The smaller band of horsemen, headed by Shane and Cassidy, were the first to reach the coach. They drew their _couteaux-de-chasse_, and, beating aside the unwieldy pikes, which were too long for such close quarters, trampled the insurgents down. 'The lady, Lord Glandore!' Cassidy shouted. 'Now's your time!' 'Oh, save her!' raved Robert, in remorse. 'My God, what have I done? Save her, Lord Glandore!' Shane stretched out his hand towards his cousin. Chance was favouring him. Under pretext of protecting her, the project planned by the giant could without difficulty be accomplished now. Doreen shrank back. 'Begone!' she wailed, filled with the anguish of that heap upon the ground. 'What have you done with your brother--bastard!' Shane winced, as from a whip-cut on the cheek. She, too, then knew the fatal secret; but it mattered not, for she was in his power. The military were closing in upon the mob. In the scurry and the darkness he would bear her far away. He was well known; what more natural than that her cousin should rescue the bereaved Miss Wolfe from such a scene? Dismounting, he strode over the corpse of Lord Kilwarden, and calling on his friends to rally round the coach, prepared to withdraw it from the _melée_. Upon hearing the name, twice repeated, the man who had held the pistol to the coachman's ear turned sharply round. 'You then are Lord Glandore?' he asked. 'The curse of God has found you, murderer! You and a few like you slew my father four years agone in sport on Stephen's Green! Do you recall it? He was only an old man--a shoemaker. Maybe you don't, for you've done many such deeds, and you were drunk!' Shane thrust the importunate babbler aside, and ordered the coachman to urge on his horses. 'I've waited for my revenge all this while, my lord,' muttered the man, 'and you don't escape me now.' Raising his pistol with steady aim, he shot Shane through the heart, and, diving, vanished in the crowd. Cassidy was taken aback. Hitherto everything had moved according to his desire. Were his well-constructed schemes to be disconcerted now? He looked up the street and down the street at the compact bodies of troops advancing, then with a rage of longing at Doreen. Yes! his plan was overthrown; a new one must spring out of its ashes. Shane, by virtue of his cousinship, might have borne the young lady with safety through the ranks. He, Cassidy, could hope for no such privilege. Well, better luck next time. But it would not do to lose his footing at Strogue Abbey. _Le roi est mort; vive le roi!_ He bethought him of a certain prisoner within the provost, kidnapped the other day, whose position was quite changed by that untoward pistol-shot. All things considered, Mr. Cassidy could not have acted with more wisdom than he did. He left Doreen to the tender mercies of the soldiery, and spurred with utmost speed towards the provost. CHAPTER XII. MOILEY'S LAST MEAL.