plated spread eagle, such as officers wear on their shoulder-straps.