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"Do not fear to speak, sir," returned the lady, sadly; "it will be difficult to add to our sorrows.'

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"It has become my duty now," pursued Plunkett, "to provide for your safety and that of your sister; that duty obliges me to make immediate arrangements for Mr. Dillon's funeral, and to convey you to a place of greater safety than Duneevin."

Kathleen caught the words, and clinging to her dead father's hand, exclaimed with passionate sobs:

"No, no! he shall not leave us."

"Alas! that is not he any longer, Kathleen," said Plunkett, pointing to the lifeless figure.

"Oh! it is very like him," sobbed the child. "You will not take him away."

"We are grateful for the kindness which prompts you to charge yourself with our protection, Mr. Plunkett," Mary interposed, "and will appeal to it when we stand in need of it. For the present, we are safe within these walls. My father's assassins show no disposition to molest us, and we have no other enemy to fear. There is nothing to prevent us from paying becoming honour to his remains."

There was a quiet air of determined authority in her words which showed that the change which had made her fatherless had developed in her the energy of a strong and decided character.

"You must not remain here," urged Plunkett. "By to-morrow evening O'Neill's savage bands may encamp in yonder woods. I shudder to think of you falling into their hands. You must quit Duneevin for a time. Major Ormsby promises to provide us with an escort through the disturbed border of the Pale. Once beyond Annally, friends will welcome us at every stage, and in my home you will be secure from rebel Scots and rebel Irish alike."

"Again I thank you for your kindness," returned Mary, "but must decline to profit by it at this moment. I do not dread the dangers you speak of. We have little cause for confidence in Major Ormsby, and O'Neill's followers have surely not deserved, from us at least, the title of savages."

"You know them not," he answered, "they have the savage's thirst for plunder and for blood; and I have reason to know that upon their arrival here their fiercest and most vengeful instincts will be called into full play."

"We have done nothing to provoke their hatred, and need not therefore dread it. In the defeat of their comrades we have had no share; they have nothing else to avenge."

"You do not know how stands the case," whispered Plunkett. "The Parliamentarians have captured a few of the hobellers; as they cannot encumber themselves with the prisoners on their march, they will execute them before they leave. When O'Neill's followers hear this news, it will fare ill with the Sassenachs who happen to be in the vicinity. Do you understand now the risk you run by remaining here."

The face of the lady grew deadly pale at this announcement. Plunkett attributed this change of countenance to the terror his words

inspired. He was deceived. After a moment's silence, she answered calmly:

"I am persuaded, that not even on such provocation would O'Neill offer insult or injury to two unprotected girls. In any case, I had rather trust myself to his fury than to Major Ormsby's compassion. I will not quit Duneevin."

"Your better sense deserts you, Miss Dillon," said Plunkett, impatiently. "You oblige me to use an authority which I would fain not produce at this moment. With his last words your father entrusted you to me. I would willingly defer in everything to your wishes, but the duties of this sacred trust oblige me to provide for your safety, .even at the risk of incurring your displeasure.'

"And you think to fulfil my father's last wish by tearing us from his grave and giving us up to the keeping of his murderers."

"You employ harsh language, Miss Dillon, to describe the service I would do you. I feel that I am but discharging a sacred duty in insisting that you shall quit this place. I will not pain you any further by this conversation which is equally disagreeable to us both. I will leave you and go to make preparations for the funeral ceremonies, and for the journey which we shall begin immediately

after."

With these words Plunkett withdrew. Mary Dillon had maintained a dignified calmness during the interview; but her firmness deserted her as the door closed behind her new guardian. The sense of her helplessness overpowered her; she threw herself on her knees, and with a flood of bitter tears bewailed the loss of him who lay before her, unconscious of her distress and insensible to her lamentations. A long time she maintained this prostrate attitude, not noting how the night gathered dark and murky outside, and how the wind rose in sobbing gusts sweeping over the lake as if charged with the wailings of the many houses of mourning it had passed over on its evening journey. At length she was roused by a gentle tugging at her robe, and turning she beheld Shawn-na-Coppal crouching on his knees by her side. His shaggy hair, damped by the rain, hung in clotted masses round his face, and his scanty clothing, saturated with water, stuck close to his shivering frame. His face was pale as her own, and his eyes, as they were raised to hers, had in them that look of helpless pleading peculiar to the distress of the half-witted.

