The momentary shift of my eyes had
broken the clear current.

“What was you pleased to say?” whined
Carnehan. “They took them without any
sound. Not a little whisper all along the snow,
not though the King knocked down the first
man that set hand on him—not though old
Peachey fired his last cartridge into the
brown of ’em. Not a single solitary sound
did those swines make. They just closed up,
tight, and I tell you their furs stunk. There
was a man called Billy Fish, a good friend
of us all, and they cut his throat, Sir, then
and there, like a pig; and the King kicks
up the bloody snow and says:—‘We’ve had a
dashed fine run for our money. What’s
coming next?’ But Peachey, Peachey
Taliaferro, I tell you, Sir, in confidence as betwixt
two friends, he lost his head, Sir. No,
he didn’t neither. The King lost his head,
so he did, all along o’ one of those cunning
rope-bridges. Kindly let me have the
paper-cutter, Sir. It tilted this way. They
marched him a mile across that snow to a
rope-bridge over a ravine with a river at the
bottom. You may have seen such. They
prodded him behind like an ox. ‘Damn
your eyes!’ says the King. ‘D’you