Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/145

Rh failing to recognize the headlong visitor, yelled and scuttled away from the brazier which he was trying to coax into warmth against the winter night. "It's me—all same—me come back. You no sabee this American soldier if men come to look see me," gasped the corporal.

The Chinaman nodded without speaking and slipped out. Sweeney was fighting for breath, and the fumes of coal-gas in the fetid room were suffocating him. He tore a hole in the side wall of oiled paper, and gulped his lungs full of the frosty night air. It was the room from which he had gone the day before, when, after drinking much Japanese beer, he had bought a quart of samshu to carry away with him.

It was the deadly, maddening samshu that had caused the downfall of Corporal Sweeney, and now he was trying to remember what had happened in the twenty-four hours before he had been marched down the Chien-men Road with the other prisoner. He knew that he had overstayed his leave, but that was a minor matter