The last act was very cruel. I think the stout had got into Jones’s head, and into his legs, too; for he was all over the stage, and, we fancied, half his time, didn’t know what he was up to. Then came the great situation, where he was to board the pirate schooner single-handed, and rescue his lady-love – and, in the name of everything that is awfully dreadful, what do you think happened to Jones then?
It might have been something wrong in the scenery, or it might have been something wrong with Jones, but he appeared on the upper deck of the pirate boat, and was going to jump down on the lower deck, flourishing a cutlass, when he somehow slipped, and caught behind.
I shall never forget it. He caught somehow by the trousers, and hung there, dangling like an old coat on a peg. Then he tore himself loose with a great wrench, while every one in the house was screaming with laughter, and rushed off the stage.
We took poor Jones away that night, and we liquored him up a lot, and he wept as he told us what he had gone through, and somehow we couldn’t, laugh much as we listened to him.
I don’t know how it happened. I think he said he would go on board with us, and have a final glass, and he was to come back in a boat that had taken some goods on board from the shore. I don’t know how it was, I say; but six hours after we had got fairly out to sea, some one found a pair of legs sticking out from behind something, and at the end of these legs were Jones’s head and body.
When we had shaken him out of a dead sleep, he asked to be put on shore at once, and talked wildly of bringing an action against the skipper. But the skipper put it to Jones in a jocular kind of way, that the general practice was to keel-haul stowaways, when you felt inclined to treat them kindly, or heave them overboard with a shot tied to their heels, if you didn’t; so Jones calmed down after a while, and made up his mind to go to China with us quietly, and make no more fuss about it.
I don’t think a man on board wanted to act unkindly to poor Jones; and, ’pon my soul, I’d not have sat by quietly and seen it. But Jones tempted Providence, as it were, and was the unluckiest beggar alive.
To begin with, I never knew a man so sea-sick that it didn’t kill right off. I never knew a man with more unreliable legs on him; so that there was no saying where he’d be to a dozen yards or so when he once started. And he fell overboard twice. So all this made him rather a laughingstock among the regular hands. But he was so good-natured, and stood the chaff so good-humouredly, that we got all of us to take a mighty fancy to his company.
Poking fun upon one subject only he did not take to kindly, and that was the famous Jack Brine impersonation, which we presently found out, very much to our surprise, he looked upon as little short of perfection.
“I don’t regret this affair altogether,” said he, one day. “You see, all I want is actual experience of the perils of the ocean.”
Before long he had them, too.
The reason why we had been required to join in such a hurry was that several of the foreign sailors had run at the last moment, and there was a great difficulty in obtaining any Englishmen willing to sail with them. With the exception of the skipper, we six sailors, and Atlantic Jones, the rest were all Lascars – savage, sneaking, bloodthirsty wretches, that there was no trusting a moment out of your sight. I had never before made a voyage with that kind of company, and, if I can help it, never will again. However, we felt no particular uneasiness about them. Any one of us, we simply consoled ourselves by reflecting, could quite easily thrash half a dozen of the foreign beggars in a fair fight. The worst of it was, though, when the fight did come, it was not a fair one.
I began by telling you that I was a bad storyteller; I must finish by telling you so again. And after all, what story have I left to tell, which would not be to you, sailors like myself, a thrice-told tale? It came about, in the usual way, with a night surprise. I woke up with a man’s hand tightening on my throat, with a gleaming knife before my eyes. Then – thud! thud! – it came down on me, through the thick blankets I had twisted round me. Lucky for me they were so thick!
This was all I saw; then the light was knocked out, and I heard the black wretch’s naked feet pattering on the steps, as he went up swiftly to the deck above, then a deep groan from the bunk of one of my old messmates – it was one called Adams.
I was horribly cut about, and bleeding fast; but I managed to creep out, and feel through the darkness. I came, just within a few feet, upon a man’s body, stretched out, lying on its face. Though it was dark as pitch, I had no need to touch it twice to know that it was a dead body. Then I got to Adams, and called him by name.
He answered faintly, “Yes!”
I asked him where the crew were, and whether he knew what had happened.
They were all killed, he thought, and the Lascars had got the vessel in their hands.
We were doubtless supposed to be murdered, too. It must have all been done very quickly. Adams had heard no sound from the deck above, and I had heard none.
The crippled condition in which we were, and the darkness, rendered us almost entirely helpless; but I managed somehow – partly on my feet, partly on my hands and knees – to crawl up the ladder. The hatchway was closed above me. We were prisoners.
