That afternoon I was again at ammunition work. This time my duty was to go about Dublin, taking from hiding-places dynamite and bombs secreted therein. Once, on my way back to Liberty Hall with some dynamite wrapped in a neat bundle on the seat beside me, I heard a queer, buzzing noise. It seemed to come from inside the bundle. "Is it going off?" I asked myself, and sat tight, expecting every moment to be blown to bits. But nothing happened; it was only the car-wheels complaining as we passed over an uneven bit of track. V It was on Saturday morning that I heard the news of our first defeat--a defeat before we had begun. The ship with arms and ammunition that had been promised us while I was in Dublin at Christmas, had come into Tralee Harbor and waited twenty-one hours for the Irish Volunteers of Tralee to come and unload her. But it had attracted no attention except from a British patrol-boat, and so had to turn about and put to sea again. Thereupon, the suspicions of the officials having led them to set out after the _Aud_, she had shown her German colors and, in full sight of the harbor, blew herself up rather than allow her valuable cargo to fall into the hands of the British. Besides several machine-guns, twenty thousand rifles and a million rounds of ammunition were aboard that ship. For every one of those rifles we could have won a man to carry it in the rebellion. Thus their loss was an actual loss of fighting strength. It all was a blunder that now seems like fate. The _Aud_, as first planned, was to arrive on Good Friday. Then the leaders decided it would be better not to have her arrive until after the rising had begun, or on Easter. Word of this decision was sent to America, to be forwarded to Germany. This was done, but the _Aud_ had just sailed, keeping to her original schedule. She carried no wireless, and so could not be reached at sea. I often think the heroic determination of that captain to sink his ship and crew must have been preceded by many hours of bitterest chagrin and anxiety. He could not have had the slightest idea why the plan was not being carried out. It would have been, too, had the Volunteers at Tralee, remembering the uncertainty of all communication, been on watch for fear the countermanding order might have miscarried.