14
The next day, the Rebellion collapsed. Henry had walked out of Dublin, for it was easier now to move about, and coming back in the afternoon, suddenly felt that the Rebellion was over. A man came cycling past at a great pace, and as he went by, he shouted to Henry, "They've surrendered!" and then was gone. There was a cooler feel in the air. It seemed to him that a great tension had been relaxed ... that, after a day of intolerable heat, there had come an evening of cool winds. As he approached the city, he could see groups of people standing about in the road, and he went to one of them, and asked if the news were true.
"Some of them's surrendered," he was told, "but there's a lot of snipers still about!"
They could hear desultory firing as they spoke.
"Ah, they'll give in quick enough now," a man said. "Sure, they can't hold out any longer!"
He hurried back to the city, and when he reached the Club, he saw that the tri-colour was no longer flying over the College of Surgeons.
THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER
1
On Sunday morning, he met Lander, who had a military pass, and together they went to Sackville Street.... There were some who had said that this was the proudest street in the world. It had little pride now. Where there had been shops and hotels, there were now heaps of rubble and calcined bricks. The street was covered with grey ash that was still hot, and one had to walk warily lest one's feet should be burnt. The Post Office still stood, but the roof was gone and the inside of it was empty: a hulk, a disembowelled carcase....
"MacDonagh and Pearse and Connolly have been taken," said Lander. "They say Connolly's badly wounded...."
"Have you heard anything of ... of John Marsh?"
"Yes. He's dead. They say he was killed soon after the fighting began ... in the street!..."
Henry did not speak. He glanced about him at the ruin and wreck of a city which, though it had many times filled him with anger, yet filled him also with love; and for a while he could not see clearly.... Somewhere in this street, John Marsh had been killed. He had died, as he had desired, for Ireland, and a man can do no more than give his life for his country ... but what was the good of his dying? It was not enough that a man should die ... he must also die well and to purpose. Oh, indeed, John had believed that such a death as this would be a good death, to much purpose, but it is not the dead who can judge of that ... it is the living to whom now and forever is the task of judging what the dead have done.
"It's a pity," said Lander, "that the slums weren't destroyed, too!..."
"Perhaps," Henry answered, "we can build a finer city after this!"
"Perhaps," said Lander dubiously, for Lander knew the ways of men and had small faith in them.