s that host poured on. The one
command, "Right shoulders forward--wheel!" being given at intervals, as
the parties defiled beneath the rock, at which place the road made an
abrupt turning.

So strange the spectacle, so different from all he had ever witnessed
or heard of, the youth, more than once half doubted lest, a wearied and
fevered brain had not called up the illusion; but as he continued to
gaze on the moving multitude, he was assured of its reality; and now
was he harassed by conjectures what it all should mean. For nearly an
hour--to him it seemed many such--the human tide flowed on, till at
length the sounds grew fainter, and the last party moved by, followed,
at a little distance, by two figures on horseback. Their long cloaks
concealed the wearers completely from his view, but he could distinctly
mark the steel scabbards of swords, and hear their heavy clank against
the horses' flanks.

Suffering their party to proceed, the horsemen halted for a few seconds
at the foot of the rock, and as they reined in, one called out to the
other, in a voice, every syllable of which fell distinctly on Mark's
ears--

"That's the place, Godfrey; and even by this light you can judge of its
strength."

"But why is he not with us?" said the other hastily. "Has he not an
inheritance to win back--a confiscation to wipe out?"

"True enough," said the first speaker; "but eighty winters do not
improve a man's nerve for an hazardous exploit. He has a son though,
and, as I hear, a bold fellow."

"Look to him, Harvey: it is of moment that we should have one so near
the Bay. See to this quickly. If he be like what you say, and desires a
command--" The rest was lost in the sound of their retreating hoofs,
for already the party resumed their journey, and were in a few minutes
hidden from his view.

With many a conflicting doubt, and many a conjecture, each wilder than
the other, Mark pondered over what he had seen, nor noted the time as it
slipped past, till the grey tint of day-dawn warned him of the hour. The
rumbling sounds of a country cart just then attracted his attention, and
he beheld a countryman, with a little load of turf, on his way to the
market at Killarney. Seeing that the man must have met the procession,
he called aloud--

"I say, my good man, where were they all marching, to-night--those
fellows?"

"What fellows, your honour?" said the man, as he touched his hat
obsequiously.

"That great crowd of people--