f to take me by surprise. Now, it is very difficult
when running hard to put oneself at once into a proper position of
defence. And so, as it happened, I was nearly done. But I had been
carrying the sword in my hand almost at arm's length. I was conscious of
no shock. Only all suddenly my assailant doubled and lay writhing, his
dagger still shining in his hand.

I stopped and kept wide circling about him, fearing a trick. The moon
was shining full on the open clearing of the glade where he had fallen.
It was the little lawyer--he who had called himself Wringham Pollixfen
Poole. Yet somehow he was different. His beard had grown to be of a
curious foreign fashion and colour--but that perhaps might be the effect
of the moonlight.

He never took his eyes off the shining steel in my hand.

"It is poisoned," he groaned, his hand clapped to his breast, "I am a
dead man--poisoned, poisoned!"

And looking more carefully at what I had simply snatched in haste, I
saw that I had in my hand the golden-hilted sword of honour which Lalor
Maitland had given to the boy Louis to seal their friendship.

But immediately a greater wonder oppressed me, and rendered speechless
those who now came panting up--my uncles and Boyd Connoway. The
hay-coloured beard and disguises came away, snatched off in the man's
death-agony. The shiny brown coat opened to show a spotless ruffled
shirt beneath. The wounded man never ceased to exclaim, "It is poisoned!
It is poisoned! I am a dead man!" The wig fell off, and as life gave
place to the stillness of death, out of the lined and twisted lineaments
of the half-deformed lawyer Poole emerged the pale, calm, clear-cut
features of Lalor Maitland.

CHAPTER XLII

THE PLACE OF DREAMS

The key of the mystery was brought us by one who seemed the most
unlikely person in the world, Boyd Connoway.

"And her to come of decent folk down there by Killibegs," he exclaimed
in opening the matter; "no rapparees out of Connemara--but O'Neil's
blood to a man, both Bridget and all her kindred before her!"

"What's the matter now?" said the Fiscal, who with much secret
satisfaction had come to have that made plain which had troubled him so
sorely before. So Boyd and Jerry brought Bridget Connoway in to the
outhouse where the dead man lay.

"Tis all my fault--my fault," wailed Bridget, "yet 'twas because him
that's me husband gave me no help with the arning of money to bring up
the childer. So I was tempted