The Wild Geese Part 25

"I am sorry that you have been put to so much inconvenience," Colonel John answered civilly.

The words, the tone, might have rea.s.sured him, if he had not suspected a devilish irony. Even when Colonel John proceeded to direct one of the men to open a porthole and admit more air, he derived no comfort from the attention. But steady! Colonel John was speaking again.

"You, too, gentlemen," he said, addressing Cammock and the Bishop, "I am sorry that I have been forced to put you to so much discomfort. But I saw no other way of effecting my purpose. And," he went on with a smile, "if you ask my warranty for acting as I have acted----"

"I do!" the Bishop said between his teeth. The Admiral said nothing, but breathed hard.

"Then I can only vouch," the Colonel answered, "the authority by virtue of which you seized me yesterday. I give you credit, reverend father, and you, Admiral, for a belief that in acting as you did you were doing your duty; that in creating a rising here you were serving a cause which you think worthy of sacrifice--the sacrifice of others as well as of yourselves. But I tell, you, as frankly, I feel it my duty to thwart that purpose and prevent that rising; and for the moment fortune is with me. The game, gentlemen, is for the present in my hand; the move is mine. Now I need hardly say," Colonel John continued, with an appearance almost of _bonhomie_, "that I do not wish to proceed to extremities, or to go farther than is necessary to secure my purpose.

We might set sail for the nearest garrison port, and I might hand you over to the English authorities, a.s.sured that they would pay such a reward as would compensate the s.h.i.+pmaster. But far be it from me to do that! I would have no man's blood on my hands. And though I say at once I would not shrink, were there no other way of saving innocent lives, from sending you to the scaffold----"

"A thousand thanks to you!" the Bishop said. But, brave man as he was, the irony in his voice masked relief; and not then, but a moment later, he pa.s.sed his handkerchief across his brow. Cammock said nothing, but the angry, bloodshot eyes which he fixed on the Colonel lost a little of their ferocity.

"I say, I would not shrink from doing that," Colonel John continued mildly, "were it necessary. Fortunately for us all, it is not necessary. Still I must provide against your immediate return, against immediate action on your part. I must see that the movement which will die in your absence is not revived by any word from you, or by tidings of you! To that end, gentlemen, I must put you to the inconvenience of a prolonged sea-voyage."

"If I could speak with you in private?" the Bishop said.

"You will have every opportunity," Colonel John answered, smiling, "of speaking to Captain Augustin in private."

"Still, sir, if I could see you alone I think I could convince you----"

"You shall have every opportunity of convincing Captain Augustin,"

Colonel John returned, smiling more broadly, "and of convincing him by the same means which I venture to think, reverend sir, you would employ with me. To be plain, he will take you to sea for a certain period, and at the end of that time, if your arguments are sufficiently weighty, he will land you at a convenient harbour on the French sh.o.r.e. He will be at the loss of his cargo, and that loss I fear you will have to make good. Something, too, he may charge by way of interest, and for your pa.s.sage." By this time the sailors were on the broad grin. "A trifle, perhaps, for landing dues. But I have spoken with him to be moderate, and I doubt not that within a few weeks you, Admiral Cammock, will be with your command, and the reverend father will be pursuing his calling in another place."

For a moment there was silence, save for a t.i.tter from the group of seamen. Then Cammock laughed--a curt, barking laugh. "A bite!" he said.

"A d----d bite! If I can ever repay it, sir, I will! Be sure of that!"

Colonel John bowed courteously.

The Bishop took it otherwise. The veins on his forehead swelled, and he had much ado to control himself. The truth was, he feared ridicule more than he feared danger, perhaps more than he feared death; and such an end to such an enterprise was hard to bear. To have set forth to raise the south of Ireland, to have undertaken a diversion that would never be forgotten, that, on the contrary, would be marked by historians as a main factor in the restoration of the house of Stuart--to have embarked on such an enterprise and to be deported like any troublesome villager delivered to the pressgang for his hamlet's good! To end thus! It was too much.

"Is there no alternative?" he asked, barely able to speak for the chagrin that took him by the throat.

"One, if you prefer it," Colonel Sullivan answered suavely. "You can take your chance with the English authorities. For myself, I lean to the course I have suggested."

"If money were paid down--now? Now, sir?"

"It would not avail."

"Much money?"

"No."

The Bishop glared at him for a few seconds. Then his face relaxed, his eyes grew mild, his chin sank on his breast. His fingers drummed on the table. "His will be done!" he said--"His will be done! I was not worthy."