I could from this place make out that a wild debauch was going on on the after-deck, and I heard one of the scoundrels shrieking out a song, in a wild, discordant voice. They had broken open the stores, and were getting mad drunk with rum.
I crawled back to tell the news, and to think what could be done.
Adams was almost fainting from loss of blood. For myself, I was scarcely good for anything – not for a struggle, that was certain. I might defend myself for a time. I would try, anyhow. I could only die.
All at once we heard the hatchway opening stealthily.
“Whist!” said Jones’s voice. “Who’s alive down there?”
“Two!” I answered. “Adams and I – Tom Watson. We are both badly wounded.”
“Thank heaven you are not dead!” he said. “You can save yourselves, if you’ve strength enough to lower yourselves into a boat. I’ve got it down into the water. Will you try?”
We went at once, and gained the deck. Only one of the villains was on the watch forward. We could see the dark figures of the rest sprawling about in the semi-darkness far aft, and we went down on our hands and knees, and crawled in the shadow to the side. But just as we reached it, the moon came out from behind a cloud, and the man fired, and shouted loudly.
Adams went down, and we two only were left.
“Save yourself! Jump!” cried Jones. “I’ll keep ’em back! Avast there, you black-hearted swabs, or I’ll chop you to pieces!” And as five of them, the soberest of the lot, came rushing on us in a body, he laid about him right and left with a large cutlass, much heavier than I should have believed he could use, and the beggars rolled over, slashed and mangled beneath his strokes.
I never before or since have seen a man fight like Atlantic Jones did then. Stripped to the waist, his long hair flying in the wind, his hands red with blood, his body bespattered, too, he looked more like a fiend than a human being, much less a very bad play-actor; but all the while he fought he never once ceased yelling out the silly gibberish he thought was sailors’ talk.
They fell back at last enough to allow us to reach the boat, and we pushed off. They fired on us then, furiously, and I did all I could to make Jones lie down, to be out of harm’s way, but he would not – continuing to yell defiance and wave his cutlass. Those left alive were too drunk, fortunately for us, to make any decisive effort to stop us; and we drifted away, for the oars had fallen into the water.
This would be a longer tale – and it’s long enough now, I’m sure – if I were to tell you what we suffered those four days we drifted in the open sea. Then, more dead than alive, I was taken on board a passing ship; and Jones, who had tended me the while with every possible care, though his own sufferings were at times intense, nursed me through a long illness.
I told you I never could tell a tale. My tale ought to have begun where it’s left off, pretty nearly.
The last time I saw Jones he was at his play-acting again at the Hull Theatre. He was a sailor once more, and had a deuce of a set-to with some Lascars. But the audience didn’t seem to think much of it. They goosed him, and shied orange-peel.
Very low-spirited he was, poor chap, when I met him at the stage-door afterwards, and he didn’t cheer up much when I stood some beer.
Next day I picked up with a skipper, and got off on a whaling voyage. Rare game it was, ketching the big fish, I can tell you, only one day they put me ashore on an iceberg to pick a hole for an ice-anchor, so as to get the ship on the lee when it came on to blow.
I didn’t take no notice though, but kept on picking away, till all at once there came on such a fog that I could hardly see my boots.
That there fog lasted three days, and when it was gone, there was no ship nowhere, and the iceberg drifting away doo north as hard as ever it could go.
I wouldn’t ha’ cared if it hadn’t been so cold, for I got plenty of seals and sea-birds, snaring ’em when they was asleep; but the cold was awful, and when we got stuck fast – froze up at last – I was glad to get a good run over the solid ice, which I did till I came to the edge of a big basin, like, where I lay down, tired out, and dropped off to sleep. You’ve just come, I suppose?
The doctor nodded.
“Ah! and it’s as cold as ever,” said the English sailor. “Now, if Atlantic Jones – Heigh – was – he – here – hum! Well, I am sleepy. Got a tot of grog, mates?”
The doctor reached out his hand for the case-bottle; but, as he did so, there seemed to be a mist come on suddenly where the English sailor sat; and, when it cleared away, there was a lot of moisture freezing hard, an empty tobacco-box, and the rusty blade of a knife.
“As-tonishing!” said the doctor. “Suspended animation!”
“But where’s he gone now?” I says.
“Into his original constituents,” said the doctor; and our fellows all shuffled out of the tent, with their fur caps lifted up by their hair, and wouldn’t go in again; so we had to move the bit of a camp farther up along the edge of the big basin, and scrape and clear the snow off the transparent ice – where, hang me! if there wasn’t another fellow a few inches down.
