he matter of
that? But this being so, and you but half-hearted, I tell you, it is
too dangerous a game to play for groats. And while John Sullivan's
here, that makes it more dangerous, I'll not play bonnet!"

"What'll he know of it, at all, at all?" James McMurrough asked
contemptuously. And he took up a stone and flung it over the edge.

"With a Spanish ship off the coast," Asgill answered, "and you know who
likely to land, and a preaching, may be, next Sunday, and pike-drill at
the Carraghalin to follow--man, in three days you may have smoking
roof-trees, and 'twill be too late to cry 'Hold!' Stop, I say, stop
while you can, and before you've all Kerry in a flame!"

James McMurrough turned with a start. His face--but the light was
beginning to fail--seemed a shade paler. "How did you know there was
pike-drill?" he cried sharply. "I didn't tell you."

"Hundreds know it."

"But you!" McMurrough retorted. It was plain that he was disagreeably
surprised.

"Did you think I meant nothing when I said I played bonnet to it?"

"You know a heap too much, Luke Asgill!"

"And could make a good market of it?" Asgill answered coolly. "That's
what you're thinking, is it? And it's Heaven's truth I could--if you'd
not a sister."

"And a care for your own skin."

"Faith," Asgill answered with humorous frankness, "and I'm plain with
you, that stands for something in it. For it's a weary way west of
Athlone we are!"

"And the bogs are deep," McMurrough said, with a sidelong look.

"Maybe," Asgill replied, shrugging his shoulders. "But that I've not
that in my mind--I'm giving you proof, James McMurrough. Isn't it I am
praying you to draw out of it in time, for all our sakes? If you mean
nothing but to keep sweet with your sister, you're playing with fire,
and so am I! And we'd best see it's not carried too far, as it's like
to be before we know it. But if you are fool enough to be in earnest,
which I'll never believe, d'you think to overturn the Protestant
Succession with a few foreigners and a hundred of White-boys that
wouldn't stand before the garrison of Tralee? You've neither money nor
men nor powder. Half a dozen broken captains who must starve if there's
no fighting afoot, as many more who've put their souls in the priests'
hands and see with their eyes--these and a few score boys without a
coat to their backs or breeches to their nakedness--d'you think to oust
old Malbrouk with these?"

"He's dead!"

"He's not,