Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/152

128 axle and the rattle of harness in the compound. You Han stole in, and half dragging the corporal to the cart, helped him to crawl under the curtained hood, whispering:

"One piecee cart belong my cousin. No pay him. You stay bottom side. We go countlee."

As the cart jolted into the alley, the man beneath the cover heard, faint and far, the beat of cavalry hoofs on the frozen earth. They were coming nearer, and the fugitive flattened himself under a pile of quilts, while the sweat beaded on his face. In a few moments the clink of sabers and the creaking of saddle-leathers were audible, and the patrol wheeled into a side street so close to the jogging cart that the deserter caught the voice of a Sixth Cavalry trooper objecting:

"It's a blazin' cold night to be pokin' in all the rat-holes of Peking for as good a blank-blanked son of a gun as Jack Sweeney. Wonder how he got up against it so hard."

The reply was lost, for the deserter's heart was whanging against his ribs and