rd, whom they fancied they had captured.

None of those present, however, seemed to know him. "If he belongs to
these parts he must understand what we have said," exclaimed O'Higgins,
"and if so, he may have gained more of our secrets than he should know,
a sufficient reason, if there were no other, to hang him. Who are you?"
again asked O'Higgins; "say, boy."

"I am the son of Widow O'Neill," he answered, without trepidation, in
the native Irish in which he was addressed, "and I am her mainstay and
support. If you hang me you will bring the malediction of Heaven, and
the widow's curse will rest upon you. If I know your secrets, I am not
about to divulge them; I am too much of an Irishman to do that, if I
give you my promise that I will not."

This answer seemed to have gained the good opinion of some of the
bystanders, but suddenly a man who recognised Dermot sprang up from
among them.

"He has become a young heretic; he goes to the house of the Protestant
minister, you can never trust him after that," he exclaimed.

"He knows our secrets, and it is dangerous that he should possess them,"
observed two or three of the leaders, "and it is evidently necessary to
put him out of the way."

Again there was a warm discussion among them, and the remarks of most of
the speakers were evidently averse to him.

"He must die--he must die!" exclaimed several voices, and Dermot found
himself once more hurried close up to the gallows.

The brutal fellow who had been selected to act as herald, provoked by
the reception he had met with, undertook to act as executioner.
Dermot's arms were bound tightly behind him, and he was again placed on
the pony from which he had dismounted. The rope was secured to the
beam, and the savage remorselessly prepared to adjust it round his neck.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

In another minute the young boy would have been put out of the world by
his savage countrymen, when a loud cry was heard, and a woman was seen
rushing towards the spot. A red cloak was over her shoulders; her long
dark hair streamed in the wind.

"Who is it you are going to kill? Hold, hold, you savages!" she
exclaimed in native Irish. "Why, that is my own boy, the son of my
bosom. What harm could one so young and innocent as he is have done to
you? Which of you will dare to take the widow's only child from her?
Which of you will dare to commit a crime at which the most cruel of
savages would hesitate? Dark curses will