Volume Iii Part 15 (1/2)

A sharp ring of hoofs clattered on the road--nearer--nearer--nearer still. A band of hors.e.m.e.n were approaching at a gallop from the quay; behind--in the distance--a host of cavalry; from the opposite direction the tramp of many feet. The Castle-gates had been opened; the infantry were pouring forth; the mob, finding itself hemmed in, smote right and left in a frantic effort to escape.

The smaller band of hors.e.m.e.n, headed by Shane and Ca.s.sidy, were the first to reach the coach. They drew their _couteaux-de-cha.s.se_, and, beating aside the unwieldy pikes, which were too long for such close quarters, trampled the insurgents down.

'The lady, Lord Glandore!' Ca.s.sidy shouted. 'Now's your time!'

'Oh, save her!' raved Robert, in remorse. 'My G.o.d, what have I done?

Save her, Lord Glandore!'

Shane stretched out his hand towards his cousin. Chance was favouring him. Under pretext of protecting her, the project planned by the giant could without difficulty be accomplished now. Doreen shrank back.

'Begone!' she wailed, filled with the anguish of that heap upon the ground. 'What have you done with your brother--b.a.s.t.a.r.d!'

Shane winced, as from a whip-cut on the cheek. She, too, then knew the fatal secret; but it mattered not, for she was in his power. The military were closing in upon the mob. In the scurry and the darkness he would bear her far away. He was well known; what more natural than that her cousin should rescue the bereaved Miss Wolfe from such a scene?

Dismounting, he strode over the corpse of Lord Kilwarden, and calling on his friends to rally round the coach, prepared to withdraw it from the _melee_.

Upon hearing the name, twice repeated, the man who had held the pistol to the coachman's ear turned sharply round.

'You then are Lord Glandore?' he asked. 'The curse of G.o.d has found you, murderer! You and a few like you slew my father four years agone in sport on Stephen's Green! Do you recall it? He was only an old man--a shoemaker. Maybe you don't, for you've done many such deeds, and you were drunk!'

Shane thrust the importunate babbler aside, and ordered the coachman to urge on his horses.

'I've waited for my revenge all this while, my lord,' muttered the man, 'and you don't escape me now.'

Raising his pistol with steady aim, he shot Shane through the heart, and, diving, vanished in the crowd.

Ca.s.sidy was taken aback. Hitherto everything had moved according to his desire. Were his well-constructed schemes to be disconcerted now?

He looked up the street and down the street at the compact bodies of troops advancing, then with a rage of longing at Doreen. Yes! his plan was overthrown; a new one must spring out of its ashes. Shane, by virtue of his cousins.h.i.+p, might have borne the young lady with safety through the ranks. He, Ca.s.sidy, could hope for no such privilege.

Well, better luck next time. But it would not do to lose his footing at Strogue Abbey. _Le roi est mort; vive le roi!_ He bethought him of a certain prisoner within the provost, kidnapped the other day, whose position was quite changed by that untoward pistol-shot. All things considered, Mr. Ca.s.sidy could not have acted with more wisdom than he did. He left Doreen to the tender mercies of the soldiery, and spurred with utmost speed towards the provost.

CHAPTER XII.

MOILEY'S LAST MEAL.

Doreen speedily recovered her presence of mind, shaken for an instant by the sudden shock of the predicament in which she found herself. The ringleaders of the riot were, with a few exceptions, netted. The young officers of militia, many of whom had danced at b.a.l.l.s with the beautiful Miss Wolfe, were loud in their outcry over the tragedy, vociferous in promises of vengeance. Would she wish the rascals to be lashed, or would pitchcaps please her fancy? The malefactors should swing, every one; that would be a comfort to her, no doubt.

Excruciating cats should be manufactured to oblige her. No punishment could be too severe for wretches who had dared to kill two members of the peerage. Where should they take their beautiful charge? Would she go to the Castle, or to her lamented parent's mansion? Wherever Venus liked, there would Mars escort her. Disciplined by sorrow, Doreen could even at this dark hour consider the grief of others before her own. The Countess of Glandore was sick and shattered. Since Terence's vanis.h.i.+ng she had returned to the condition of an owl; what would be the effect on her frayed nerves of the sudden death of her favourite son? Doreen decided, postponing the consideration of her own loss, to drive at once to Strogue, lest tidings should reach her aunt more abruptly than her state would warrant.

