“They have heard us both, sir, and I wish His Majesty could have heard us also,” cried Gervase, who saw that there was only one way to deal with the hectoring bully of whom most men stood in awe. “They have heard us and they may judge between us. I hold the King´s commission like yourself, and can answer for my conduct in any fitting time or place. But this matter is of more importance than your dignity or mine. The salvation of some thousand lives depends upon it, and the last hold of His Majesty upon Ulster and Ireland. Colonel Walker hath bidden me place this letter in your hands without delay. I have only done my duty, and am no whit afraid of you or of any other man living.” Gervase had spoken quietly and with a fine glow on his cheeks. The gentlemen at the table who had preserved an expectant silence, looked at one another with a chuckle of amusement as Kirke broke the envelope without a word. In the reading he glanced once or twice at Gervase, and when he had finished he threw the paper with an oath across the table. “Read that, Leake,” he said. “This parson in the buff coat thinks that round shot can be cooked like peas, and that a ship´s sides are harder than stone walls. To hear him one would think that we had no more than an hour´s sail to find ourselves at the quay, with meat and mutton to fill these yokels´ bellies.” The gentleman to whom he had thrown the letter, a bluff, red-faced sailor, with a frank brave look that met you honestly, read the letter in silence, and then spread it open before him. “You had better hear what the young gentleman has to say. Colonel Walker seems to trust him implicitly, and I should like to hear how he came from the city. ´Twas a bold feat and deserves a better reception than you have given him.” “My reception hath not closed yet,” said Kirke savagely. “But I am ready to hear what he hath to say, and if I find him tripping, fore God----” “I have faced death too often during these three weeks,” said Gervase gravely, “to fear the threats of any man, and I will speak what is on my mind boldly----” “And briefly, for I am not a patient man.” “We in the city trusting to the expectation of speedy succour from England, have made our defence as I think defence was never made before. We have lost seven thousand men; those who remain are but living skeletons, stricken with sore diseases. We are distraught with our afflictions, and almost fear rather to live than to die. We can do no more. On Wednesday morning there will not be a pound of meat in the magazines, and the last stronghold of faith and freedom in Ireland will have fallen. And this is what they say yonder and--and what I say here. In the Lough are ships and men and food and guns, and a water-way to the city walls. A little courage, a bold push, and the boom that you seem to fear would snap like a thread. And they know not how to use their guns. We who have listened to their music for months have ceased to fear them.”