“Mind!--day after to-morrow; five o’clock in the morning, sharp!” said The O’Mahony, in admonitory tones. Then he added, more softly: “Jest take it easy to-morrow; loaf around to suit yourselves, so long’s you keep sober. You’ve had a pritty tough day of it Good-night. Jerry’n me’ll do the rest. Jest pull the door to when you go out.” With answering “Good nights,” and a formal hand-shake all around, the four villagers left the room. Their tired footsteps were heard with diminishing distinctness as they went up the stairs. Jerry turned and surveyed his master from head to foot by the light of the candle on the wall. “O’Mahony,” he said, impressively, “you’re a divil, an’ no mistake!” The other put the bottle to his mouth first. Then he licked his lips and chuckled grimly. “Them fellows was scared out of their boots, wasn’t they? An’ you, too, eh?” he asked. “Well, sir, you know it as well as I, the lives of the lot of us would have been high-priced at a thruppenny-bit.” “Pshaw, man! You fellows don’t know what fun is. Why, she was safe as a house every minute. An’ here I was, goin’ to compliment you on gittin’ through the hull voyage without bein’ sick once--thought, at last, I was really goin’ to make a sailor of you.” “Egor, afther to-day I’ll believe I’ve the makin’ of annything under the sun in me--or on top of it, ayther. But, sure, sir, you’ll not deny ’twas timptin’ providence saints’ good-will to come in head over heels under wather, the way we did?” “We _had_ to be here--that’s all,” said The O’Mahony, briefly. “I’ve got to meet a man tomorrow, at a place some distance from here, sure pop; and then there’s the big job on next day.” Jerry said no more, and The O’Mahony took the candle down from the iron ring in the wall. “D’ye know, I noticed somethin’ cur’ous in the wall out on the staircase here as we come down?” he said, bearing the light before him as he moved to the door. “It’s about a dozen steps up. Here it is! What d’ye guess that might a-been?” The O’Mahony held the candle close to the curved wall, and indicated with his free hand a couple of regular and vertical seams in the masonry, about two feet apart, and nearly a man’s height in length. “There’s a door there, or I’m a Dutchman,” he said, lifting and lowering the light in his scrutiny. The mediæval builders could have imagined no sight more weird than that of the high, fantastic shadows thrown upon the winding, well-like walls by this drenched and saturnine figure, clad in oilskins instead of armor, and peering into their handiwork with the curiosity of a man nurtured in a log-cabin. “Egor, would it be a dure?” exclaimed the wondering Jerry.