Time moved on steadily. Terence was as upright and motionless as a statue. He had learned by this time who was sitting near. A small brown hand had fluttered into his, to tell by occult pressure its own sweet tale. Doreen was as still as he. Drunken Phil tore open his shirt, gasping. How dense the air was! It was cruel to drag out the proceedings thus. His head was heavy--he could not hold it up; so, resting his fingers on the dock-rail, he laid his wet face on them. By degrees he sank into a snoring slumber, his limbs twitching now and then with a tremulous convulsion. The visage of old Jug was illumined with a mysterious satisfaction. Not one of his movements escaped her keen observation; she drank in every shiver. Presently she plucked her mistress by the robe, and, like a wild woman, whispered something in her ear. Madam Gillin, who, overpowered by heat, had been dozing, woke with a cry, and turned her affrighted gaze from Phil to her nurse and back again. 'Is it thrue, Jug--is it, by the Holy Mother?' she asked, in an awed whisper. 'Thrue 'tis, by mee sowl!' returned the other. 'He is a farrier, isn't he? And Crummell's curse is on the likes of him, isn't it? He begged the ould collough for a root, and she gave it; and, by St. Patrick, 'twas well done!' In deep agitation Mrs. Gillin motioned Curran to her side. She saw it all. It was by her own order that Jug had visited the farrier. Farriers and colloughs are national foes. Phil--faithful fellow!--had begged the collough to exercise her skill in herbs on him. He could bear hanging--had thus far endured the lash. But torture may be pushed beyond our power of bearing. Rather than run a risk of betraying the master whom he worshipped, he had taken poison, and was dying. Curran's genius embraced at once the new element in the situation. It struck him instantly that by this sacrifice the poor fellow might perhaps unwittingly have saved his master. When did he take the poison? How long would it be before its work would be accomplished? If he were to fall dead--there--in the dock, before the court assembled, under the eye of the public, it would create such a sensation that the trial would be perforce adjourned. The harrowing details of the suicide would then be spread abroad; they would do much to bring the vile cruelties of the yeomanry home in all their loathsomeness to the British mind, which was so culpably indifferent as to what happened in this colony. There would be a revulsion--an energetic protest. In the confusion Terence might be saved! Poor faithful Phil! He knew not the extent of the service that he rendered. His life would not be sacrificed in vain! 'How much longer will the poison take to work?' Curran whispered in Jug's ear. 'What was it?' 'Sure, it was a tiny root of water-drop wort. Like an illigant parsnip, faith! How much longer? An hour perhaps--maybe two--certainly not more than three.'