sulphur taste.
There's nothing like a hot coal."

Saying this, he lighted his pipe. This operation was accomplished with
a series of those short, quick, hard, percussive puffs with which the
Irish race in every clime on this terrestrial ball perform the solemn
rite.

And now the thoughts of the priest became more calm and regular and
manageable. His confusion departed, and gradually, as the smoke
ascended to the skies, there was diffused over his soul a certain
soothing and all-pervading calm.

He now began to face the full difficulty of his position. He saw that
escape was impossible and death inevitable. He made up his mind to
die. The discovery would surely be made in the morning that Hawbury
had been substituted for the robber; he would be found and punished,
and the priest would be involved in his fate. His only care now was
for Ethel; and he turned his thoughts toward the formation of some
plan by which he might obtain mercy for her.

He was in the midst of these thoughts--for himself resigned, for Ethel
anxious--and turning over in his mind all the various modes by which
the emotion of pity or mercy might be roused in a merciless and
pitiless nature; he was thinking of an appeal to the brigands
themselves, and had already decided that in this there lay his best
hope of success--when all of a sudden these thoughts were rudely
interrupted and dissipated and scattered to the winds by a most
startling cry.

Ethel started to her feet.

"Oh Heavens!" she cried, "what was that?"

"Down! down!" cried the men, wrathfully; but before Ethel could obey
the sound was repeated, and the men themselves were arrested by it.

The sound that thus interrupted the meditations of the priest was the
explosion of a rifle. As Ethel started up another followed. This
excited the men themselves, who now listened intently to learn the
cause.

They did not have to wait long.

Another rifle explosion followed, which was succeeded by a loud, long
shriek.

"An attack!" cried one of the men, with a deep curse. They listened
still, yet did not move away from the place, for the duty to which
they had been assigned was still prominent in their minds. The priest
had already risen to his feet, still smoking his pipe, as though in
this new turn of affairs its assistance might be more than ever needed
to enable him to preserve his presence of mind, and keep his soul
serene in the midst of confusion.

And now they saw all around them th