Bernard had never before had occasion to look into the small and
ominously black muzzle of a loaded revolver. An involuntary twitching
seized upon his muscles as he did so now, but his presence of mind did
not desert him.
“No! Don’t shoot!” he called out. The words shook as he uttered them,
and seemed to his nervously acute hearing to be crowded parts of a
single sound. “That’s rank foolishness!” he added, hurriedly. “There’s
no trick! Nobody dreams of touching you. I give you my word I’m more
astonished than you are!”
The major seemed to be somewhat impressed by the candor of the young
man’s tone. He did not lower the weapon, but he shifted his finger away
from the trigger.
“That may or may not be the case,” he said with a studious affectation
of calm in his voice. “At all events, you will at once do as I said.”
“But see here,” urged Bernard, “there’s an explanation to everything.
I’ll swear that old O’Daly was put in here by our friend here--Jerry
Higgins. That’s straight, isn’t it, Jerry?”
“It is, sir!” said Jerry, fervently, with eye askance on the revolver.
“And it’s evident enough that he couldn’t have got out by himself.”
“That he never did, sir.”
“Well, then--let’s figure. How many people know of this place?”
“There’s yoursilf,” responded Jerry, meditatively, “an’ mesilf an’
Linsky--me cousin, Joseph Higgins, I mane. That’s all, if ye l’ave
O’Daly out. An’ that’s what bothers me wits, who the divil _did_ l’ave
him out?”
“This cousin of yours, as you call him,” put in the resident
magistrate--“what did he mean by speaking of him as Linsky? No lying,
now.”
“Lying, is it, your honor? ’T is aisy to see you’re a stranger in
these parts, to spake that word to me. Egor, ’t is me truth-tellin ’s
kept me the poor man I am. I remember, now, sir, wance on a time whin I
was only a shlip of a lad--”
“What did you call him Linsky for?” Major Snaffle demanded,
peremptorily.
“Well, sir,” answered Jerry, unabashed, “’t is because he’s freckles on
him. ‘Linsky’ is the Irish for a ‘freckled man!’ Sure, O’Daly would tell
you the same--if yer honor could find him.”
The major did not look entirely convinced.
“I don’t doubt it,” he said, with grim sarcasm; “every man, woman and
child of you all would tell the same. Come now--we’ll get up out of
this. Link your arms together, and give me the lantern.”
“By your lave, sir,” interposed Jerry, “that trick ye told us of your
father--w’u’d that have been in a marteller tower, on the coast beyant
Kinsale? Egor, sir, I was there! ’T was me tuk the gun-rags from your
father’s mouth. Sure, ’t is in me ricolliction as if ’t was
yesterday. There stud The O’Mahony--”
At the sound of the name on his tongue, Jerry stopped short. The secret
of that expedition had been preserved so long. Was there danger in
revealing it now.
To Bernard the name suggested another thought. He turned swiftly to
Jerry.
“Look here!” he said. “You forgot something. The O’Mahony knew of this
place.”
“Well, thin, he did, sir,” assented Jerry. “’T was him discovered it
altogether.”
“Major,” the young man exclaimed, wheeling now to again confront the
magistrate with his revolver, “there’s something queer about this whole
thing. I don’t understand it any more than you do. Perhaps if we put our
heads together we could figure it out between us. It’s foolishness to
stand like this. Let me light the candles here, and all of us sit down
like white men. That’s it,” he added as he busied himself in carrying
out his suggestion, to which the magistrate tacitly assented. “Now we
can talk. We’ll sit here in front of you, and you can keep out your
pistol, if you like.”
“Well?” said Major Snaffle, inquiringly, when he had seated himself
between the others and the door, yet sidewise, so that he might not be
taken unawares by any new-comer.
“Tell him, Jerry, who this O’Mahony of yours was,” directed Bernard.
“Ah, thin--a grand divil of a man!” said Jerry, with enthusiasm. “’T
was he was the master of all Muirisc. Sure ’t was mesilf was the first
man he gave a word to in Ireland whin he landed at the Cove of Cork.
‘Will ye come along wid me?’ says he. ‘To the inds of the earth!’ says
I. And wid that--”
“He came from America, too, did he?” queried the major. “Was that the
same man who--who played the trick on my father? You seem to know about
that.”