It was dawn when Miss Wolfe reached the Abbey--the cold raw dawn of early summer, when nature a.s.serts her right to live despite the tyranny of winter--and she was seized with a new pain on entering the hall; for wan Sara was sitting where she had sank down, to await she knew not what. Alas! for her, too, was she a bearer of evil tidings, and Sara read them on her face, and sighed. The look of deep compa.s.sion told but too plainly that her worst forebodings were realised; and that, as a daughter of Erin, she must accept her place in the grim procession of the bereaved. She did not ask for news--preferred, indeed, to hear none, for what news was there that could bring aught but misery? Like a tired child she closed her eyes, and clung to the older maiden in a mute entreaty not to be left alone.

This speechless sorrow was painful to witness. The offices of Miss Wolfe were needed elsewhere, for there was another in the stricken household who must be attended to before the sad _cortege_ should arrive. My lady would have to be told that she had lost both a brother and a son. It was with relief then that she heard a creaking on the stairs and perceived Mr. Curran coming down, who, by his appearance, had evidently not been to bed. She, who had learned what loss is, knew the full value of a father's love. Beckoning him to his daughter, she disentangled the cold fingers from about her neck and went away to my lady's bedroom.

Mr. Curran was himself in dolorous mood. Extremely troubled by the rocket which he too had seen, and by hints which, during the past week, had reached him through the proprietress of the Little House, he had been unable to sleep. Groaning in spirit he saw the shambles reopened; the reign of terror recommenced. His country was dead now; Moiley had eaten her up to the last crumb. Might not the sacrifice of her existence bring peace unto her sons? As leaning his cheek upon his hand he sat looking across the tranquil bay at the twinkling lights beyond, his heart became exceeding sorrowful while he reviewed the efforts of his life. Memory stood by in a sable robe. Though he had held himself erect whilst others grovelled; though his courage had remained unshaken whilst others quaked and fawned; how little--how very little--it had been given to him to accomplis.h.!.+ Yet there was nothing he had wittingly left undone. His political honour was so bright that malice could detect no stain on it. He had worked for others--not for himself. Instead of lifting himself as he might have done above the stormy agitation of his time, he had clung to the heaving of the wave--to rise and fall with it--perchance to be dashed with it upon a rock--with how little result--how little--how very little! Yet he saw not how he could have acted otherwise. As dawn began to sparkle on the bay, he took up a book to change the current of his pondering--a volume of the grand Greek poets. It opened at the 'Seven Against Thebes,' and he read thoughts which were a painful echo of his own. 'The happiest destiny is never to have been born; the next best to return quickly to the nothingness from which we came.' Grand old t.i.tan aeschylus! Was that all his genius could discern? Never to have been born! Was that the conviction of the great philosopher? Mr.

Curran looked out on the panorama stretched before him, as fair a prospect as man may desire to look upon. The glittering waters were strewn with flakes of silver; the looming hills steeped in a golden haze. The beautiful world! Was its beauty a mockery of human trouble--no more? It seemed so. Those lovely hills were teeming with desperate men, reduced by the branding-iron of oppression to the condition of wild beasts. In the blue shadow of those picturesque ravines were cottages--charred, unroofed, deserted. That fairy city that mirrored its whiteness in the bay--glistering, silver-crowned--had been but t'other day the scene of perhaps the most hideous carnival of human wickedness which ever disgraced humanity.

Perchance even at this very instant, while the wizened little man was gazing out so dreamily, fresh horrors were being enacted. Truly, 'twere the happiest of destinies never to have looked on the false sheen of the sepulchre at all. But though we may drag at them, the tough fibres of existence are deeply imbedded in our flesh.

Mr. Curran, from his station, marked the return of Lord Kilwarden's coach--the pallid concern of the servants, who were speaking in hushed tones, as though in the awful presence of the Pilgrim. He went downstairs to learn what had happened. It was worse than he expected.

Deluded Robert--insane enthusiast! Alas! The advocate would have to stand forth yet once again and wrestle for a life; would have to rouse himself from his dejection to do all that was possible to save this lad. With the urgent need for action Mr. Curran recovered his mental steadiness. He resolved to seek tidings at once of Robert and of Terence; to raise his voice in their behalf. Were both concerned in the disastrous riot? Were both captured? had both escaped? As he rode past the Little House, Madam Gillin called out that she had something to say. Anxious, on account of Terence's disappearance, the kind lady had sent Jug into town for several days past to ferret out the truth.