“Yes,” says the doctor; “this place is full of relics of the past, and if we searched we should find hundreds. Get him out!”
“But what’s the good?” growled Scudds, “if they on’y melts away again?”
“We must do it for scientific reasons,” says the doctor. “Out with him, men!”
There was no help for it, so at it we went; and now our chaps got over some of their scared feelings, all but the doctor’s nevvy, who did nothing but shiver, and nearly jumped out of his ice-boots, when, after thawing, the rough figure we had got out of the ice sat up suddenly, and exclaimed —
“An’ did somebody say how did I get here?”
“We thought it,” said the doctor.
“Bedad! I heard ye,” said the figure. “Give’s a taste of rum, which is the best makeshift for poteen, and I’ll tell ye. But it’s very cowld.”
He cowered close over the lamp, trying to warm his hands; and I noticed that when they handed him some rum, he put it down by his side, going on talking like to the lamp, as he spun away at his story.
Chapter Three.
The Irish Sailor’s Yarn
“The Ghost on Board Ship.”
I have followed the say, man and boy, any time these thirty years and more; and sure it’s but little I have to tell you about that same in the way of short commons, long voyages, mishaps, and shipwrecks that would be interesting to you, seeing that, in all rasonable probability, you have all of you had your fair share of the like.
However, maybe I can spin you a short yarn about what every one of you hasn’t seen, and that is a “ghost on boord ship.”
“A ghost on board ship!” chorused the sailors, turning eagerly toward the speaker.
Bedad, ye may say that, and as fine a ghost as ever mortial man set eyes upon.
You must know I was always partial to the say, and first tried my hand at a sailor’s life wid a cousin of my mother’s, who had a small sloop he used for fishing along the coast off the Cove of Cork.
It was on boord the little Shamrock I got my say-legs, and, by the same token, many a sharp rope’s-ending into the bargain.
I had plinty to ate, and plinty to drink, and plinty of hard work, too, as there were but three hands on boord – my cousin, one man, and myself, making up the entire crew.
I was well enough trated, and had no rason to complain.
The sloop was a fast sailer, and a good say-boat, and I ought to have been continted – but somehow it’s myself that wasn’t satisfied at all at all.
I never saw the tall masts of the big ships that traded to furrin parts that I didn’t long to clamber up their sides, and see if I couldn’t get a berth – anything, from captain to cabin-boy, I wasn’t particular – on boord one of them.
One fine day, when the little sloop was high and dry, my cousin stepp’d into a shebeen to get a taste of the mountain dew, and give me what he called my share, which was a dale more pewter than whiskey – for it’s mighty little of the latter was left in the measure whin he handed it to me; when a tall, spare, good-looking sort of a chap enough, with lashings of bright brass buttons on his coat and waistcoat, and a smart goold band round his peaked cap, who happened to be taking his morning’s refreshment at the same time, said to my cousin as he emptied his naggin, “Fill that,” says he, “onct more, – fill that, and drink wid me.”
“Never say it again,” says my cousin. “Fill and drink’s the word this time with you, and the next with me, honest man!”
“All right!” replied the stranger.
And fill and drink it was more than onct round, you may be on your oath.
“That’s a smart youngster!” says he wid the band and buttons, pointing to me.
“The boy’s well enough, as a boy,” says my cousin. “He’s strong, handy, and willing, and not the sort of a lad to kape where there’s an empty larder; but if he ates well, he works well; so more power to his elbow, and double rations, wid all my heart!”
“That’s the lad for my money!” says the stranger. “Would you like to take a trip with me, youngster?”
“What ship do you belong to, sir?” I asked.
“That,” says he, going to the door of the public, and pointing to a splindid three-master, with the stars and stripes at the peak.
“And where do you sail to, sir?” says I.
“New York,” replied he.
“Where’s that, if it’s plasin’ to you, sir?” says I.
“In Amerikay,” says he; “the land of the brave, and the home of the free!”
“Amerikay!” broke in my cousin. “My sister’s wife’s uncle has a son there – a tall young man, badly pock-marked, with a slight cast in his left eye, and hair as red as a fox. Lanty O’Gorman is the name he has upon him. He has been there two years and better. Mayhap you have met him?”
“I dar say I have,” said the stranger, laughing heartily.
“Would you take a message to him, sir?” asked my cousin.
“I’d be everlastingly delighted,” says he, “but there’s a dale of O’Gormans about; and as most of them are pock-marked, squint, and have red heads, I’m afraid I’d be bothered to know him. Do you think that young shaver would remimber him?”