His surrender seemed to sting Cammock. Perhaps in the course of their joint adventures he had come to know and to respect his companion, and felt more for him than for himself.

"If I had you on my quarter-deck for only half an hour," he growled, "I would learn who was the better man! Ah, my man, I would!"

"The doubt flatters me," Colonel John answered, viewing them both with great respect; for he saw that, bad or good, they were men. Then, "That being settled," he continued, "I shall ask you, gentlemen, to go on deck for a few moments, that I may say a word to my kinsman."

"He is not to go with us?"

"That remains to be seen," Colonel John replied, a note of sternness in his voice. Still they hesitated, and he stood; but at last, in obedience to his courteous gesture, they bowed, turned--with a deep sigh on the Bishop's part--and clambered up the companion. The seamen had already vanished at a word from Augustin, who himself proceeded to follow his prisoners on deck.

"Sit down!" Colonel Sullivan said, the same sternness in his voice. And he sat down on his side of the table, while James McMurrough, with a sullen look but a beating heart, took his seat on the other. The fear of immediate death had left the young man; he tried to put on an air of bravado, but with so little success that if his sister had seen him thus she had been blind indeed if she had not discerned, between these two men seated opposite to one another, the difference that exists between the great and the small, the strong and the infirm of purpose.

It was significant of that difference that the one was silent at will, while the other spoke because he had not the force to be silent.

"What are you wanting with me?" the young man asked.

"Is it not you," Colonel John answered, with a piercing look, "will be wanting to know where O'Sullivan Og is--O'Sullivan Og, whom you sent to do your bidding this morning?"

The young man turned a shade paler, and his bravado fell from him. His breath seemed to stop. Then, "Where?" he whispered--"where is he?"

"Where, I pray, Heaven," Colonel John answered, with the same solemnity, "may have mercy upon him."

"He is not dead?" The McMurrough cried, his voice rising on the last word.

"I have little doubt he is," the Colonel replied. "Dead, sir! And the men who were with him--dead also, or the most part of them. Dead, James McMurrough, on the errand they went for you."

The shock of the news struck the young man dumb, and for some moments he stared at the Colonel, his face colourless. At length, "All dead?"

he whispered. "Not all?"

"For what I know," Colonel John replied. "Heaven forgive them!" And, in half a dozen sentences, he told him what had happened. Then, "They are the first fruits," he continued sternly, "G.o.d grant that they be the last fruits of this reckless plot! Not that I blame them, who did but as they were bid. Nor do I blame any man, nor any woman who embarked on this--reckless as it was, foolish as it was--with a single heart, either in ignorance of the things that I know, or knowing them, for the sake of an end which they set above their own lives. But--but"--and Colonel John's voice grew more grave--"there was one who had neither of these two excuses. There was one who was willing to do murder, not in blind obedience, nor for a great cause, but to serve his own private interest and his own advantage!"

"No! no!" the young man cried, cowering before him. "It is not true!"

"One who was ready to do murder," Colonel John continued pitilessly, "because it suited him to remove a man!"

"No! no!" the wretched youth cried, almost grovelling before him. "It was all of them!--it was all!"

"It was not all!" Colonel John retorted; but there was a keenness in his face which showed that he had still something to learn.

"It was--those two-on deck!" The McMurrough cried eagerly. "I swear it was! They said--it was necessary."

"They were one with you in condemning! Be it so! I believe you! But who spared?"

"I!" The McMurrough cried, breathlessly eager to exculpate himself. "It was I alone. I! I swear it. I sent the boy!"

"You spared? Yes, and you alone!" the Colonel made answer. "So I thought, and out of your own mouth you are condemned. You spared because you learned that I had made a will, and you feared lest that which had pa.s.sed to me in trust might pa.s.s to a stranger for good and all! You spared because it was--because you thought it was to your interest, your advantage to spare! I say, out of your own mouth you are condemned."

James McMurrough had scarcely force to follow the pitiless reasoning by which the elder man convicted him. But his conscience, his knowledge of his own motives, filled the hiatus, and what his tongue did not own his colourless face, his terrified eyes, confessed.

"You have fallen into our hands," Colonel John continued, grave as fate. "Why should we not deal with you as you would have dealt with us?

No!"--the young man by a gesture had appealed to those on deck, to their escape, to their impunity--"no! They may have consented to my death; but as the judge condemns, or the soldier kills; you--you, for your private profit and advantage. Nevertheless, I shall not deal so with you. You can go as they are going--abroad, to return at a convenient season, and I hope a wiser man. Or----"

"Or--what?" the young man cried hurriedly.