if the nationality be so strong,
and the energies so powerful as you describe, why not try the issue, as
the Italians and the Hungarians are about to do?" said Morlache. "I
can understand a loan for a defined and real object, the purchase of
military stores and equipment, to provide arms and ammunition, and I can
understand how the lender, too, could calculate his risk of profit or
loss on the issue of the struggle; but here you want half a million
sterling, and for what?"

"To win a kingdom!" cried D'Esmonde, enthusiastically. "To bring back
to the fold of the Church the long-lost sheep; and make Ireland, as she
once was, the centre of holy zeal and piety!"

"I am not a pope, nor a cardinal, not even a monsignore," said Morlache,
with a bitter laugh. "You must try other arguments with me; and once
more I say, why not join that party who already are willing to risk
their lives in the venture?"

"Have I not told you what and who they are who form this party?" said
D'Esmonde, passionately. "Read those papers before you. Study the secret
reports sent from nearly every parish in the kingdom. In some you will
find the sworn depositions of men on their death-beds, the last words
their lips have uttered on earth, all concurring to show that Ireland
has no hope save in the Church. The men who now stir up the land to
revolt are not devoid of courage or capacity. They are bold, and they
are able, but they are infidel. They would call upon their countrymen
in the name of past associations, the wrongs of bygone centuries; they
would move the heart by appeals, touching enough, Heaven knows, to the
galling sores of serfdom, but they will not light one fire upon the
altar; they will not carry the only banner that should float in the van
of an Irish army. Their bold denouncings may warn some; their poetry
will, perhaps, move others; but their prose and verse, like themselves,
will be forgotten in a few years, and, save a few grassy mounds in a
village churchyard, or a prisoner's plaint sent over the sea from a land
of banishment, nothing will remain of Ireland's patriots."

"England is too powerful for such assailants," said the Jew.

"Very true; but remember that the stout three-decker that never struck
to an enemy has crumbled to ruin beneath the dry rot," said D'Esmonde,
with a savage energy of manner. "Such is the case now. All is rot and
corruption within her; pauperism at home, rebellion abroad. The
nobles, more tolerant as