agged a hundred yards before they began to reason and to
calculate the chances. If the purpose of those into whose hands they
had fallen were to murder them they would have been piked on the spot.
On the other hand, if their captors' object was to deliver them to
English justice, it was a long way to the Four Courts, and farther to
Westminster. Weeks, if not months, must elapse before they stood at the
bar on a capital charge; much water must flow under the bridges, and
many a thing might happen, by force or fraud, in the interval.

So, half-stifled and bitterly chagrined as they were, they did not
waste their strength in a vain resistance. They allowed themselves to
be pushed this way and pulled that, took what care they could of their
limbs, and for their thoughts gave as many to vengeance as to safety.
They had known many reverses in many lands. They did not believe that
this was the end. And presently it would be their turn.

With the third of the prisoners it was otherwise. The courage of the
Irish is more conspicuous in the advance than in the retreat; and even
of that recklessness in fight, that joy in the conflict, which is their
birthright and their fame, Flavia had taken more than her woman's
share. In James McMurrough's mean and narrow nature there was small
room for the generous passions. Unlike his sister, he would have struck
the face of no man in whose power he lay; nor was he one to keep a
stout heart when his hands were bound. Conscience does not always make
cowards. But he knew into whose hands he had fallen, he knew the fate
to which he had himself consigned Colonel John--or would have consigned
him but for self-interest--and his heart was water, his knees were
aspens, his hair rose, as, helpless, he pictured in livid hues the fate
that now awaited himself.

As he had meant to do to the other, it would be done to him! He felt
the cruel pike rend the gasping throat; he had heard that it was the
most painful death that a man could die, and that the shrieks of men
dying on the pike-point could be heard a mile! Or would they throw him,
bound and blind as he was, into the sullen lake--yes, that was it! They
were carrying him that way, they were taking him to the lake.

And once and twice, in the insanity of fear, he fought with his bonds
until the blood came, even throwing himself down, until the men, out of
patience, pricked him savagely, and drove him, venting choked cries of
pain, to his feet again.