stress of orders and of whisky. Winter had come again; not white this time, but red--a dusky red, by reason of the shadow of that thunderous cloud which, bloated now, was on the eve of bursting. If there is a limit set to the torturing ingenuity of fiends, so is there--by Divine ordinance--to the endurance even of slaves. A roar swept across the land--a roar of expostulation with the Most High in that He had slept too long. Sure man was not created only for the sake of torment. Children were not born merely to be ripped asunder--virgins to be ravished--men to be done to death by inches? Why, whilst the sun smiled on earth for good and bad alike--its glory heightened by a casual vapour-fleck--was Ireland alone exempted from the boon of light? The last trump had not yet sounded. Why was Erin alone to be a hell? Messengers moved like ants on the earth's surface. Something was preparing. After many delays and feints the real crisis was at hand at last. The cloud, three years ago no bigger than a hand, blackened the horizon. Even the chancellor's stony face grew wan--his nature of adamant faltered--when he surveyed the darkened heavens, hushed in an awful stillness, and waited for what might come. For a moment he trembled like Frankenstein before the monster he had fashioned. CHAPTER XII. DANGER. Through Madam Gillin Terence heard of these things, and was fretted beyond measure in his seclusion. The plot was ripe. Vague tales of succour were wafted from France, but the conspirators knew better now than to lean on broken reeds. They were resolved to make a frantic effort on their own account, independent of extraneous aid. Men can die but once. Death by rope or musket-ball would be preferable to such life as this--life with a brutal soldiery at free quarters in the houses; with triangles in every barrack-yard, each bearing its quivering burthen. Details had been laboriously gone into by Terence and the Wexford chiefs. The project was complete in all its details. The counties were to rise simultaneously at a given signal. The Viceroy and the members of his privy council were each to be captured in his bed. A detachment was to seize the artillery at Chapelizod; a second was to storm Kilmainham and set free the patriot leaders. It was the old plan which had always proved abortive; could it be brought to fruition now? Horses would be in waiting, so that each leader could escape and scamper off to assume the post allotted to him. The men were enthusiastic, the Wexford chiefs declared, and built great hopes on the fact of having a noble in their ranks. The only objection which Terence's anxious eye could detect was that the lower order among the priests were assuming an authority to which they were not entitled; one which, by reason of their want of education, might prove mischievous. Tone, in all his letters, had always laid stress upon this point.