CORPORAL SWEENEY, DESERTER
"I'll be gettin' five years—five years at least."
The surging fear became fixed in these words, and they, in turn, swung in with the cadenced tramp of Corporal Sweeney, the other prisoner, the sentry, and the young lieutenant along the Chien-men Road toward the American camp and the guard-house. As the refrain rolled itself over in the brain of the corporal, he discovered that he was muttering it aloud when the other prisoner said explosively:
"I know you will, and so will I; but, by ----, I'm going to make a run for it!"
"You're the silliest fool in Peking if you do," replied the corporal. "An' where would you be after runnin' to? No place to——"
He checked himself and turned his head. The sentry and the lieutenant were at their heels, but in the clamor of the crowded thoroughfare the talk had been unheard. A swirl of Chinese street merchants was scattering from in front of a German wagon-train, a troop of Bengal Lancers clattered recklessly into the ruck, and the road flung the tangled traffic to and fro between its walls, like a tide in a mill-race. The corporal muttered again to the scowling man beside him:
"Nothin' doin'. Sure to be captured this side Tientsin. Forget it. You're crazier than thim——"
A shout in his ear made him jump aside, and he saw the sentry lurch against the flank of a transport camel and lose his footing as a cart-wheel struck him from behind. The loaded rifle fell on the chaotic stone flagging. The other prisoner heard the crash and knew what it meant. Here seemed the chance he sought, but instead of doubling into one of the crooked side streets, he broke away down the middle of the Chien-men Road, and the traffic opened up for him, as the crowd, grasping as by instinct what was happening, scattered in panic.
The young lieutenant whipped his revolver from its holster and took a snap-shot at thirty yards, not caring overmuch if a Chinese got in range of the heavy bullet. As he fired, the fugitive seemed to trip and catch himself, then ran a few steps farther, falling all the time, until he crumpled up in the filthy mud of the pavement. The lieutenant stood looking at his quarry, his eye still ranging along the barrel of the revolver, while the sentry had picked up his muddy rifle, and, feeling faint and shaky, watched a private of his own regiment become, in an instant, something that looked like a roll of blankets doubled under the feet of the Chinese street mob.
The two had forgotten the corporal, who stood beside them as intent as they upon the pitiable tragedy; and the three appeared to be posing for a military tableau. But almost as swiftly as death had come to the escaping prisoner, there swept over the one that remained a frenzy of desire to run. He knew how remote was the possibility of freedom, how desperately small the chance against recapture, dead or alive. But hammers were beating in his head the cadence of "I'll be gettin' five years—five years at least." And the opportunity was made by another's unwilling sacrifice.