aw it
all more clearly. Sam was much interested in the foreign troops. Their
uniforms looked strange and uncouth.

"What funny pill-boxes those are that those Anglian soldiers have stuck
to the side of their heads," he said, pointing to two men at Gin-Sin
before they set sail.

"Yes," answered Cleary. "They'll put on their helmets when the sun gets
higher. They do look queer, tho. Perhaps they think our fellows look
queer too."

"I never thought of that," said Sam. "Perhaps they do," and he looked
at his fellow-countrymen who were preparing to embark, endeavoring to
judge of their appearance as if he had never seen them before. He
scrutinized carefully their slouch hats creased in four quarters, their
loose, dark-blue jackets, generally unbuttoned, and their easy-going
movements.

"Perhaps they do look queer," he said at last. "I never thought of
that."

The river was more full of corpses than ever, and there were many to be
seen on the shore, all of them of natives. Children were playing and
bathing in the shallows, oblivious of the dead around them. Dogs
prowled about, sleek and contented, and usually sniffing only at the
cadavers, for their appetites were already sated. At one place they saw
a father and son lying hand in hand where they had been shot while
imploring mercy. A dog was quietly eating the leg of the boy. The
natives who pulled the boat along with great difficulty under the hot
sun were drawn from all classes, some of them coolies accustomed to
hard work, others evidently of the leisure classes who could hardly
keep up with the rest. Soldiers were acting as task-masters, and they
whipped the men who did not pull with sufficient strength. Now and then
a man would try to escape by running, but such deserters were
invariably brought down by a bullet in the back. More than once one of
the men would fall as they waded along, and be swept off by the
current. None of them seemed to know how to swim, but no one paid any
attention to their fate. Parties were sent out to bring in other
natives to take the place of those who gave out. One of the men thus
brought in was paralyzed on one side and carried a crutch. The soldiers
made sport of him, snatched the crutch from him, and made him pull as
best he could with the rest. Sam, Cleary, and an Anglian officer who
had served through the whole war took a long walk together back from
the river during the halt at noon. They e