The sun was shining brightly in a clear sky next morning, when the
people of Muirisc finally got up out of bed, and, still rubbing their
eyes, strolled forth to note the ravages of last night’s storm, and talk
with one another about it.
There was much to marvel at and discuss at length in garrulous groups
before the cottage doors. One whole wing of the ancient convent
structure--that which tradition ascribed to the pious building fervor of
Cathal _an Diomuis_, or “the Haughty”--had been thrown down during the
night, and lay now a tumbled mass of stones and timber piled in wild
disorder upon the _débris_ of previous ruins. But inasmuch as the fallen
building had long been roofless and disused, and its collapse meant only
another added layer of chaos in the deserted convent-yard, Muirisc did
not worry its head much about it, and even yawned in Cormac O’Daly’s
face as he wandered from one knot of gossips to another, relating
legends about Cathal the Proud.
What interested them considerably more was the report, confirmed now
by O’Daly himself, that just before the crash came, six people in the
reception hall of the convent had distinctly heard the voice of the
Hostage from the depths below the cloistral building. Everybody in
Muirisc knew all about the Hostage. They had been, so to speak, brought
up with him. Prolonged familiarity with the pathetic story of his
death in exile, here at Muirisc, and constant contact with his name as
perpetuated in the title of their unique convent, made him a sort of
oldest inhabitant of the place. Their lively imaginations now quickly
built up and established the belief that he was heard to complain,
somewhere under the convent, once every fifty years. Old Ellen Dumphy
was able to fix the period with exactness because when the mysterious
sound was last heard she was a young woman, and had her face bound up,
and was almost “disthracted wid the sore teeth.”
But most interesting of all was the fact that there, before their eyes,
riding easily upon the waters of the Muirisc, lay the _Hen Hawk_, as
peacefully and safely at anchor as if no gale had ever thundered upon
the cliffs outside. The four men of her crew, when they made their
belated appearance in the morning sunlight out-of-doors, were eagerly
questioned, and they told with great readiness and a flowering wealth
of adjectives the marvelous story of how The O’Mahony aimed her in
pitch darkness at the bar, and hurled her over it at precisely the
psychological moment, with just the merest scraping of her keel. To the
seafaring senses of those who stood now gazing at the vessel there was
more witchcraft in this than in the subterranean voice of the Hostage
even.
“Ah, thin, ’tis our O’Mahony’s the grand divil of a man!” they
murmured, admiringly.
No work was to be expected, clearly, on the day after such an
achievement as this. The villagers stood about, and looked at the squat
coaster, snugly raising and sinking with the lazy movement of the tide,
and watched for the master of Muirisc to show himself. They had never
before been conscious of such perfect pride in and affection for this
strange Americanized chieftain of theirs. By an unerring factional
instinct, they felt that this apotheosis of The O’Mahony in their hearts
involved the discomfiture of O’Daly and the nuns, and they let the
hereditary bard feel it, too.
“Ah, now, Cormac O’Daly,” one of the women called out to the poet, as he
hung, black-visaged and dejected, upon the skirts of the group, “tell me
man, was it anny of yer owld Diarmids and Cathals ye do be perplexin’ us
wid that wud a-steered that boat beyond over the bar at black midnight,
wid a gale outside fit to blow mountains into the say? Sure, it’s not
botherin’ his head wid books, or delutherin’ his moind wid ancestral
mummeries, or wearyin’ the bones an’ marrow out of the saints wid
attendin’ their business instead of his own, that _our_ O’Mahony do be
after practicin’.”
The bard opened his lips to reply. Then the gleam of enjoyment in the
woman’s words which shone from all the faces roundabout, dismayed him.
He shook his head, and walked away in silence. Meanwhile The O’Mahony,
after a comfortable breakfast, and a brief consultation with Jerry, had
put on his hat and strolled out through the pretentious arched doorway
of his tumble-down abode. From the outer gate he saw the clustered
villagers upon the wharf, and guessed what they were saying and thinking
about him and his boat. He smiled contentedly to himself, and lighted
a cigar. Then, sucking this with gravity, hands in pockets and hat well
back on head, he turned and sauntered across the turreted corner of
his castle into the ancient church-yard, which lay between it and the
convent. The place was one crowded area of mortuary wreckage--flat
tombstones sunken deep into the earth; monumental tablets, once erect,
now tipping at every crazy angle; pre-historic, weather-beaten runic
crosses lying broken and prone; more modern and ambitious sarcophagi of
brick and stone, from which sides or ends had fallen away, revealing
to every eye their ghostly contents; the ground covered thickly with
nettles and umbrageous weeds, under which the unguided foot continually
encountered old skulls and human bones--a grave-yard such as can be seen
nowhere in the world save in western Ireland.
