and it was impossible to read or write, he
spent most of the evening in brooding.... If the rebellion were not
speedily suppressed, it might be impossible for him to get to Boveyhayne
in time for his marriage ... but the rebellion could not last very long
now, and at worst his marriage would only be postponed a little while.
His mind moved from thought to thought, from Mary to Gilbert and Ninian,
then to John Marsh and his father and to the boy in Stephen's Green who
had been told to dig a trench, but thought that he was digging his grave
... and then, inconsequently, he saw in his imagination the ridiculous
figure of a looter whom he had seen in Sackville Street, swaggering up
and down, clothed in evening dress, and carrying a lady's sunshade. He
had a panama hat on his head, and was wearing very thick-soled brown
boots ... and loosely tied about his waist were a pair of corsets....

He laughed at the remembrance, and as he laughed, he looked towards the
window, and saw a great red glare in the sky. From the centre of the
city, flames were reaching up, vast and red and terrible....

"Good God!" he exclaimed, "the place is on fire!"

13

The fire continued during the whole of the next day. It was impossible
to get near the burning buildings, and so, though people knew of the
fire, they did not know of its extent. The south side of the city,
separated from the north, where the fire was, by the river, knew
nothing of what was happening across the Liffey. It seemed now, this
horror following on the horror of the fighting, that Dublin must be
destroyed, that nothing could save it from the flames.... Then, by what
efforts no one can ever realise, the fire was controlled, and the
reddened sky became dark, and frightened citizens went to their beds to
such sleep as they could obtain.

14

The next day, the Rebellion collapsed. Henry had walked out of Dublin,
for it was easier now to move about, and coming back in the afternoon,
suddenly felt that the Rebellion was over. A man came cycling past at a
great pace, and as he went by, he shouted to Henry, "They've
surrendered!" and then was gone. There was a cooler feel in the air. It
seemed to him that a great tension had been relaxed ... that, after a
day of intolerable heat, there had come an evening of cool winds. As he
approached the city, he could see groups of people standing about in the
road, and he went to one of them, and asked if the news were true.

"Some o