“Egor, ’t was the same!” cried Jerry, slapping his fat knee and
chuckling with delight at the memory. “’T was all in the winkin’ of
an eye--an’ there he had him bound like a calf goin’ to the fair, an’ he
cartin’ him on his own back to the boat. Up wint the sails, an’ off we
pushed, an’ the breeze caught us, an’ whin the soldiers came, faith,
’t was safe out o’ raych we were. An’ thin The O’Mahony--God save
him!--came to your honor’s father--”
“Yes, I know the story,” interrupted the major. “It doesn’t amuse me as
it does you. But what has this man--this O’Mahony--got to do with this
present case?”
“It’s like this,” explained Bernard, “as I understand it: He left
Ireland after this thing Jerry’s been telling you about and went
fighting in other countries. He turned his property over to two trustees
to manage for the benefit of a little girl here--now Miss Kate O’Mahony.
O’Daly was one of the trustees. What does he do but marry the girl’s
mother--a widow--and lay pipes to put the girl in a convent and
steal all the money. I told you at the beginning that it was a family
squabble. I happened to come along this way, got interested in the
thing, and took a notion to put a spoke in O’Daly’s wheel. To manage
the convent end of the business I had to go away for two or three days.
While I was gone, I thought it would be safer to have O’Daly down here
out of mischief. Now you’ve got the whole story. Or, no, that isn’t all,
for when I got back I find that the young lady herself has disappeared;
and, lo and behold, here’s O’Daly turned up missing, too!”
“What’s that you say?” asked Major Snaffle. “The young lady gone, also?”
“Is it Miss Kate?” broke in Jerry. “Oh, thin, ’t is the divil’s worst
work! Miss Kate not to be found--is that your m’aning? ’T is not
consayvable.”
“Oh, I don’t think there’s anything serious in _that_,” said Bernard.
“She’ll turn out to be safe and snug somewhere when everything’s cleared
up. But, in the meantime, where’s O’Daly? How did he get out of here?”
The major rose and walked over to the door. He examined its fastenings
and lock with attention.
“It can only be opened from the outside,” he remarked as he returned to
his seat.
“I know that,” said Bernard. “And I’ve got a notion that there’s only
one man alive who could have come and opened it.”
“Is it Lin--me cousin, you mane?” asked Jerry.
“Egor! He was never out of me sight, daylight or dark, till they
arrested us together.”
“No,” replied Bernard. “I didn’t mean him. The man I’m thinking of is
The O’Mahony himself.”
Jerry leaped to his feet so swiftly that the major instinctively
clutched his revolver anew. But there was no menace in Jerry’s manner.
He stood for a moment, his fat face reddened in the candle’s pale glow,
his gray eyes ashine, his mouth expanding in a grin of amazed delight.
Then he burst forth in a torrent of eager questioning.
“Don’t you mane it?” he cried. “The O’Mahony come back to his own ag’in?
W’u’d he--is it--oh, thin, ‘t is too good to be thrue, sir! An’ we
sittin’ here! An’ him near by! An’ me not--ah, come along out ’o this!
An’ ye’re not desayvin’ us, sir? He’s thruly come back to us?”
“Don’t go too fast,” remonstrated Bernard “It’s only guess-work There’s
nothing sure about it at all. Only there’s no one else who _could_ have
come here.”
“Thrue for ye, sir!” exclaimed Jerry, all afire now with joyous
confidence. “’T is a fine, grand intelligince ye have, sir. An’ will
we be goin’, now, major, to find him?”
Under the influence of Jerry’s great excitement, the other two had risen
to their feet as well.
The resident magistrate toyed dubiously with his revolver, casting sharp
glances of scrutiny from one to the other of the faces before him, the
while he pondered the probabilities of truth in the curious tale to
which he had listened.
The official side of him clamored for its entire rejection as a lie.
Like most of his class, with their superficial and hostile observation
of an alien race, his instincts were all against crediting anything
which any Irish peasant told him, to begin with. Furthermore, the half
of this strange story had been related by an Irish-American--a type
regarded by the official mind in Ireland with a peculiar intensity of
suspicion. Yes, he decided, it was all a falsehood.
Then he looked into the young man’s face once more, and wavered. It
seemed an honest face. If its owner had borne even the homeliest and
most plebeian of Saxon labels, the major was conscious that he should
have liked him. The Milesian name carried prejudice, it was true, but--
“Yes, we will go up,” he said, “in the manner I described. I don’t see
what your object would be in inventing this long rigmarole. Of course,
you can see that if it isn’t true, it will be so much the worse for
you.”
“We ought to see it by this time,” said Bernard, with a suggestion of
weariness. “You’ve mentioned it often enough. Here, take the lantern.