The O’Mahony picked his way across this village Golgotha, past the ruins
of the ancient church, and into the grounds to the rear of the convent
buildings, clambering as he went over whole series of tumbled masonry
heaped in weed-grown ridges, until he stood upon the edge of the havoc
wrought by this latest storm.
No rapt antiquary ever gazed with more eagerness upon the remains of a
pre-Aryan habitation than The O’Mahony now displayed in his scrutiny
of the destruction worked by last night’s storm, and of the group of
buildings its fury had left unscathed. He took a paper from his
pocket, and compared a rude drawing upon it with various points in the
architecture about him which he indicated with nods of the head. People
watching him might have differed as to whether he was a student of
antiquities, a builder or an insurance agent. Probably none would
have guessed that he was striving to identify some one of the numerous
chimneys-before him with a certain fireplace which he knew of,
five-and-twenty feet underground.
As he stood thus, absorbed in calculation, he felt a little hand steal
into his big palm, and nestle there confidingly. His face put on a
pleased smile, even before he bent it toward the intruder.
“Hello, Skeezucks, is that you?” he said, gently. “Well, they’ve gone
an’ busted your ole convent up the back, here, in great shape, ain’t
they?”
Every one of the score of months that had passed since these two first
met, seemed to have added something to the stature of little Kate
O’Mahony. She had grown, in truth, to be a tall girl for her age--and an
erect girl, holding her head well in air, into the bargain. Her face had
lost its old shy, scared look--at least in this particular company. It
was filling out into the likeness of a pretty face, with a pleasant glow
of health upon the cheeks, and a happy twinkle in the big, dark eyes.
For answer, the child lifted and swung his hand, and playfully butted
her head sidewise against his waist.
“’Tis I that wouldn’t mind if it all came down,” she said, in the
softest West Carbery brogue the ear could wish.
“What!” exclaimed the other, in mock consternation. “Well, I never! Why,
here’s a gal that don’t want to go to school, or learn now to read an’
cipher or nothin’! P’r’aps you’d ruther work in the lobster fact’ry?”
“No, I’d sail in the boat with you,” said Kate, promptly and with
confidence.
The O’Mahony laughed aloud.
“I guess you’d a got your fill of it yisterday, sis,” he remarked.
“It’s that I’d have liked best of all,” she pursued. “Ah! take me with
you, O’Mahony, whin next the waves are up and the wind’s tearin’ fit to
bust itsilf. I’ll not die till I’ve been out in the thick of it, wance
for all.”
“Why, gal alive, you’d a-be’n smashed into sausage-meat!” chuckled the
man. “Still, you’re right, though. They ain’t nothin’ else in the world
fit to hold a candle to it. Egad! Some time I _will_ take you, sis!”
The child spoke more seriously:
“Sure, we’re the O’Mahonys of the Coast of White Foam, according to
O’Heerin’s old verse, and it’s in my blood as well as yours.”
“Right you are, sis!” he responded, smiling, as he added under his
breath: “an’ mebbe a trifle more.” Then, after a moment’s pause, he
changed the subject.
“See here; you’re up on these things--in fact, they don’t seem to learn
you anything else--hain’t I heerd O’Daly tell about the old O’Mahonys
luggin’ round a box full o’ saints’ bones when they went on a rampage,
to sort o’ give ’em luck! I got to thinkin’ about it last night after
I went to bed, but I couldn’t jest git it straight in my head.”
“It’s the _cathach_” (she pronounced it _caha_) “you mane,” Kate
answered. “Sometimes it contained bones, but more often ’twas a
crozieror a holy book from the saint’s own pen, or a part of his
vest-mints.”
“No; I like the bones notion best,” said The O’Mahony. “There’s
something substantial an’ solid about bones. If you’ve got a genuine
saint’s bones, it’s a thing he’s bound to take an interest in, an’ see
through; whereas, them other things--his books an’ his clo’se an’ so
on--why, he may a-been sick an’ tired of ’em years ’fore he died.”
It was the girl’s turn to laugh.
“It’s a strange new fit of piety ye’ve on yeh, O’Mahony,” she said, with
the familiarity of a spoiled pet. “Sure, when I tell the nuns, they’ll
be lookin’ to see you build up a whole foine new convint for ‘em without
delay.”
“No; I’m savin’ that till you git to be the boss nun,” said The
O’Mahony, dryly, and with a grin.
