ulteress, etc., Nicholas Saunders, by the grace
of God, Legate, etc.' Bah! and this forsooth was thy last meditation!
Incorrigible pedant! Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni!"

He ran his eye through various other documents, written in the usual
strain: full of huge promises from the Pope and the king of Spain;
frantic and filthy slanders against Elizabeth, Burghley, Leicester,
Essex (the elder), Sidney, and every great and good man (never mind
of which party) who then upheld the commonweal; bombastic attempts to
terrify weak consciences, by denouncing endless fire against those who
opposed the true faith; fulsome ascriptions of martyrdom and sanctity to
every rebel and traitor who had been hanged for the last twenty
years; wearisome arguments about the bull In Caena Domini, Elizabeth's
excommunication, the nullity of English law, the sacred duty of
rebellion, the right to kill a prince impenitently heretical, and the
like insanities and villainies, which may be read at large in Camden,
the Phoenix Britannicus, Fox's Martyrs, or, surest of all, in the
writings of the worthies themselves.

With a gesture of disgust, Raleigh crammed the foul stuff back again
into the pouch. Taking it with them, they walked back to the company,
and then remounting, marched away once more towards the lands of the
Desmonds; and the girl was left alone with the dead.

An hour had passed, when another Englishman was standing by the wailing
girl, and round him a dozen shockheaded kernes, skene on thigh and
javelin in hand, were tossing about their tawny rags, and adding their
lamentations to those of the lonely watcher.

The Englishman was Eustace Leigh; a layman still, but still at his old
work. By two years of intrigue and labor from one end of Ireland to the
other, he had been trying to satisfy his conscience for rejecting "the
higher calling" of the celibate; for mad hopes still lurked within that
fiery heart. His brow was wrinkled now; his features harshened; the
scar upon his face, and the slight distortion which accompanied it, was
hidden by a bushy beard from all but himself; and he never forgot it for
a day, nor forgot who had given it to him.

He had been with Desmond, wandering in moor and moss for many a month
in danger of his life; and now he was on his way to James Fitz-Eustace,
Lord Baltinglas, to bring him the news of Desmond's death; and with
him a remnant of the clan, who were either too stout-hearted, or too
de