en the former signed to the young man to go down into
the boat, which lay alongside with a couple of men at the oars, and
Bale seated in the sternsheets. The fog still hung upon the water, and
the land was hidden. The young man could not see where they lay.

After the lapse of a minute or two Colonel John joined him, and the
rowers pushed off, while Augustin and the crew leant over the rail to
see them go, and to send after them a torrent of voluble good wishes. A
very few, strokes of the oars brought the passengers within misty view
of the land; in less than two minutes after leaving the _Cormorant_ the
boat grated on the rocks, and the Colonel, James McMurrough, and Bale
landed. The young man made out that they were some half-mile eastward
of Skull Harbour.

Bale stayed to exchange a few words with the seamen, while Colonel John
and The McMurrough set off along the beach. They had not walked fifty
yards before the fog isolated them; they were alone. And astonishment
filled the young man, and grew as they walked. Did Colonel John, after
all that had happened, mean to return to Morristown? to establish
himself calmly--he, alone--in the midst of the conspirators whose
leaders he had removed?

It seemed incredible! For though he, James McMurrough, thirst for
revenge as he might, was muzzled by his oath, what of the others? What
of Sir Donny and old Timothy Burke? What of the two O'Beirnes? Nay,
what of his sister, whom he could fancy more incensed, more vindictive,
more dangerous than them all? What, finally, of the barbarous rout of
peasants, ready to commit any violence at a word from him?

And still the Colonel walked on by his side. And now they were in sight
of Skull--of the old tower and the house by the jetty, looming large
through the dripping mist. And at last Colonel John spoke.

"It was fortunate that I made my will as I came through Paris," he
said.

CHAPTER XV

FEMINA FURENS

The Irish of that day, with all their wit and all their courage, had
the bad habit of looking abroad for leaders. Colonel John had run
little risk of being wrong in taking for granted that the meeting at
the Carraghalin, mysteriously robbed of the chiefs from over-seas,
whose presence had brought the movement to a head, would disperse;
either amid the peals of Homeric laughter that in Ireland greet a
monster jest, or, in sadder mood, cursing the detested Saxon for one
more added to the many wrongs of a downtrodden land.