“Faith and troth I would, sir,” says I, “by rason of the leathering he gave me onct for making an April fool of him, telling him the chickens the ould hen had hatched from the ducks’ eggs had tuck to the water, and if he didn’t hurry and get them out of the pond, every mother’s son of them would be drownded!”
“Wal,” said the stranger, “it’s an almighty pity you ain’t there to see him. The man I know of the name of O’Gorman is as rich as mud; and if he took a liking to you, he could make your fortune right off the reel in less than no time!”
“I’d give the worrild to go,” says I.
“Come, old man,” says the Yankee – I found out afterward he was an Amerikan – “what do you say? Will you let this young shaver take a trip with me? He shall be well cared for under the stars and stripes. I’ll give him fair pay and good usage. Fact is, I am in want of a smart lad, who has got his say-legs, to wait upon myself and a few extra cabin-passengers. I like the cut of the boy’s jib, so say yes or no – how is it to be? It will be for the lad’s good?”
“Arrah, good luck to ye, cousin, darlint, let me go! It has been the wish of my heart, slapin’ and wakin’, this many a long day! Let me go, and sorra a rap I’ll spind of the lashings of goold Cousin Lanty will give me, but bring every pinny home safe and sound, just as he puts it into my hand!”
“You offer fair and honest,” says my cousin. “It’s true for you, it would be for the boy’s good – far better than his wasting his time dredging and coasting about here; but – what would his mother say?”
“Wal,” said the stranger, “I have done a good many pretty considerable difficult things in my time, but as to my being able to tell you what his mother, or any other female woman of the feminine persuasion, would be likely to say, my hand won’t run to that; so, rather than play the game out, I’ll hand in my cards. What I want to know is, what you mean to say to it; and you must be smart making up your mind, for the Brother Jonathan will trip her anchor bright and early in the morning! Yes, sir-ree!”
To cut the matter short, boys, the Yankee skipper gave my cousin enough in advance to find me in the slops I wanted; and I felt as if I could lep over the moon for joy when I saw the ship’s articles signed, and myself rated, at fair wages, as cabin-boy for the outward and return trips.
The ould people lived some twenty miles inland, so there was no chance of seeing them to bid good-by; and maybe that was all for the best, as it wasn’t till the hurry and bustle of buying my kit was over, and I got fairly on boord, that the thought of my father and mother, little Norah and Patsey, came across my mind; and when it did, the joy I felt at getting the great wish of my heart gratified – sailing in an elegant three-master – with more people on boord her (she was an emigrant ship) than there was in my own native village, and a dozen besides – turned into unfeigned sorrow at parting from them; and, for the life of me, I couldn’t close my eyes all night, because of the scalding hot tears that would force their way from under the lids.
But boys are boys, and sorrow sits lightly on young hearts; and it’s a blessin’ it does, for sure we get enough of it when we grow older, and, perhaps, wiser, and better able to bear it!
Faith, it was as much as I could do to wonder at everything I saw on boord the beautiful clipper – for a clipper she was, boys, and could knock off her twelve knots an hour as easy as a bird flies.
The skipper was as good a seaman as ever boxed a compass; the crew, barring the skulkers, were well trated. As for the “ould soldiers,” the way they got hazed and started was – I must use a Yankee word – a caution!
We made the Battery at New York in a few hours over thirty days.
I got leave to go on shore with the third mate, a mighty dacint young man; and whin I tould him I wanted him to take me to my cousin, by my mother’s sister’s side, whose name was O’Gorman, with the small-pox, a squint, and a foxey head, I thought he’d taken a seven years’ lase of a laugh, and would – unless he split his sides – never do anything else but that same for the rest of his born days.
To cut the matter short, he tould me the skipper had sould me as chape as a speckled orange! So I gave up all hopes of finding my cousin and my fortune; saw as much as I could of the beautiful city; bought a trifle or two to take home; and, after another splendid run, was landed, safe and sound, onct more on the dear ould Cove of Cork.
“Then you saw no ghost in that ship?” says Bostock.
“Faith, I did!”
“But you have told us nothing about it!” says I.
Wait till a while ago. I tuck my wages, and started for the public, where I knew I should find my cousin – and right glad he was to see me; but I couldn’t help feeling as if something was wrong by the way he looked and answered me, whin I asked afther the ould people and little Norah and Patsey.
“Take a tumbler of punch, now!” says he; “and we’ll talk of that afterward.”