“’Tis older than Methusalem ye’ll be thin!” asked the child,
laughingly. And with that she seized his hand once more and dragged him
forward to a closer inspection of the ruins.
Some hours later, having been driven across country to Dunmanway by
Malachy, and thence taken the local train onward, The O’Mahony found
himself in the station at Ballineen, with barely time enough to hurry
across the tracks and leap into the train which was already starting
westward. In this he was borne back over the road he had just traversed,
until a stop was made at Manch station. The O’Mahony alighted here, much
pleased with the strategy which made him appear to have come from the
east. He took an outside car, and was driven some two miles into the
bleak, mountainous country beyond Toome, to a wayside inn known as
Kearney’s Retreat. Here he dismounted, bidding the carman solace himself
with drink, and wait.
Entering the tavern, he paused at the bar and asked for two small
bottles of porter to be poured in one glass. Two or three men were
loitering about the room, and he spoke just loud enough to make sure
that all might hear him. Then, having drained the glass, and stood idly
conversing for a minute or two with the woman at the bar, he made his
way through a side door into the adjoining ball alley, where some young
fellows of the neighborhood chanced to be engaged in a game.
He stood apart, watching their play, for only a few moments. Then one of
the men whom he had seen but not looked closely at in the bar, came up
to him, and said from behind, in an interrogative whisper:
“Captain Harrier, I believe?”
“Yes,” said The O’Mahony, “Captain Harrier--” with a vague notion of
having heard that voice before.
Then he turned, and in the straggling roof-light of the alley beheld the
other’s face. It taxed to the utmost every element of self-possession in
him to choke down the exclamation which sprang to his lips.
The man before him was Linsky!--Linsky risen from the dead, with the
scarred gash visible on his throat, and the shifty blue-green eyes still
bloodshot, and set with reddened eyelids in a freckled face.
“Yes--Captain--Harrier,” he repeated, lingering upon each word, as his
brain fiercely strove to assert mastery over amazement, apprehension and
perplexity.
The new-comer looked full into the The O’Mahony’s face without any sign
whatever of recognition.
“Thin I’m to place mesilf at your disposal,” he said, briefly. “You know
more of what’s in the air than I do, no doubt. Everything is arranged, I
hear, for rising in both Cork an’ Tralee to-morrow, an’ in manny
places in both counties besides. Officially, however, I know nothing of
this--an’ have no right to know. I’m just to put mysilf at your command,
and deliver anny messages you desire to sind to other cinters in your
district. Here’s me papers.”
The O’Mahony barely glanced at the inclosures of the envelope handed
him. They took the familiar form of a business letter of introduction,
and a commercial contract, signed by a firm-name which to the
uninitiated bore no significance. He noted that the name given was
“Major Lynch.” He observed also, with satisfaction, that his hand, as
it held the papers, was entirely steady. “Everybody’s been notified,”
he said, after a time, instinctively assuming a slight hoarseness of
speech. “I’ve been all over the ground, myself. You can meet me--let’s
see--say at the bottom of the black rock jest overlookin’ the marteller
tower at----at eleven o’clock, sharp, to-morrow forenoon. The rocks
behind the tower, mind--t’other side of the coast-guard houses. You’ll
see me land from my boat.”
“I’ll not fail,” said the other. “I can bring a gun--moryah, I’m
shooting at say-gulls.”
“They ain’t much need of that,” responded The O’Mahony. “You might git
stopped an’ questioned. There’ll be guns enough. Of course, the takin’
of the tower’ll be as easy as rollin’ off a log. The thing’ll be to hold
it afterward.”
“We’ll howld whatever we take, sir, all Ireland over,” said Major Lynch,
with enthusiasm.
“I hope so! Good-bye. Mind, eleven sharp,” was the response, and the two
men separated.
The O’Mahony did not wait for the finish of the game of ball, but
sauntered out of the alley through the end door, walked to his car,
and set off direct for Toome. At this place he decided to drive on to
Dunmanway station. Dismissing the carman at the door, and watching his
departure, he walked over to the hotel, joined the waiting Malachy, and
soon was well on his jolting way back to Muirisc.
Curiously enough, the bearing of Linsky’s return upon his own
personal fortunes and safety bore a very small part in The O’Mahony’s
meditations, as he clung to his seat over the rough homeward road. All
that might take care of itself, and he pushed it almost contemptuously
aside in his mind. What he did ponder upon unceasingly, and with growing
distrust, was the suspicion with which the manner of the man’s offer to
deliver messages had inspired him.