"Lady" he whispered, in a choking voice, "they are going to shoot him!"

"Whom?" asked his mistress, with a shudder.

"Him-Captain MacDermott," replied the boy, hoarsely. "I saw him dragged into the farmyard with his broken arm hanging by his side. They told him he was to be tried. But it is settled. I listened when he passed. I heard them say that he must be shot, they cannot take him with them.”

The words of the simpleton verified a painful presentiment that had haunted Mary's mind since her interview with her cousin. She sickened at the prospect of another scene of blood, wildly pressed her hands to her head to crush the hideous picture from her brain,

and sank into a chair by the bedside. Her weakness lasted only for a moment. When she turned again to her faithful attendant her pale features wore a fixed and resolute look betraying nothing of the agony of her mind.

"He shall not die," she said, with set lips.

The horseboy gazed with perplexed and wondering stare at his mistress.

"How came you hither ?" she asked, in a low whisper.
"I paddled over in a boat I found on the beach."
"Could you guide it back again, think you?”

"Easily, lady. The wind blows towards the shore."

"Come with me then. Kathleen," she whispered, bending over her sister, "will you keep watch alone for a short time? You will not be afraid to remain here by yourself?"

"I shall not be alone," answered the child. "He will be with me."

Mary kissed the child's pale cheek and left the room. At the door she left Shawn standing alone in the darkness; but a few minutes later she returned to him wrapped in a long, heavy mantle, such as was worn by the peasant girls of the time. She led the way to the water stairs. The wind was high, and the white crests of the waves glistened threateningly far out in the darkness. She seated herself in the boat and motioned to her docile companion to take his place in the stern.

"What am I to do, lady ?" asked the bewildered boy.

"Push off, and make straight for the spot where yonder fires are burning."

A few strokes of the paddle sent the boat out into the waves. It was caught up by the strong east wind, and in its sturdy arms was borne rapidly towards the shore.

CHAPTER XXII.

TRIED FOR LIFE.

"And should this last dark chance befall,

Even that shall welcome be;

In death I'll love thee best of all,
A cuisle geal mo chroidhe!"
Irish Ballad.

It is somewhat at variance with the modern rules of war that prisoners taken in battle should undergo trial by court-martial. Armed opposition to a public cause, when openly professed and widely supported, has ceased to be considered an indictable offence. No tribunal is appointed to judge it; there is no hostility against the captive any more than against the dead. But in the civil dissensions with which Ireland was torn asunder during the seventeenth century, this etiquette of war was neither so clearly defined nor so nicely observed. Many

instances are recorded in which prisoners, made on the field or at the surrender of a fortress, were arraigned before a military committee selected from the conquering army, tried without regard to any system of law, and executed without respect for any principle of justice.

When, then, Heber MacDermott and his fellow prisoner were led into a cattle shed in the farmyard of Duneevin Castle to confront a tribunal of Parliamentarian officers, to hear themselves charged with offences which were criminal only because committed against their accusers, and then to receive a sentence of death from which there was no appeal, they could hardly complain that their case was exceptionally hard. It was a fate to which many of those who before them had defended the same cause, had heroically submitted, and, though they knew it not, it was a fate that awaited many of the gallant leaders who commanded the forces then marshalled under the "Red Hand."

Major Ormsby stood in the centre of a group of officers, leaning on his sword. He took no notice of the prisoners when they were brought into the presence of the tribunal over which he presided. He continued to converse carelessly with the officers near him. The insulting manner in which he was received roused MacDermott, and a flush of anger burned in his face as he stood with his guard, in silence, near the door. On his fellow-prisoner no such impression was produced. He preserved even here his self-possessed and jocular air, surveyed the interior of the shed with a careless glance, and then confidently informed his guard, and any others who cared to hear him, that he thought the court eminently worthy of the judges.