“Not at all,” says I. “The news, whether good or bad, will go better with the punch; so we’ll have them together. How is my darlint mother?”
“Well!” says he.
“And dad?” I inquired.
“Well, too!” says he.
“Thank the Lord for that!” says I. “And the little ones?”
“Happy and hearty!” says he.
“Thanks be to heaven again!” says I. “But what’s the matter wid you, at all, man alive?”
“The matter wid me?” said he. “What would be the matter wid me?” said he.
“Sorra a one of me knows!” replied I. “But you look as if you were at a wake widout whiskey!”
“You didn’t hear much about what happened at Ballyshevan in Amerikay?” says he.
“Faith, you are right! Not much more than I did about Foxey O’Gorman, wid his squint and red hair!” says I, laughing to think what a fool the skipper had made of me.
“There’s nothing to laugh at here!” says he. “There’s only two things that have been plintiful this sason!”
“Potaties and oats?” says I.
“No such luck!” says he.
“What thin?” I asked.
“Famine and faver!” he says pat.
You might have knocked me down wid a Jack-straw, whin I heard those words. I raled back, and if it hadn’t been for a binch that was close against the wall, which I clutched a hould of, and managed to bring myself up with, I’d have fallen full length on the floor.
“Have a good sup of this!” says he, handing me his tumbler of punch; “and don’t take on so,” says he. “You are better off than most of the neighbours! Sure death hasn’t knocked at your door; and all you love are living – though they have had a hard time of it – to welcome you back.”
“You are right,” says I, as I started up, “and the sooner I get that welcome the better. What am I wasting my time here for, at all at all, whin I ought to be there – it’s only twenty miles. It’s airly yet, I can be home by nightfall. I have promised to return, but I’ve got three days’ lave, so I’m off at onct.”
I won’t kape you on the road, sure it’s longer than ever it seemed; but it came to an end at last. I forgot all my fatigue whin I opened the door, and stepped inside the threshhold; it was between day light and dark – there was no candle burning – but I could see the forms of the four people most dear to me on earth. An involuntary “The Vargin be praised!” broke from my lips.
“My son! – my son!” almost screamed my mother, and if I had been four boys instead of one there wouldn’t have been room enough on me for the kisses they all wanted to give me at the same time.
Whin the first great joy of our meeting was over, I began to ask pardon for quitting ould Ireland widout their lave.
“Don’t spake about it, darlint,” said my mother; thin, pointing upward, she added, mighty solemn, “Glory be to Him, it was His will, and it was the best day’s work ever you did. Tell him what has happened.”
“I will,” said my father. “You see, Phil, my son, soon after you sailed for Amerikay, the old master died, and the estate came into the hands of his nephew, a wild harum-scarum sort of a chap, that kapes the hoith of company with the quality and rich people in London and Paris, and the lord knows where else besides; but never sets his foot, nor spinds a skurrick here, where the money that pays for his houses, and carriages, and race-horses, and the wine his foine friends drinks – when his tenants is starving – comes from. Seeing how things were likely to go, the ould agent threw up his place rather than rack the tenants any further; this just suited my gintleman, who sent over a new one, a hard man, wid a heart of stone, and he drove the poor craytures as a wolf would drive a flock of shape; they did their best, till their crops failed, to kape their bits of farms; but then – God help them! they were dead bate – sure the famine came, and the famine brought on the faver; they couldn’t pay; they were evicted by dozens; and the evictions brought oil something worse than the famine or faver – something they hungered and thirsted for more than mate and dhrink.”
“What was that, father dear?”
“Revinge!” says he.
“Revinge! father – revinge!” I muttered.
“Yis,” says he; “but hush! spake low, darlin’! The boys wint out! Well, after that, it’s little the moon or stars were wanted to light up the night while there was a full barn on the estate.
“The country is overrun by the police and the sojers; but it is small good they have done, or are likely to do. Starving men don’t care much for stale or lead; but – ”
Here he paused, and raised his hand.
“Hush! there’s futsteps on the road, and me talking loud enough to be heard a mile off.”
As he spoke, he rose, went stealthily to the door, opened it, and looked out.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, it’s naither the peelers nor the sogers, it’s frinds that’s coming.”
As he wint back to his sate, a fine, handsome young fellow brought in a lovely girl, exclaiming, as he entered, “God save all here.”
“Amen for that same kindly wish,” was our answer.
They were ould frinds and playmates, the son and daughter of two of the snuggest farmers on the estate; and I well knew before I sailed for Amerikay they were engaged to be married.
