Part 18 (1/2)
”And I!”
”And I!” others of the group roared with gestures of defiance. ”We are not the boys to be whistled aside! To the devil with your ignorance!”
And one, stepping forward, snapped his fingers close to the Colonel's face. ”That for you!--that for you!” he cried. ”Now, or whenever you will, day or night, and sword or pistol! To the devil with your impudence, sir; I'd have you know you're not the only man has seen the world! The shame of the world on you, talking like a schoolmaster while your country cries for you, and 'tis not your tongue but your hand she's wanting!”
Uncle Ulick put his big form between Colonel John and his a.s.sailant.
”Sure and be easy!” he said. ”Sir Donny, you're forgetting yourself!
And you, Tim Burke! Be easy, I say. It's only for himself the Colonel's speaking!”
”Thank G.o.d for that!” Flavia cried in a voice which rang high.
They were round him now a ring of men with dark, angry faces, and hardly restrained hands. Their voices cried tumultuously on him, in defiance of Ulick's intervention. But the Bishop intervened.
”One moment,” he said, still speaking smoothly and with a smile.
”Perhaps it is for those he thinks he speaks!” And the Bishop pointed to the crowd which filled the forecourt, and of which one member or another was perpetually pressing his face against the panes to learn what his sacredness, G.o.d bless him! would be wis.h.i.+ng. ”Perhaps it is for those he thinks he speaks!” he repeated in irony--for of the feeling of the crowd there could be no doubt.
”You say well,” Colonel John replied, rising to his feet and speaking with gloomy firmness. ”It is on their behalf I appeal to you. For it is they who foresee the least, and they who will suffer the most. It is they who will follow like sheep, and they who like sheep will go to the butcher! Ay, it is they,” he continued with deeper feeling, and he turned to Flavia, ”who are yours, and they will pay for you.
Therefore,” raising his hand for silence, ”before you name the prize, sum up the cost! Your country, your faith, your race--these are great things, but they are far off and can do without you. But these--these are that fragment of your country, that tenet of your faith, that handful of your race which G.o.d has laid in the palm of your hand, to cherish or to crush, and----”
”The devil!” Machin e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed with sudden violence. Perhaps he read in the girl's face some shadow of hesitation, of thought, of perplexity.
”Have done with your preaching, sir, I say! Have done, man! Try us not too far! If we fail----”
”You must fail!” Colonel John retorted--with that narrowing of the nostrils that in the pinch of fight men long dead had seen for a moment in distant lands, and seen no more. ”You will fail! And failing, sir, his reverence will stand no worse than now, for his life is forfeit already! While you----”
”What of me? Well, what of me?” the stout man cried truculently. His brows descended over his eyes, and his lips twitched.
”For you, Admiral Cammock----”
The other stepped forward a pace. ”You know me?”
”Yes, I know you.”
There was silence for an instant, while those who were in the secret eyed Colonel Sullivan askance, and those who were not gaped at Cammock.
Soldiers of fortune, of fame and name, were plentiful in those days, but seamen of equal note were few. And with this man's name the world had lately rung. An Irishman, he had risen high in Queen Anne's service; but at her death, incited by his devotion to the Stuarts, he had made a move for them at a critical moment. He had been broken, being already a notable man; on which, turning his back on an ungrateful country, as he counted it, he had entered the Spanish marine, which the great minister Alberoni was at that moment reforming.
He had been advanced to a position of rank and power--Spain boasted no stouter seaman; and in the attempt on which Alberoni was bent, to upset the Protestant succession in England, Admiral Cammock was a factor of weight. He was a bold, resolute man, restrained by no fine scruples, prepared to take risks himself, and not too p.r.o.ne to think for others.
In Ireland his life was forfeit, Great Britain counted him renegade and traitor. So that to find himself recognised, though grateful to his vanity, was a shock to his discretion.
”Well, and knowing me?” he replied at last, with the tail of his eyes on the Bishop, as if he would gladly gain a hint from his subtlety.
”What of me?”
”You have your home, your rank, your relations abroad,” Colonel Sullivan answered firmly. ”And if a descent on the coast be a part of your scheme, then you do not share the peril equally with us. You are here to-day and elsewhere to-morrow. We shall suffer, while you sail away.”
”I fling that in your teeth!” Cammock cried. ”I know you too, sir, and----”
”Know no worse of me than of yourself!” Colonel Sullivan retorted. ”But if you do indeed know me, you know that I am not one to stand by and see my friends led blindfold to certain ruin. It may suit your plans to make a diversion here. But that diversion is a part of larger schemes, and the fate of those who make it is little to you.”