The knocking became louder--more peremptory. There was no escape. There was nothing for it but submission. With dry lustrous eyes Tom Emmett bade his brother go and open the door. There would be a trial--a court-martial. Vain mockery! Would the result be execution--or lifelong servitude--or banishment? The chief of the Irish Directory felt the humbling conviction that he was not fit for his post. Like Phæton he had leapt into the sun-chariot. He had been fooled and toyed with. The precious deposit whose care he had presumptuously accepted was shattered through his fault--yes--certainly through his fault. He should have been more cautious in accepting Crosbie's overtures. Precious lives would now be sacrificed--the cause gravely compromised, if not altogether ruined. Execution--lifelong servitude? How wildly did Tom Emmett long at this moment for the former--how gladly would he have hugged the rope--how joyfully would he even have walked to the riding-school where Beresford and his fellow-devils carried on their fiendish work! Any personal pain--the more poignant the more welcome! Anything which might rouse the hapless patriot from the grinding weight which crushed him now, as prone on his face he lay sobbing on a form. Many an encouraging hand was laid upon his shoulder. 'Cheer up, man! we're in the same boat,' the delegates murmured. 'It's the chance of war--of an ignoble war waged in the dark against honest men by an ignoble adversary. Fortune is cruel to us; but we'll snap our fingers in her face. If we are to die, let us die as men--not in tears like women. Rouse up, Tom! rouse up, boy! Put on a good front. Open the door, Robert. If they have learned to probe thus deeply in our secrets, they will know more--enough to hang us every one. There's no good in battling with them.' Major Sirr entered, and saluted his victims with one of the elaborate military evolutions which had become the vogue. Tom Emmett started from the form, and held himself erect. A paper caught his eyes. He clutched and tore it into fragments.