"I confess," said someone whom O'Connor could not see, "that in pleading what may be said on behalf of this young man, I have no ground to go upon beyond a mere instinctive belief in the poor fellow's honesty, and in the truth of his story."

"Pardon me, sir," replied one in whose voice O'Connor thought he recognized that of the priest, "if I say, that to act upon such fanciful impressions, as if they were grounded upon evidence, were, in nine cases out of every ten, the most transcendent and mischievous folly. I repeat my own conviction, upon something like satisfactory evidence, that he is _not_ honest. I talked with the fellow this evening--perhaps a little too freely--but in that conference, if he lied not, I learned that he belonged to that most dangerous cla.s.s--the worst with whom we have to contend--the lukewarm, professing, pa.s.sive Catholics--the very stuff of which the worst kind of spies and informers are made. He, no doubt, guessed, from what I said--for, to be plain with you, I spoke too freely by a great deal, in the belief, I know not how a.s.sumed, that he was one of ourselves--he guessed, I say, something of the nature of my mission, and tracked me hither--at all events, by some strange coincidence, hither he came. It is for you to weigh the question of probabilities."

"It matters not, in my mind, why or how he came hither," observed the ill-favoured gentleman, who sate at the head of the table; "he _is_ here, and he hath seen our meeting, and could identify many of us. This is too large a confidence to repose in a stranger, and I for one do not like it, and therefore I say let him be killed without any more parley or debate."

The old man paused, and a silence followed. With an agonized attention, O'Connor listened for one word or movement of dissent; it came not.

"All agreed?" said the bearded hero, preparing to light his tobacco pipe at the candle. "Well, so I expected."

The little man who had spoken before him knocked sharply with the b.u.t.t of a pistol upon the table, and O'Connor heard the door of the room open. The same person beckoned with his hand, and one of the stalwart men who had a.s.sisted in securing him, advanced to the foot of the board.

"Let a grave be digged in the orchard," said he, "and when it is ready, bring the prisoner out and despatch him, Let it be all done and the grave closed in half an hour."

The man made a rude obeisance, and left the room in silence.

Bound as he was, O'Connor traced the four walls of the room, in the vague hope that he might discover some other outlet from the chamber than that which he had just entered. But in vain; nothing encountered him but the hard, cold wall; and even had it been otherwise, thus helplessly manacled, what would it have availed him? He pa.s.sed into the room into which he had been first thrust by the two guards, and in a state little short of frenzy, he cast himself upon the floor.

"Oh G.o.d!" said he, "it is terrible to see death thus creeping toward me, and not to have the power to help myself. I am doomed--my life already devoted, and before another hour I shall lie under the clay, a corpse. Is there nothing to be done--no hope, no chance? Oh, G.o.d!

nothing!"

As he lay in this strong agony, he heard, or thought he heard, the clank of the spade upon the stony soil without. The work was begun--the grave was opened. Madly he strained at the cords--he tugged with more than human might--but all in vain. Still with horrible monotony he heard the clank of the iron mattock tinkling and clanking in the gravelly soil. Oh! that he could have stopped his ears to exclude the maddening sound. The pulses smote upon his brain like floods of fire.

With closed eyes, and teeth set, and hands desperately clenched, he drew himself together, in the awful spasms of uncontrollable horror.

Suddenly this fearful paroxysm departed, and a kind of awful calm supervened. It was no dull insensibility to his real situation, but a certain collectedness and calm self-possession, which enabled him to behold the grim adversary of human kind, even arrayed in all the terrors of his nearest approach, with a steady eye.

"After all, when all's done, what have I to lose? Life had no more joys for me--happy I could never more have been. Why should the miserable dread death, and cling to life like cowards? What is it? A brief struggle--the agony of a few minutes--the instinctive yearnings of our nature after life; and this over, comes rest--eternal quiet."

He then endeavoured, in prayer, earnestly to commend his spirit to its Maker. While thus employed he heard steps upon the hard tiles of the pa.s.sage. His heart swelled as though it would burst. He rightly guessed their mission. The bolt was slowly drawn; the dusky light of a lantern streamed into the room, and revealed upon the threshold the forms of three tall men.

"Lift him up--rise him, boys," said he who carried the lantern.

"You must come with us," said one of the two who advanced to O'Connor.

Resistance was fruitless, and he offered none. A cold, sick, overwhelming horror unstrung his joints and dimmed his sight. He suffered them to lead him pa.s.sively from the room.

CHAPTER XLV.

THE MAN IN THE CLOAK--AND HIS BED-CHAMBER.

As O'Connor approached the outer door through which he was to pa.s.s to certain and speedy death, it were not easy to describe or a.n.a.lyze his sensations; every object he beheld in the brief glance he cast around him as he pa.s.sed along the hall appeared invested with a strangely sharp and vivid intensity of distinctness, and had in its aspect something indefinably spectral and ghastly--like things beheld under the terrific spell of a waking nightmare. His tremendous situation seemed to him something unreal, incredible; he walked in an appalling dream; in vain he strove to fix his thoughts myriads and myriads of scenes and incidents, never remembered since childhood's days, now with strange distinctness and wild rapidity whirled through his brain. The hall-door stood half open, and the fellow who led the way had almost reached it, when it was on a sudden thrown wide, and a figure, m.u.f.fled in a cloak, confronted the funeral procession.

