Said Redmond, "How about our respected sergeant? we seem to have forgotten him."
"Slavin?" ejaculated the senior constable; and was silent awhile. There was no levity in him now. Slowly he resumed, "I guess as much as it's humanly possible for two men to know each other—down to the bedrock, it's surely Burke Slavin and I. Should too, the years we've been together. The good old beggar! . . . We slang each other, and all that . . . but there's too much between us ever to resent anything for long."
"I know," said Redmond simply, "he told me himself—last night."
"Eh?" queried Yorke sharply. "My God! . . . Tchkk!" he clucked, and burying his hands in his face he gave vent to a fretful oath. "My God!" he repeated miserably, "I'd forgotten—last night! . . . I sure must have been 'lit' . . . to come that over old Burke. . . ."
"You sure were!" remarked Redmond brutally.
"Keats' 'St. Agnes' Eve'! . . . Oh, Lord!" . . . He drew in his breath with a sibilant hiss, "There seems something—something devilish about—"
"I know! I know!" breathed Yorke tensely, "what . . . you mean." His haggard eyes implored Redmond's. "No! no! never again . . . I swear it. . . ."
There came a long, painful silence. "See here; look!" began Yorke suddenly. He stopped and surveyed George, a trifle anxiously. "Mind! . . . I'm not trying to justify myself but—get me right about this now. Don't you ever start in making a mistake about Slavin—blarney and all. No, Sir! I tell you when old Burke runs amôk in those tantrums he's a holy fright. He'd kill a man. Might as well run up against a gorilla."
A vision of the huge, sinister, crouching figure seemed to rise up in
Redmond's mind—the great, clutching, simian hands.
"In India," continued Yorke, "we'd say he'd got a touch of the 'Dulalli Tap.' The man doesn't know his own strength. I was taking an awful chance—getting his goat like that last night. It's a wonder he didn't kill me. He's man-handled me pretty badly at times. Oh, well! I guess it's been coming to me all right. Neither of us has ever dreamt of going squalling to the Orderly-room over our . . . differences. I don't think Burke's ever taken the trouble to 'peg' a man in his life. Not his way. 'I must take shteps!' says he, and 'I will take shteps!' and when he starts in softly rubbing those awful great grub-hooks he calls hands—together! . . . well! you want to look out."