“I wasn’t wrong,” said the young man, as he looked hard at me, “it is Phil himself. How’s every bit of you? sure it’s right glad I am to see you here this blessed night.”
“And me, too, Phil,” said pretty Mary Sheean, as she took the hand young O’Rourke left free, and shook it warmly.
We sat for, maybe, an hour or more, talking over ould times; and it was with a sad heart I listened to the bad news – for bad enough it was!
O’Rourke tould me the rason of his visit was to let me know he and Mary had made up their minds to sail for Amerikay, where they had some frinds doing well, and it was agreed they would go as steerage passengers with me, three days after date, in the clipper ship, George Washington.
As they rose to depart, and were bidding us a kind good-night, a low whistle outside caused us all to start. O’Rourke drew himself up, and compressed his lips tightly, as he listened for a repetition of the signal.
Mary turned deathly pale, and clutched her sweetheart’s arm convulsively.
The whistle was repeated.
Miles stooped down, kissed the trembling girl’s forehead, and, addressing me, hastily said, “Phil, tired as you must be, I know I can trust to you to see Mary safe home.”
“Why not do so yourself?” asked I.
“Because I am called, and must obey.”
“Are the boys out to-night?” inquired my father.
“They are, and will be till – ”
“When? – where?” demanded my mother.
“No matter,” said O’Rourke, “you will know soon enough. Perhaps too soon.”
The whistle was heard for the third time. O’Rourke rushed from the cottage, exclaiming, “Heaven guard you all!”
After the lapse of a few minutes, I started with Mary for her father’s house. As I left her, looking very sad, at the door, I told her to be sure to see that O’Rourke was not too late to sail wid me.
“Little fear of that,” said she; “since his father has been ordered to quit the farm, to make way for a friend of the new agent’s, he’ll be glad to lave the place forever.”
I turned to go home, with a sad heart.
It was the end of harvest-time; the weather was very sultry, and the night cloudy and overcast.
I thought, as I hurried home, we should soon have a heavy thunder-storm, and fancied the summer lightning was more vivid than usual.
Just as I reached my father’s door, I was startled by the sudden flashing of a fierce flame in the direction of the mansion of the new heir to the splendid estate he inherited from his uncle.
I doubted for a moment, but then was perfectly sartain the Hall was on fire.
I dashed off at the top of my speed, taking the nearest cut across the fields to the scene of the conflagrashun.
As I was pelting along, I heard the fire-bell sounding from the police barracks, but I got to the place before the sogers or peelers had a chance of reaching it.
A glance convinced me the ould place was doomed; the flames had burst through the lower windows, and were carried by the lattice-work, that reached high above the portico, to the upper story.
While I was looking at the blazing pile, a horseman galloped at full speed up the avenue. Just as he had almost reached the Hall door, and was reining in his horse to dismount, four or five dark figures appeared to spring suddenly out of the ground, and I heard the report of fire-arms – two distinct shots I could swear to. At the first, one of the party, who sought to intercept the mounted man, fell; at the second, the rider rolled from his saddle heavily to the ground, and then the other figures disappeared as suddenly as they had at first sprung up.
I was so thunderstruck, that for some few minutes I could not stir from the spot.
Seeing no sign of the approach of the military or police, curiosity, or some strong feeling, got the better of my prudence, and I hurried forward to the scene of slaughter, for such in my heart I felt it was – in the case of at least of one of the fallen men. And there, with the lurid light of the burning building flashing across his deathlike face, and the purple blood welling up from a wound in his chest through his cambric shirt-frill, lay, stretched in death, the newly appointed agent, and, close beside him, O’Rourke, still living, but drawing every breath with such difficulty that I felt certain his last hour had come.
I raised his head, and spoke to him. He knew my voice, and, by a superhuman effort, managed to support himself on his elbow, as he took a small purse from his breast-pocket; he placed it in my hand, and said, “Phil, darlin’, I know you’ve the brave and thrue heart, though it’s only a boy you are. Listen to my last words. Kape my secret, for my sake; never let on to man or mortial you saw me here. Give that purse to Mary – take her to her frinds in Amerikay – she’ll never hear of this there, and may larn in time to forget me. Tell her we shall meet in a better place; and hark! my eyes are growing dark, but I can hear well enough, there are futsteps – they are coming this way; run, for your life; if you are found here, you will die on the gallows, and that would break your poor old father and mother’s hearts! Bless you, Phil, alanna! Remember my last words, and, as you hope for mercy, do my bidding!”