Gypo had arranged the clothes to his satisfaction. The blankets covered his body up to his chest. His eyes began to close. His little, round hat still remained on his head, crushed down over his forehead. There was a continual murmur in his brain. The sounds, the talk, the smells about him no longer had any meaning. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Danger, fear, everything was forgotten, but his desire to sleep. Sleep, sleep, sleep. “Yerrah, is it an informer I’m lyin’ beside?” screamed the old woman again, trying to rise with fury. “Get out, get out. There’s blood on yer hands. There’s——” “Lie down or I’ll brain ye,” hissed Katie, rushing once more to the bed. With a weary sigh Gypo stretched out his left hand and dropped it across the body of the old woman. She subsided under the weight of the massive hand. It lay across her, relaxed and tired. She peered at it curiously, around the edge of her blankets. Maybe she peered at it in terror. Who knows what emotions were concealed behind that hideous skull? Gypo did not look at her. His eyes were almost closed. His nostrils were expanding and contracting noiselessly. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Then a mad rush to the mountains. Sleep, sleep, sleep. “Blast it for a story,” cried Katie Fox, stamping on the floor. She walked to the middle of the floor. Then she folded her arms and stood with her legs wide apart and her chest thrown out, gazing at the dim wall with glittering eyes. She threw back her head and laughed. “Amn’t I the fool?” she cried. “Oh! amn’t I the fool? Me that could walk with the finest men in the land! Do ye know that me gran’father was the Duke o’ Clonliffey? Do ye know that? An’ me mother was related to royalty on her father’s side. Not to the King of England either, but to me bould King o’ Spain, where they grow oranges an’ ye can drink wine out of a well like water from the Shannon. Sure it’s there where I was born an’ reared, in a palace as big as the County Waterford, with archbishops waitin’ at table on me, with red napkins on their arms, an’ a rale lady——” “Yerrah, will ye hould yer whist,” piped the old woman. She tried to brandish her stick and to disengage herself from the hand that lay on top of her. But the hand stiffened for a moment. She was pressed down beneath it. Then the hand relaxed again. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Gypo’s eyes opened wide for a moment. Then he closed them. Everything in his mind became a blur. Nightmares stood massed in his brain ready to rush in on the platform of his sleeping mind and carry on their mad acting, as soon as his being soared off, bound in sleep. He had already surrendered to these nightmares. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Katie Fox looked at him cunningly for a moment. Her face hardened and her eyes narrowed to points. Then she glanced away again, towards the wall. Her lower lip dropped. Her eyes distended. She puffed twice at her cigarette. She began to talk again.