"I am surprised that Hamilton has not returned," remarked Major Ormsby. "He could not have possibly got himself into the clutches of the Irish. Can it be that he has lost his way? We must send out parties to look for him. But first, I believe, there is some business to be despatched here. Major Storey, thou hast, an I err not, drawn up in due form the offences with which these rebels stand charged. Let them be read over that we may adjudge upon them."

Major Storey prided himself no less upon his accomplishments as a legal scribe than on his gifts as a preacher. The solemnity of the phraseology of law had for him the same charm as the sonorous phrases of puritanical cant, and he addressed himself to the framing of a legal document with the same satisfaction with which he vented his zeal in a spiritual outpouring. It is hardly a matter of surprise that his legal diction should have been largely tinged with the peculiarities of style which marked his devout discourses.

From the bulky paper which the major produced at the command of his superior, it appeared that the culprits arraigned before the military court had been taken in open war against the sacred authority of the Parliament of England. They had been guilty of the damnable crime of resisting them who had come to take possession of the land in the name and by the authority of the Most High. The unbelievers had come up against the chosen people even as the Amorrhite, the Pherezite, the Hethite, and those who dwelt over against the south side of Ceneroth had come up against Israel, and they should perish even as perished the allies of Canaan. To his favoured soldiers the

Lord had addressed the order. "You shall pursue after your enemies and kill all the hindermost of them as they flee." But on that day one from amongst their captains had been unfaithful to the divine command, and had spared the idolators who had been delivered into his hand. It was for them to cut off the Amalekites whom they held captive, as Saul, upon his repentance, did unto Agay in Galgal. He, the major, was no Samuel, yet he would not hesitate to rebuke them in the words of the prophet-"The Lord sent thee on the way and said: Go kill the sinners of Amalec and thou shalt fight against them until thou hast utterly destroyed them. Why then didst thou not hearken to the voice of the Lord ?"

"We have sinned," said the major, in conclusion, "by transgressing the commandment of the Lord; let us turn unto Him again by repentance and fit atonement. Let His enemies die the death.”

His colleagues heard the major's indictment with unmoved countenances. They were accustomed to his manner of speech, the grotesqueness of his scriptural jargon could not provoke them to smile. MacDermott listened to the plea for his murder in silence, nor did he offer any comment upon it when it was finished. A smile of contempt curled his lip and concealed, as he wished it, the tokens of acute suffering which his features must otherwise have betrayed. When the president of the tribunal demanded if the prisoners had anything to urge in extenuation of their offences, anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon them, he replied with haughty scorn:

"Nothing! A gentleman and a soldier is no adviser for a gang of assassins."

His fellow-prisoner bore not so calmly the ordeal of mock justice to which he was subjected. He commented freely on the major's bill of indictment while the document was being read. His observations would have been amusing, had there been any place for mirth. The major's quotation of the order to "kill the hindermost of them as they flee," drew from him the assurance that the major himself would never fall amongst the champions thus slain. The name of the King of Amalec suggested to him a fervent prayer that the devil would gag all ranting Sassenachs, "or," as he expressed it, "to give the devil his due, Sassenachs of every profession." To the question why sentence of death should not be passed upon him, he had a word to say; and, in spite of the remonstrating glances of his fellow-captive, he said:

"I am no gentleman," he began, "and if being a gentleman would force me to be silent now, I am glad that I am not. My breast-plate is iron, my head-piece the same, I cannot therefore know what it is that makes the gentleman; in proof of my ignorance, I always imagined that the cowardly cutting of undefended throats was not a practice of the class. Do not think that I wish to shame you into sparing my life. I defy and scorn you as heartily as my commander. I am an Irishman and a Catholic; I can expect no mercy and I do not ask for any. But for the sake of the country that some of you belong to, and for the sake of the profession that most of you

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