“Nawthin' o' the sort's in the swag we took with the raskil.”
A bit of dinner in the back room waited, for Jerry believed in keeping well in with the force. Tim fed heartily, and, in spite of dust, heat, and the chatter of the children, dozed, to wake with a start.
“Me sowl to glory! It's aslape I've bin! Let's hav' a look at the little fella and be off.”
The horses stood limply, as much out of the shade as in, the big swag leaned against the wall, the handcuffs lay half buried in the dust, but Tsing Hi had vanished.
“Me sowl to glory! The little divil's scooted! It's a ruined man I am! In the name of the Saints, why is blasted Chinkees made with han's an' 'em like a 'possum? Look at the wee han's on 'em to slip out of darbies like the same. He's slipped out as aisily as meself out of a horse-collar, and the face a' him as bould and as big as the hill o' hope! I'm the ruined man, I am!”
“Off after him,” advised Jerry. “There's his tracks.”
“Just none o' your blasted interfarances! Lave 'm to me. He's away back to hell, an' I'll folly him! How much does I owe yer, Jerry!”
“Nothing at all, sure, Tim. 'Tis little ye've had, and yer welcome as posies in May, though it's little we see of 'em here. And good luck. Shall I tell him away, back to look out V'
“Say nothing and be damned to yer! Keep your mout closed and lave me to do the bizinis me own road,” shouted Tim as he disappeared in the dust, led horse, swag and all.
A mile and a half back and a bit off the road lay the narrow, sheltered flat between two forbiddingly barren ridges which Hu Dra, the gardener, had converted into an oasis. Thin-leaved tea-trees fringed the little dam whence the industrious fellow hauled water for his vegetables. Drought-stricken, broad, blue-leaved, scented ironbarks stood in envious array on the steep sides of the ridges, and grass-trees, blackened at the butts, struggled with loose boulders for foothold. The muddy water which the forethought of Hu Dra had conserved created the green patch which insulted the aridity of the ridge. He was a proud and happy man, a follower of the healing Buddha, a new-churn with scarce a word of English, and a gardener. He had a way with vegetables. They prospered under his hands, and he also prospered, for next to gold, vegetables were highly prized in that dry, almost verdureless country. Just now he swayed along with a pair of heavy baskets slung on a bamboo all the way from Wu Shu, as the pilgrim under his load of sin, and as he swayed he sang in a weak falsetto a ditty which sounded like—