I lingered beside his honour's grave till the daylight failed and the waters of the lough merged into the stormy night, and the black gables of Kilgorman behind me lost themselves against the blacker sky. The weather suited my mood, and my spirits rose as the hard sleet struck my cheek and the buffet of the wind sweeping the cliff-top sent me staggering for support against the graveyard wall. It made me feel at home again to meet nature thus, and I know not how long I drank in courage for my sick heart that night. At length I turned to go, before even it occurred to me that I had nowhere to go. The _Gnat_ lay in the roadstead off Rathmullan, beyond reach that night. The cottage on Fanad was separated from me by a waste of boiling water. In Knockowen the bloodstains were not yet dry. Kilgorman--yes, there was no place else. I would shelter there till daylight summoned me to my post of duty on the _Gnat_. Looking back now, I can see that destiny led my footsteps thither. As I turned towards the house, I thought I perceived in that direction a tiny spark of light, which vanished almost as soon as it appeared. Still more remarkable, a faint glimmer of light appeared in a small gable-window high up, where assuredly I had never before seen a light. It may have been on this account or from old association that, instead of approaching the place by the upper path, I descended the cliff and made my way round to the cave by which so many of my former visits had been paid. Fortunately the gale was an easterly one, so that the water in the cave was fairly still, and I was able in the dark to grope my way to the ledge on which the secret passage opened. All was quiet when at last I reached the recess of the great hearth and peered out into the dark kitchen. By all appearance no one had looked into the place since I was there last a year ago and left my note for Tim, and found the mysterious message which warned me of the plot to carry off Miss Kit. I wondered if the former paper was still where I left it, and was about to step out of my hiding-place in search of a light, when the crunching of footsteps on the path without and the flitting of a lantern past a window sent me back suddenly into retirement. A moment's consideration told me that it was easy to guess who the intruders might be. The night that Maurice Gorman had been laid in his grave would be a grand night for the rebels of Fanad. And who could say whether the object of their meeting might not be to consider the fate of Miss Kit herself, who, now that her father was dead, was no longer a hostage or the price of a ransom in their hands? There might at least be news of her, and even of Tim. So I stood close, and waited as still as a mouse. CHAPTER THIRTY SIX. THE FIGHT IN KILGORMAN.