The Wild Geese - Stanley John Weyman (best english books to read txt) 📗

for my part, ask no better than to suffer for my country!"

"She thinks she knows, but she does not know," the Colonel continued quietly, unmoved by her words. "She cannot guess what it is to be cast adrift--alone, a woman, penniless, in a strange land. And yet that at the best--and the worst may be unspeakably worse--must be her fate if this plot miscarry! For others, The McMurrough and his friends yonder"--he indicated the group by the window--"they also are ignorant."

The McMurrough sprang to his feet, spluttering with rage. "D--n you, sir, speak for yourself!" he cried.

"They know nothing," the Colonel continued, quite unmoved, "of that force against which they are asked to pit themselves, of that stolid power over sea, never more powerful than now! And so to pit themselves, that losing they will lose their all!"

"The saints will be between us and harm!" the eldest of the O'Beirnes cried, rising in his wrath. "It's speak for yourself I say too!"

"And I!"

"And I!" others of the group roared with gestures of defiance. "We are not the boys to be whistled aside! To the devil with your ignorance!"

And one, stepping forward, snapped his fingers close to the Colonel's face. "That for you!--that for you!" he cried. "Now, or whenever you will, day or night, and sword or pistol! To the devil with your impudence, sir; I'd have you know you're not the only man has seen the world! The shame of the world on you, talking like a schoolmaster while your country cries for you, and 'tis not your tongue but your hand she's wanting!"

Uncle Ulick put his big form between Colonel John and his assailant. "Sure and be easy!" he said. "Sir Donny, you're forgetting yourself! And you, Tim Burke! Be easy, I say. It's only for himself the Colonel's speaking!"

"Thank God for that!" Flavia cried in a voice which rang high.

They were round him now a ring of men with dark, angry faces, and hardly restrained hands. Their voices cried tumultuously on him, in defiance of Ulick's intervention. But the Bishop intervened.

"One moment," he said, still speaking smoothly and with a smile. "Perhaps it is for those he thinks he speaks!" And the Bishop pointed to the crowd which filled the forecourt, and of which one member or another was perpetually pressing his face against the panes to learn what his sacredness, God bless him! would be wishing. "Perhaps it is for those he thinks he speaks!" he repeated in irony--for of the feeling of the crowd there could be no doubt.

"You say well," Colonel John replied, rising to his feet and speaking with gloomy firmness. "It is on their behalf I appeal to you. For it is they who foresee the least, and they who will suffer the most. It is they who will follow like sheep, and they who like sheep will go to the butcher! Ay, it is they," he continued with deeper feeling, and he turned to Flavia, "who are yours, and they will pay for you. Therefore," raising his hand for silence, "before you name the prize, sum up the cost! Your country, your faith, your race--these are great things, but they are far off and can do without you. But these--these are that fragment of your country, that tenet of your faith, that handful of your race which God has laid in the palm of your hand, to cherish or to crush, and----"

"The devil!" Machin ejaculated with sudden violence. Perhaps he read in the girl's face some shadow of hesitation, of thought, of perplexity. "Have done with your preaching, sir, I say! Have done, man! Try us not too far! If we fail----"

"You must fail!" Colonel John retorted--with that narrowing of the nostrils that in the pinch of fight men long dead had seen for a moment in distant lands, and seen no more. "You will fail! And failing, sir, his reverence will stand no worse than now, for his life is forfeit already! While you----"

"What of me? Well, what of me?" the stout man cried truculently. His brows descended over his eyes, and his lips twitched.

"For you, Admiral Cammock----"

The other stepped forward a pace. "You know me?"

"Yes, I know you."

There was silence for an instant, while those who were in the secret eyed Colonel Sullivan askance, and those who were not gaped at Cammock.

Soldiers of fortune, of fame and name, were plentiful in those days, but seamen of equal note were few. And with this man's name the world had lately rung. An Irishman, he had risen high in Queen Anne's service; but at her death, incited by his devotion to the Stuarts, he had made a move for them at a critical moment. He had been broken, being already a notable man; on which, turning his back on an ungrateful country, as he counted it, he had entered the Spanish marine, which the great minister Alberoni was at that moment reforming. He had been advanced to a position of rank and power--Spain boasted no stouter seaman; and in the attempt on which Alberoni was bent, to upset the Protestant succession in England, Admiral Cammock was a factor of weight. He was a bold, resolute man, restrained by no fine scruples, prepared to take risks himself, and not too prone to think for others. In Ireland his life was forfeit, Great Britain counted him renegade and traitor. So that to find himself recognised, though grateful to his vanity, was a shock to his discretion.

"Well, and knowing me?" he replied at last, with the tail of his eyes on the Bishop, as if he would gladly gain a hint from his subtlety. "What of me?"

