This invective seemed greatly to encourage the men present, who had evidently feared Tim might for some reason have harboured a regard for their victim. "It was him was to be settled with on the Black Hill Road a year ago; and settled he would have been but for Barry." Tim's anger, I could see, was rising. "Settled?" he said; "do you mean murdered?" "Shot, any way. He got off that time; and a purty use he made of his chance, hanging boys by the dozen, and giving us no peace at all, at all. But since the young lady was lost to him--" "What?" exclaimed Tim again; "how lost?" "Didn't we have her over the seas to Holland for a hostage? And ever since he durstn't do a hand's turn against us. But he wouldn't come in for all that, or pay the money. It was Barry as nearly spoilt that game for us too; for he spirited the girl away in Holland, and if it hadn't been for some of the boys who got hold of her again in Dublin, she'd have been clane lost to Ireland for all our trouble." "You dogs!" cried Tim, starting forward with his hand on his sword. "You mean to say you carried away an innocent girl to spite her father? You're a shame to your country!" They looked at him in amazement. Then the speaker went on,-- "Sure, all's fair in war. The girl's safe enough." [Here Martin laughed in a sinister fashion.] "And now that all is settled up with Maurice Gorman at last--" "Is Maurice Gorman dead, then?" asked Tim, controlling himself with a mighty effort, as was plain by his white lips and flashing eyes. "He is so. We had him watched day and night, and on Sunday came our chance. He's gone to his account; and it's not six hours since he was put out of harm's way under the turf. By Saint Patrick, but it's a grand day for Ireland this." "And you mean to tell me," said Tim, in a voice which made his hearers shift on their feet uncomfortably--"you mean to tell me that you dare to commit murder and outrage like this in the name of Ireland?" "Why, what's amiss? Wasn't it yourself was saying with your own lips the Gorman was a dirty coward?" retorted one of the group testily. "And that means the same to you as saying a man should be shot in the dark without a word of warning, and his innocent daughter carried off, who never did a hand's turn in the place that wasn't kindly and good?" Guess who it was that loved Tim as he spoke those words? "It's no time to be squeamish," persisted the man who had first spoken. "It's a blow for the good of the country, and there's them will give us credit for it, if you don't." "You curs! I give you credit for being the meanest cowards unhung. And I don't mind telling anybody as much. Pray, is it you and the like of you I'm captain to?" "When we chose you, we thought you were for the people," snarled Martin. "Then take back your choice, you crew of blackguards," cried Tim, now in a towering rage. "I've nothing to do with such as you. No more has Ireland, thank God!"