We’ll go up ahead. The door locks itself. I have the key.”
The three men made their way up the dark, tortuous flight of stairs,
replaced the lantern and key on their peg in Jerry’s room, and emerged
once more into the open. They filled their lungs with long breaths of
the fresh air, and then looked rather vacuously at one another. The
major had pocketed his weapon.
“Well, what’s the programme?” asked Bernard.
Before any answer came, their attention was attracted by the figure of
a stranger, sauntering about among the ancient stones and black wooden
crosses scattered over the weed-grown expanse of the churchyard. He was
engaged in deciphering the names on the least weather-beaten of these
crosses, but only in a cursory way and with long intermittent glances
over the prospect of ivy-grown ruins and gray walls, turrets and gables
beyond. As they watched him, he seemed suddenly to become aware of their
presence. Forthwith he turned and strolled toward them.
As he advanced, they saw that he was a tall and slender man, whose
close-cut hair and short mustache and chin tuft produced an effect of
extreme whiteness against a notably tanned and sun-burnt skin. Though
evidently well along in years, he walked erect and with an elastic and
springing step. He wore black clothes of foreign, albeit genteel aspect.
The major noted on the lapel of his coat a tell-tale gleam of red
ribbon--and even before that had guessed him to be a Frenchman and a
soldier. He leaped swiftly to the further assumption that this was The
O’Mahony, and then hesitated, as Jerry showed no sign of recognition.
The stranger halted before them with a little nod and a courteous upward
wave of his forefinger.
“A fine day, gentlemen,” he remarked, with politeness.
Major Snaffle had stepped in front of his companions.
“Permit me to introduce myself,” he said, with a sudden resolution, “I
am the stipendiary magistrate of the district. Would you kindly tell me
if you are informed as to the present whereabouts of Mr. Cormac O’Daly,
of this place?”
The other showed no trace of surprise on his browned face.
“Mr. O’Daly and his step-daughter,” he replied, affably enough, “are
just now doing me the honor of being my guests, aboard my vessel in the
harbor.”
Then a twinkle brightened his gray eyes as he turned their glance upon
Jerry’s red, moon-like face. He permitted himself the briefest of dry
chuckles.
“Well, young man,” he said, “they seem to have fed you pretty well,
anyway, since I saw you last.” For another moment Jerry stared in
round-eyed bewilderment at the speaker. Then with a wild “Huroo!” he
dashed forward, seized his hand and wrung it in both of his.
“God bless ye! God bless ye!” he gasped, between little formless
ejaculations of dazed delight. “God forgive me for not knowin’
ye--you’re that althered! But for you’re back amongst us--aloive and
well--glory be to the world!”
He kept close to The O’Mahony’s side as the group began now to move
toward the gate of the churchyard, pointing to him with his fat thumb,
as if to call all nature to witness this glorious event, and murmuring
fondly to himself: “You’re come home to us!” over and over again.
“I am much relieved to learn what you tell me, Mr.---- Or rather, I
believe you are O’Mahony without the mister,” said Major Snaffle, as
they walked out upon the green. “I dare say you know--this has been
a very bad winter all over the west and south’, and crime seems to be
increasing, instead of the reverse, as spring advances. We have had
the gravest reports about the disaffection in this district--especially
among your tenants. That’s why we gave such ready credence to the theory
of murder.”
“Murder?” queried The O’Mahony. “Oh, I see--you thought O’Daly had been
murdered?”
“Yes, we arrested your man Higgins, here, yesterday. I was just on the
point of starting with him to Bantry jail, an hour ago, when this
young gentleman--” the major made a backward gesture to indicate
Bernard--“came and said he knew where O’Daly was. He took me down to
that curious underground chamber--”
“Who took you down, did you say?” asked The O’Mahony, sharply. He turned
on his heel as he spoke, as did the major.
To their considerable surprise, Bernard was no longer one of the party.
Their dumfounded gaze ranged the expanse of common round about. He was
nowhere to be seen.
The O’Mahoney looked almost sternly at Jerry.
“Who is this young man you had with you--who seems to have taken to
running things in my absence?” he demanded.
Poor Jerry, who had been staring upward at the new-comer with the dumb
admiration of an affectionate spaniel, cowered humbly under this glance
and tone.
“Well, yer honor,” he stammered, plucking at the buttons of his coat in
embarrassment, “egor, for the matter of that--I--I don’t rightly know.”