I'd have seen you damned to hell, Calhoun, before I'd have apologized
at the Breakneck Club; but after a fight with one of the best swordsmen
in Ireland I've learned a lot, and I'll apologize now--completely."

The surgeon had bound up the slight wound in Dyck's shoulder, had
stopped the bleeding, and was now helping him on with his coat. The
operation had not been without pain, but this demonstration from his
foe was too much for him. It drove the look of pain from his face; it
brought a smile to his lips. He came a step nearer.

"I'm as obliged to you as if you'd paid for my board and lodging,
Mallow," he said; "and that's saying a good deal in these days.
I'll never have a bigger fight. You're a greater swordsman than
your reputation. I must have provoked you beyond reason," he went on
gallantly. "I think we'd better forget the whole thing."

"I'm a Loyalist," Mallow replied. "I'm a Loyalist, and if you're one,
too, what reason should there be for our not being friends?"

A black cloud flooded Calhoun's face.

"If--if I'm a Loyalist, you say! Have you any doubt of it? If you
have--"

"You wish your sword had gone into my heart instead of my arm, eh?"
interrupted Mallow. "How easily I am misunderstood! I meant nothing by
that 'if.'" He smiled, and the smile had a touch of wickedness. "I
meant nothing by it-nothing at all. As we are both Loyalists, we must be
friends. Good-bye, Calhoun!"

Dyck's face cleared very slowly. Mallow was maddening, but the look of
the face was not that of a foe. "Well, let us be friends," Dyck answered
with a cordial smile. "Good-bye," he added. "I'm damned sorry we had to
fight at all. Good-bye!"

CHAPTER V. THE KILLING OF ERRIS BOYNE

"There's many a government has made a mess of things in Ireland," said
Erris Boyne; "but since the day of Cromwell the Accursed this is the
worst. Is there a man in Ireland that believes in it, or trusts it?
There are men that support it, that are served by it, that fill their
pockets out of it; but by Joseph and by Mary, there's none thinks there
couldn't be a better! Have a little more marsala, Calhoun?"

With these words, Boyne filled up the long glass out of which Dyck
Calhoun had been drinking--drinking too much. Shortly before Dyck had
lost all his cash at the card-table. He had turned from it penniless and
discomfited to see Boyne, smiling, and gay with wine, in front of him.

Boyne took him by the arm.

"Come with me," said he. "Th