The foremost man raised the ponderous weapon which he carried, and held it poised in the air, ready to shiver the head of the intruder should he venture to advance--the two guards who held O'Connor halted at the same time.

"How's this, Cormack!" said the stranger. "Do you lift your weapon against the life of a friend?--rub your eyes and waken--how is it you cannot know me?--you've been drinking, sirrah."

At the sound of the speaker's voice the man at once lowered his hatchet and withdrew, a little sulkily, like a rebuked mastiff.

"What means all this?" continued he in the cloak, looking searchingly at the party in the rear; "whom have we got here?--where made you this prisoner? So, so--this must be looked to. How were you about to deal with him, fellow?" he added, addressing himself to him whom he had first encountered.

"According to orders, captain," replied the man, doggedly.

"And how may that have been?" interrogated the gentleman in the cloak.

"_End_ him," replied he, sulkily.

"Has he been before the council in the great parlour?" inquired the stranger.

"Yes, captain--long enough, too," replied the fellow.

"And _they_ have ordered this execution?" added the newly arrived.

"Yes, sir--who else? Come on, boys--bring him out, will you? Time is running short," he added, addressing his comrades, and himself approaching the door.

"Re-conduct the prisoner to the council-board," said the stranger, in a tone of command.

Without a moment's hesitation they obeyed the order; and O'Connor, followed by the m.u.f.fled figure of the stranger, for the second time entered the apartment where his relentless judges sate.

The new-comer strode up the room to the table at which the self-styled council were seated.

"G.o.d save you, gentlemen," said he, "and prosper the good work ye have taken in hand;" and thus speaking, he removed and cast upon the table his hat and cloak, thereby revealing the square-built form and harsh features of O'Hanlon.

O'Connor no sooner recognized the traits of his mysterious acquaintance, than he felt a hope which thrilled with a strange agony of his heart--a hope--almost a conviction--that he should escape; and unaccountable though it may appear, in this hope he felt more unmanned and agitated than he had done but a few moments before, in the apparent certainty of immediate and inevitable destruction.

The salutation of O'Hanlon was warmly, almost enthusiastically, returned, and after this interchange of friendly greeting, and a few brief questions and answers touching comparatively indifferent matters, he glanced toward O'Connor, and said,--

"I've so far presumed upon my favour with you, gentlemen, as to stay your orders in respect of that young gentleman, whom, it would appear, you have judged worthy of death. Death is a matter whose importance I've never very much insisted upon--that you know--at least, several among you, gentlemen, well know it, for you have seen me deal it somewhat unsparingly when the cause required it; but I profess I do not care in cool blood to take life upon insufficient reason. Life is lightly taken; but once gone, who can restore it? Therefore, I think it very meet that patient consideration should be had of all cases, when such deliberation is possible and convenient, before proceeding to the last irrevocable extremity. Pray you inform me upon what charges does this youth stand convicted, that his life should be forfeit?"

"It is briefly told," replied the priest. "On my way hither I encountered him; we rode and conversed together; and conjecturing that he travelled on the same errand as myself, I talked to him more freely than in all discretion I ought to have done. I discovered my mistake, and at Chapelizod I turned and left him, telling him with threats _not_ to follow me; yet scarcely had I been here ten minutes, when this gentleman is found lurking near the house--and about to enter it. He is seized, bound, brought in here, and witnesses our a.s.sembly and proceedings. Under these suspicious circ.u.mstances, and with the knowledge of our meeting and its objects, were it wise to let him go?

Surely not so--but the veriest madness."

"Young man," said O'Hanlon, turning to O'Connor, "what say you to this?"

"No more than what I already told these gentlemen--simply, that taking the upper level to avoid the sloughs by the river side, I became in the darkness entangled in the dense woods which cover these grounds, and at length, after groping my way through the trees as best I might, arrived by the merest chance at this place, and without the slightest knowledge, or even suspicion, either that I was following the course taken by that gentleman, or intruding myself upon any secret councils.

I have no more to say--this is the simple truth."

"Well, gentlemen," said O'Hanlon, "you hear the prisoner's defence.

What think you?"

"We have decided already, and he has now produced nothing new in his favour. I see no reason why we should alter our decision," replied the priest.

"You would, then, put him to death?" inquired he.

"a.s.suredly," replied the priest, calmly.

"But this shall not be, gentlemen; he shall _not_ die. You shall slay _me_ first," replied O'Hanlon. "I know this youth; and every word he has spoken I believe. He is the son of one who risked his life a hundred times, and lost all for the sake of the king and his country--one who, throughout the desperate and fruitless struggles of Irish loyalty, was in the field my constant comrade, and a braver and a better one none ever need desire. The son of such a man shall not perish by our hands; and for the risk of his talking elsewhere of this night's adventure, I will be his surety, with my life, that he mentions it to no one, and nowhere."