that the place was now doomed to be shelled--it
only remained the chance of a tossed coin where the blows would fall.

The rain poured down, but the seven of us, including the manager of the
Coliseum and the manager of the "Imperial," who made up our party,
trudged on, on, on. Every cross-road had its Sinn Fein sentries, every
point of vantage was loopholed for miles around, and it was a mere
stroke of luck that Annesley Bridge had not been blown up and so cut off
Amiens Street Station, which held 300 troops, from the north. We only
saw two soldiers in nine miles, and these were at a pier-head at
Dollymount, half way.

When we arrived at Howth we were wet as fish and black as miners, for we
finished the last couple of miles upon a charitable coal-cart.

The next morning was bright and warm as a midsummer day, but in the
distance across the bay we could hear the sound of the naval guns
thundering out shot and shell.

They had given the rebels till eight to surrender--and they had refused.
It was no longer a riot--it was civil war.

CHAPTER THE THIRD

BATTLE

Monday and Tuesday were for the most part employed in clearing the
streets and preparing the field for the battle which was to last
continuously until late on Saturday evening, but it seems a pity,
looking back on the situation, that the time was not employed in trying
to avoid such a fatal issue; and that it would have been possible is
proved by the example of Cork, where all conflict was avoided by a
timely negotiation between the rebels and the ordinary civil and
ecclesiastical authorities.

However, of this more later; it was decided to treat the matter in the
sternest possible manner, which was just, as it turned out, what the
Sinn Feiners wanted, and the military authorities, as it were, fell into
the trap prepared for them by those astute politicians: for that they
foresaw the political effects of ruthless suppression is now an admitted
fact.

On Tuesday, April 25th, therefore, the day following the _coup_, the
citizens of Dublin--or such as were not totally isolated--read in their
morning _Irish Times_ (the _Express_ and the _Freeman_ having ceased
publication) two proclamations announcing the official English view of
the rising, and people noted particularly the words that traced the
attempt to subvert the supremacy of the Crown "to the foreign enemies of
their King and country"--in a word, it was to be put down purely and
simply to Germ