The Hen Hawk was idly drifting into the cove toward the little fishing-smack pier of stone and piles which ran out like a tongue from the lower end of the mound. Only two of her men were visible on deck. A group of gulls wheeled and floated about the thick little craft as she crawled landward. These things The O’Mahony vaguely noted as a background to the figure of the traitor by the rock, which he studied now with a hard-lined face and stony glance over the shining rifle-barrel. He hesitated, let the weapon sink, raised it again--then once for all put it down. He would not shoot Linsky. But the problem what to do instead pressed all the more urgently for solution. The O’Mahony pondered it gravely, with an alert gaze scanning the whole field of the rock, the towered mound and the waters beyond for helping hints. All at once his face brightened in token of a plan resolved upon. He whispered some hurried directions to his companions, and then, gun in hand, quitted his ambush. Bending low, with long, stealthy strides, he stole along the line of yew hedge to the rear of the rock which sheltered Linsky. He reached it without discovery, and, still noiselessly, half slipped, half leaped down the earthern bank beside it. At this instant his shadow betrayed him. Linsky turned, his lips opened to speak. Then, without a word, he reeled and fell like a log under a terrific sidelong blow on jaw and skull from the stock of The O’Mahony’s clubbed gun. The excited watchers from the sycamore shield behind saw him fall, and saw their leader spring upon his sinking form and drag it backward out of sight of the martello tower. Linsky was wearing a noticeable russet-brown short coat. They saw The O’Mahony strip this off the other’s prostrate body and exchange it for his own. Then he put on Linsky’s hat--a drab, low-crowned felt, pulled well over his eyes--and stood out boldly in the noon sunlight, courting observation from the tower. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and spread it out upon the black surface of the rock, and began pacing up and down before it with his eyes on the tower. Presently the same red-coated apparition was momentarily visible at the land-side window. The O’Mahony held up his hand and went through a complicated gesture which should signify that he was coming over to the tower, and desired the other to come down and talk with him. This other gave a sign of comprehension and assent, and disappeared.