As he bent his head and the upper part of his body to jump to his feet, his right trousers pocket was turned mouth to the ground. Four silver coins fell to the cement floor with a rattling noise. These coins were the change he had received in the public-house. He was petrified. Every muscle in his body stiffened. His head stood still. His jaws set like the teeth of a bear trap that has been sprung fruitlessly. Behind his eyes he felt the delicious cold and congealed sensation of being about to fight a desperate and bloody battle. For he was certain that the four white silver coins lying nakedly, ever so nakedly, on the floor, were as indicative of his betrayal of his comrade as a confession uttered aloud in a crowded market-place. Somebody stooped to pick up the coins. “Let them alone,” shouted Gypo. He swooped down to the floor and his right palm, spread flat, covered the coins with the dull sound of a heavy dead fish falling on an iron deck. “I only wanted to hand them to ye, Gypo,” panted the weazened flour-mill worker who had stooped to pick them up. He had been knocked to his knees by Gypo’s swoop. Gypo took no notice of the explanation. As he collected the coins in his left fist and rose again, leaning on his right hand, he was listening, waiting for the attack. But there was no attack. Everybody was amazed, mesmerized by the curious movements of the irritated giant. They stared with open mouths, all except Bartly Mulholland and Tommy Connor, who stood in the background, looking curiously at one another with narrowed eyes. Darting his eyes around the room Gypo caught sight of the two of them. Spurred by some sudden impulse he held up his right hand over his head, he stamped his right foot, he threw back his head and shouted, looking straight upwards: “I swear before Almighty God that I warned him to keep away from the house.” There was a dead silence for three seconds. Then a perceptible shudder ran through the room. Everybody remembered with horror that there was a suspicion abroad, a suspicion that an informer had betrayed Francis Joseph McPhillip. Informer! A horror to be understood fully only by an Irish mind. For an awful moment each one present suspected himself or herself. Then each looked at his or her neighbour. Gradually rage took the place of fear. But it had no direction. Even the most daring gasped when their minds suggested, that possibly the great fierce giant might have had . . . Impossible! “There’s no man suspects ye, Gypo. Ye needn’t be afraid of that,” cried Tommy Connor, the huge red-faced docker with immense jaws like a bullock, who had been whispering to Bartly Mulholland. He had spoken spontaneously with a queer note of anger in his voice. “Nobody suspects ye. Good God, man! . . .” There was a chorus of agreement. Everybody was eager to assent to the statement that Connor had made. Somebody put his hand on Gypo’s shoulder and began to say: “Sure it’s well known that . . .”