less Mr. Conroy has some game on that we know nothing about," said
Bland, "he'd better climb down and make the best terms he can."

I think that Bland was nervous. He made that remark or others like it
several times while we were waiting for the Admiral's return. I
candidly confess that I was more than nervous. I was desperately
frightened. I am not, I hope, a coward. I believe that I was not
afraid of being killed, but I could not take my eyes off the great
iron ship which lay motionless, without a sign of life about her, a
black, menacing monster on the calm water of the lough. I was seized,
obsessed, with a sense of her immense power. She would destroy and
slay with a horrible, unemotional, scientific deliberation.

"Conroy had better surrender," said Bland. "He can't expect--"

"He won't surrender," I said; "and if he wanted to, the men would not
let him."

"Damn it," said Bland. "He must. I've seen war, and I tell you he
must."

At last the Admiral returned. Bob was with him, and was evidently
trying to make himself agreeable. He was chatting. Occasionally he
laughed. The Admiral was entirely unresponsive. When he got close
enough for us to see his face I saw that he looked perplexed and
miserable. I was miserable and frightened, but the Admiral looked
worse.

Behind them there was an immense crowd of people; men, armed and
unarmed, women, even children. It was a mere mob. There was no sign of
discipline among them. Some young girls, mill-workers with shawls over
their heads, pressed close on the Admiral's heels. Bob gave an order
to his men, and they drew up across the end of our embankment. Bob and
the Admiral passed through the line. The crowd stopped.

The launch drew to shore again. The Admiral stepped on board her, and
she steamed away.

The crowd hung around the end of our embankment. Some children began
chasing each other in and out among the men and women. A few girls
went down to the water's edge and threw in stones, laughing at the
splashes they made. Then a young man found an empty bottle and flung
it far out into the channel. Fifty or sixty men and women threw stones
at it, laughing when shots went wide, cheering when some well-aimed
stone set the bottle rocking. Further back from the water's edge young
men and girls were romping with each other, the girls crying shrilly
and laughing boisterously, the men catching them round their waists or
by their arms. It might have been a crowd out for en