The Sunday death roll in no way represents the magnitude of the plan. There were several escapes--people were not at home, wives tricked the raiders; but more far-reaching than these things was the fact that there seems to have been a serious miscarriage in the Sinn Fein plans. One story goes to relate that a list of eighty victims was prepared, and a number of Irish Volunteers gathered on Baggot Street Bridge, or one of those bridges over the canal, waiting for guides who did not turn up. The men detailed to carry out the work of assassination took no more risk than was essential to the undertaking. In every case they called in overwhelming numbers on their victims. The task was not glorious; but when one examines the circumstances, what other means had Sinn Fein of getting rid of such dangerous enemies? Man for man, an agent of the secret service should greatly exceed the value of a soldier. His power lies in his secrecy. The penalty of secrecy has always been death. An agent knows this, and is reconciled to the law. It is just enough. But the men who carried out the work of assassination wore no uniform, they too worked under a civilian cloak. The pot came to destroy the kettle. It was now towards the end of November, and getting dusk soon after the middle of the afternoon. There were long damp depressing evenings and interminable nights. That extraordinary terror, which had been coming in puffs, was at last sweeping through Ireland like a wind. It is curious what one recalls looking back over a troubled time. It is an atmosphere rather than events. There come back to me those early darkening afternoons when people passed sullenly with bent heads, and the paper-boys raced through the mire, bearing their printed aprons which told of fresh ruin. I remember meeting on successive days three carts fallen over on their sides because a wheel had run away. I do not remember in any other city, great or small, this kind of accident, and I asked myself were these errant wheels, which had run away because somebody had forgotten to screw them up, a sign, a portent that Ireland was not quite an adult nation? On one of these evening walks, in Dawson Street I think it was, I saw a horse that had jumped into an area, and was standing down there unhurt, eating hay and oats, unable to be got out. For a minute or two I joined the crowd, which was gaping through the railings at this accident. But while we all gaped we were gloomy and suspicious of one another.