shockingly aboriginal--simian--in the swift, gorilla-like clutch of his
huge dangling hands, as they fastened on the throat and shoulder of the
drunken man and whirled him on his back in the snow--something deadly and
menacing in his hard-breathing, soft-brogued invective:

"Yeh bloody nightingale! come off th' perch! . . . I'm fed up wid
yeh!--I'll waltz yeh!--I'll tache yeh tu make a mock av Burke Slavin,
time an' again! I'll--"

Redmond interposed, "Steady, Sergeant!" he implored shakily, his hand on
his superior's shoulder, "For God's sake--"

But Slavin, in absent fashion, shoved him off. He seemed to put no
effort in the movement, but the tense muscular impact of it sent Redmond
reeling yards away.

"Giddap, Yorkey! God d----n ye for a dhrunken waster!--giddap! or I'll
put th' boots tu yeh!" Terrible was the menace of the giant Irishman's
face, his back-flung boot and his snarling, curiously low-pitched voice.

"No! not Burke, old man! . . . ah, don't!" gasped the rich tenor voice
pleadingly from the snow--"ah, don't, Burke! . . . remember,
remember . . . St. Agnes' Eve--

"St. Agnes' Eve. Ah! bitter chill it was,
The--"

It broke--that throbbing voice with its strange, impassioned appeal. Far
away over the snow the faint, silvery ring of a locomotive gong fell upon
the ears of the trio almost like the deep, solemn tolling of bells.