ome, one at a time now; draw out of my ould hat,
and good luck to yez all."

One by one they advanced and drew, and the lot fell on one they called
Paddy Corkill, whose vicious face fell a little as he saw the fatal
mark.

"Arrah, and it's me hasn't aven a gun," said he.

"Take mine--it's a good one," said the secretary; "and more by tokens it
was Tim Gallagher's once, for he gave it me, and his name's on it. To-
morrow noight we meet here to hear your news, Paddy, if we're not on the
hill, some of us, to see the job done."

"Faith, if it must be done it must," said Paddy. "It's no light thing
setting a country free."

"Away with yez now," said the secretary, "or the ghost will be hunting
yez."

On which the meeting dispersed. I could hear their footsteps die away
down the passage, and presently pass crunching on the gravel outside,
while I remained crouched where I was, as still as a mouse, hardly
knowing if I was awake or dreamed.

There was no time to be lost, that I could plainly see. But how to
prevent this wicked crime was what puzzled me. I could not hope to gain
admittance to Knockowen at this time of night; or if I did, I should
probably only thwart my own object, and subject myself to arrest as the
associate of assassins. His honour, I knew, was in the habit of
starting betimes when business called him to Malin. If I was to do
anything, it must be on the Black Hill itself; and thither, accordingly,
I resolved to go.

But before I quitted Kilgorman I had another duty scarcely less sacred
than that of saving a life from destruction. I stood on the very spot
to which my mother's last message had pointed me, and nothing should
tear me now from the place till that wandering spirit was eased of its
nightly burden.

"_If you love God, whoever you are_," (so the message ran), "_seek below
the great hearth; and what you find there, see to it, as you hope for
grace. God send this into the hands of one who loves truth and charity.
Amen_."

Even while I repeated the words to myself, my ear seemed to catch the
fluttering footstep advancing down the passage and hear the rustle of
the woman's dress as she passed through the door and approached my
hiding-place. A beam of moonlight struck across the floor, and the
night wind-swept with a wail round the gables without. Then all was
silence, except what seemed to my strained senses a light tap, as with
the sole of a foot, on the flagstone that stretched