they were our own flesh and blood that had rebelled: it would be
strangers who would conquer, and yet we knew that order was right: and
this too was a torture-thought.

Hour after hour passed, and when I was not at the window Marsh was on
watch, and when he was asleep I mounted my pensive guard.

Incidents never ceased, but the incidents were as nothing compared with
the reflections they aroused.

Hour after hour unarmed Volunteers came in from the country, stayed in
an hour or so, and then moved out armed. Carts and cars of ammunition
and food arrived and gave the password and were admitted. As the early
hours of dawn approached we could see milk and bread carts driving up at
top speed, the driver with the cold muzzle of a revolver at his ear and
his captors seated behind him.

Sometimes flash signals would shoot across the sky, and at others a man
at the "Metropole" corner of the G.P.O. would open a basket and release
carrier pigeons, so complete was their organization.

At daybreak we found our room covered by a guard, with rifles pointed at
our heads, the light shining over their backs full into our faces: but
we made no movement, and an hour or so later moved to another portion of
the roof.

Next the street was cleared and barbed wire stretched across.

About six o'clock we saw Connolly emerge at the head of a band, and we
could hear one of his subordinates call out Mr. Connolly this and Mr.
Connolly that, and the commander-in-chief give his orders in a clear,
resonant, and fearless voice.

About eight we thought our last hour had come, for, looking towards the
base of Nelson's Pillar, we saw men running from a thin blue spiral of
smoke rising up, followed by a terrific explosion. They were trying to
blow up the monument.

So Tuesday had come, but it found the situation no further advanced: the
military had not come: the rebels had had time to entrench and fortify
themselves: the city was really fully in their possession: but the
battle had begun.

We could now hear it in the direction of the Castle and the Four Courts,
and we thought it could only be a matter of a few hours before they
would reach Sackville Street, for we could hear the military machine
guns raking Dame Street from Trinity College.

As a matter of fact, a machine gun had been hoisted upon the roof of
the Hibernian Bank, which commanded the old Houses of Parliament, upon
which the rebels had climbed, and in the space of a few seconds w