"This was evidently the original entrance to these caves," Ralph said,
"but it was covered up when the rocks came down from above. That would
account for the place not being known to the coast-guards. I thought
the passage we came in by looked as if it had been enlarged by the
hand of man. No doubt it was originally a small hole, and when the
entrance was blocked the men who made up their minds to establish a
still here thought that it would be the best way to enlarge that and
to leave the original entrance blocked.
"Well, it's evident we must take Captain O'Connor and the wounded out
by the small entrance. It would be a tremendous business to clear
those great rocks away."
Captain O'Connor and the two wounded men were with great difficulty
taken through the narrow passage. The soldier who was alive was the
one who had received the charge of the blunderbuss in his legs; he was
terribly injured below the knee, and Ralph had little doubt that
amputation would be necessary. The other man lived but a short time
after being brought into the air.
Ralph now turned to the peasant who had saved his life by grappling
with the Red Captain at the moment he was about to discharge his
blunderbuss, and who had by his orders been left unbound. He was
sitting a short distance from the other prisoners.
"Your name is Denis Moore?" he said.
"It is, your honor," the man replied in surprise; "though how you came
to know it beats me entirely."
"I heard it from your wife last night," Ralph said.
"From Bridget?" the man exclaimed. "Why, I thought she was a hundred
miles away!"
"She came down here like a brave woman to try and save you," Ralph
said, "and gave us information that brought us to this hiding-place;
but her name is not to appear, and no one will know how we heard of
it. We promised her that no harm should come to you if we could help
it, and, thanks to the act by which you saved my life, you have
escaped, for being down on the ground you were out of the line of the
fire of our bullets. Of course at present we shall treat you as a
prisoner, as you were captured with the others; but I think we shall
manage to let you slip away. Your wife is to remain at Dunmanway till
she hears the news of this affair and that you are safe, and she bade
me tell you that you would find her at home, so no one will dream that
either she or you had any hand in this affair. Now, point me out which
are the four men that belong to this gang that brought you down here."
"The man who has just died was one of them," Denis replied. "None of
the other three are here, so I expect they fell in the cabin. They
were in the front of the fight. I saw one go down just as I grappled
with our captain."
"So much the better," Ralph said. "As to their leader, there will be
no difficulty in getting evidence about him. The regiment he belonged
to is in Dublin, and they can prove the shooting of his officer;
beside, they can get any amount of evidence from Galway."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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