he fell fainting to the ground.

As we bent over him I now perceived that another person had joined our
party; he was a short, determined-looking man of about forty, with black
eyes and aquiline features. Before I had time to guess who it might be, I
heard O'Shaughnessy address him as Colonel Conyers.

"He is dying!" said Beaufort, still stooping over his friend, whose cold
hand he grasped within his own. "Poor, poor fellow!"

"He fired in the air," said Baker, as he spoke in reply to a question from
Conyers.

What he answered I heard not, but Baker rejoined,--

"Yes, I am certain of it. We all saw it."

"Had you not better examine his wounds?" said Conyers, in a tone of
sarcastic irony I could almost have struck him for. "Is your friend not
hit? Perhaps he is bleeding?"

"Yes," said O'Shaughnessy, "let us look to the poor fellow now." So saying,
with Beaufort's aid he unbuttoned his frock and succeeded in opening his
waistcoat. There was no trace of blood anywhere, and the idea of internal
hemorrhage at once occurred to us, when Conyers, stooping down, pushed me
aside, saying at the same time,--

"Your fears for his safety need not distress you much,--look here!" As he
spoke he tore open his shirt, and disclosed to our almost doubting senses
a vest of chain-mail armor fitting close next the skin and completely
pistol-proof.

I cannot describe the effect this sight produced upon us. Beaufort sprang
to his feet with a bound as he screamed out, rather than spoke, "No man
believes me to have been aware--"

"No, no, Beaufort, your reputation is very far removed from such a stain,"
said Conyers.

O'Shaughnessy was perfectly speechless. He looked from one to the other, as
though some unexplained mystery still remained, and only seemed restored
to any sense of consciousness as Baker said, "I can feel no pulse at his
wrist,--his heart, too, does not beat."

Conyers placed his hand upon his bosom, then felt along his throat, lifted
up an arm, and letting it fall heavily upon the ground, he muttered, "He is
dead!"

It was true. No wound had pierced him,--the pistol bullet was found within
his clothes. Some tremendous conflict of the spirit within had snapped the
cords of life, and the strong man had perished in his agony.

CHAPTER LXIII.

NEWS FROM GALWAY.

I have but a vague and most imperfect recollection of the events which
followed this dreadful scene; for some days my faculties seemed stunned and