wind stirred,
and the green flag fluttered enough for him to read what was printed on
it. It bore the legend IRISH REPUBLIC.

"It's a poor sort of performance, this!" he said as he came up to the
building.

All the windows on the ground floor were broken, and many of those on
the upper floors, and in each window, on sacks laid on piled furniture,
were one or two young volunteers, each with a rifle cocked....

8

There was a holiday mood on the people. They had come out to enjoy
themselves, and here was an entertainment beyond their dreams of
pleasure.... It was a dangerous kind of joke to play ... one of them
oul' guns might go off, and who knows who might get killed dead ... and
it was a serious thing to seize possession of the Post Office ... if the
peelers was to come an' catch them at it an' bring them before the
magistrates, they'd be damn near transported ... but it was the great
joke all the same. Whoever thought there would be the like of that to
see, and not a penny to pay for it.... The minute the peelers came up
... where in hell were the peelers?

It was then that they began to believe that there was more than a joke
in this rebellion. There were no policemen to be seen anywhere. "That's
strange now! There ought to be a peeler or two about!..."

Then some one, pale and startled, came by. "They've killed a policeman!"
he said. "The unfortunate man! I was coming past the Castle, and I saw a
Sinn Feiner go up to him and blow his brains out. Not a word of warning!
The poor man put up his hand to bid them go back ... they were trying to
get into the Castle ... and the Sinn Feiner lifted his rifle and shot
him dead!..."

"Begod, it's in earnest they are!..."

"But what can they do? They can't hold out against the British Army...."

"They might do a lot, now! They're mad, the whole of them! What in hell
do they want to start a rebellion for?..."

Henry moved away. He went from group to group, listening to one for a
while, and then moving on to another. There were many rumours already
flying through the crowd. The Germans had landed in the West, and were
marching to Dublin. A "mysterious stranger" had been captured on the
coast of Kerry a few days before. "It was Casement!" The German Navy had
made a raid on England, and the British Fleet had been badly beaten....

A youth, holding a rifle with a fixed bayonet, stood on sentry-go in the
middle of the street. He was very pale and tired and nervous-look