"You have your home, your rank, your relations abroad," Colonel Sullivan answered firmly. "And if a descent on the coast be a part of your scheme, then you do not share the peril equally with us. You are here to-day and elsewhere to-morrow. We shall suffer, while you sail away."

"I fling that in your teeth!" Cammock cried. "I know you too, sir, and----"

"Know no worse of me than of yourself!" Colonel Sullivan retorted. "But if you do indeed know me, you know that I am not one to stand by and see my friends led blindfold to certain ruin. It may suit your plans to make a diversion here. But that diversion is a part of larger schemes, and the fate of those who make it is little to you."

Cammock's hand flew to his belt, he took a step forward, his face suffused with passion.

"For half as much I have cut a man down!" he cried.

"May be, but----"

"Peace, peace, my friends," the Bishop interposed. He laid a warning hand on Cammock's arm. "This gentleman," he continued smoothly, "thinks he speaks for our friends outside."

"Let me speak, not for them, but to them," Colonel Sullivan replied impulsively. "Let me tell them what I think of this scheme, of its chances, of its certain end! I will tell them no more than I have told you, and no more than I think justified."

He moved, whether he thought they would let him or not, towards the window. But he had not taken three steps before he found his progress barred. "What is this?" he exclaimed.

"Needs must with so impulsive a gentleman," the Bishop said. He had not moved, but at a signal from him The McMurrough, the O'Beirnes and two of the other young men had thrust themselves forward. "You must give up your sword, Colonel Sullivan," he continued.

The Colonel retreated a pace, and evinced more surprise than he felt. "Give up--do you mean that I am a prisoner?" he cried. He had not drawn, but two or three of the young men had done so, and Flavia, in the background by the fire, was white as paper--so suddenly had the shadow of violence fallen on the room. Uncle Ulick could be heard protesting, but no one heeded him.

"You must surrender!" the Bishop repeated firmly. He too was a trifle pale, but he was used to such scenes and he spoke with decision.

"Resistance is vain. I hope that with this lady in the room----"

"One moment!" the Colonel cried, raising his hand. But as The McMurrough and the others hesitated, he whipped out his sword and stepped two paces to one side with an agility no one had foreseen. He now had the table behind him and Uncle Ulick on his left hand. "One moment!" he repeated, raising his hand in deprecation and keeping his point lowered. "Do you consider----"

"We consider our own safety," Cammock answered grimly. And signing to one of the men to join Darby at the door, he drew his cutlass. "You know too much to go free, sir, that is certain."

"Ay, faith, you do," The McMurrough chimed in with a sort of glee. "He was at Tralee yesterday, no less. And for a little we'll have the garrison here before the time!"

"But by the powers," Uncle Ulick cried, "ye shall not hurt him! Your reverence!"--the big man's voice shook--"your reverence, this shall not be! It's not in this house they shall murder him, and him a Sullivan! Flavia, speak, girl," he continued, the perspiration standing on his brow. "Say ye'll not have it. After all, it's your house! By G--d, it is your house. And, by the Holy Cross, there shall be no Sullivan blood spilt in it while I am standing by to prevent it!"

"Then let him give up his sword!" Cammock answered doggedly.

"Yes, let him give up his sword," Flavia said in a small voice.

"Colonel Sullivan," the Bishop interposed, stepping forward, "I hope you'll hear reason. Resistance is vain. You know as well as I do that at a word from us our friends outside would deal with you, and roughly. Give up your sword and----"

"And _presto_!" Cammock cried, "or take the consequences!" He had edged his way, while the Bishop spoke, round Ulick and round the head of the table. Now, with his foot on the bench, he was ready at a word to spring on the table, and take the Colonel in the rear. It was clear that he was a man of action. "Down with your sword, sir," he cried flatly.

Colonel John recognised the weakness of his position. Before him the young men were five to one, with old Sir Donny and Timothy Burke in the rear. On his flank the help which Ulick might give was discounted by the move Cammock had made. He saw that he could do no more at present, that he must base his hope on the future; this, though he was not blind to the fact that there might be no future. Suddenly as the storm had blown up, he knew that he was dealing with desperate men, who from this day onward would act with their necks in a noose, and whom his word might send to the scaffold. They had but to denounce him to the rabble who waited outside, and, besides the Bishop, one only there, as he believed, would have the influence to save him.

Colonel John had confronted danger many times; to confront it had been his trade. And it was with coolness and a clear perception of the position that he turned to Flavia. "I will give up my sword," he said, "but to my cousin only. This is her house, and I yield myself"--with a smile and a bow--"her prisoner."

Before they knew what he would be at, he stepped forward and