"She thinks she knows, but she does not know," the Colonel continued
quietly, unmoved by her words. "She cannot guess what it is to be cast
adrift--alone, a woman, penniless, in a strange land. And yet that at
the best--and the worst may be unspeakably worse--must be her fate if
this plot miscarry! For others, The McMurrough and his friends
yonder"--he indicated the group by the window--"they also are
ignorant."

The McMurrough sprang to his feet, spluttering with rage. "D--n you,
sir, speak for yourself!" he cried.

"They know nothing," the Colonel continued, quite unmoved, "of that
force against which they are asked to pit themselves, of that stolid
power over sea, never more powerful than now! And so to pit themselves,
that losing they will lose their all!"

"The saints will be between us and harm!" the eldest of the O'Beirnes
cried, rising in his wrath. "It's speak for yourself I say too!"

"And I!"

"And I!" others of the group roared with gestures of defiance. "We are
not the boys to be whistled aside! To the devil with your ignorance!"

And one, stepping forward, snapped his fingers close to the Colonel's
face. "That for you!--that for you!" he cried. "Now, or whenever you
will, day or night, and sword or pistol! To the devil with your
impudence, sir; I'd have you know you're not the only man has seen the
world! The shame of the world on you, talking like a schoolmaster while
your country cries for you, and 'tis not your tongue but your hand
she's wanting!"

Uncle Ulick put his big form between Colonel John and his assailant.
"Sure and be easy!" he said. "Sir Donny, you're forgetting yourself!
And you, Tim Burke! Be easy, I say. It's only for himself the Colonel's
speaking!"

"Thank God for that!" Flavia cried in a voice which rang high.

They were round him now a ring of men with dark, angry faces, and
hardly restrained hands. Their voices cried tumultuously on him, in
defiance of Ulick's intervention. But the Bishop intervened.

"One moment," he said, still speaking smoothly and with a smile.
"Perhaps it is for those he thinks he speaks!" And the Bishop pointed
to the crowd which filled the forecourt, and of which one member or
another was perpetually pressing his face against the panes to learn
what his sacredness, God bless him! would be wishing. "Perhaps it is
for those he thinks he speaks!" he repeated in irony--for of the
feeling of the crowd there could be no doubt.

"You say well," Colon