Niall looked at me long and steadily, and my fear of him began to grow less. He had the voice and speech of an educated man—not educated in the sense which was common enough with country schoolmasters in Ireland, who sometimes combined a really wonderful knowledge with rustic simplicity. And he had scarcely a trace of the accent of the country.
"What if I were to take a desperate chance," he said suddenly, "and tell you all, all? I have whispered it to the stars, the hills, the running waters, but never before to human ears except those of my little lady. If you are true and honest, God deal with you accordingly. If you are not, I shall be the instrument of your punishment. I call the thunders to witness that I shall punish you if I have to walk the world over to do so; if I have to follow you by mountain and moor, over the sea and across whole continents."
A terrific flash of lightning almost blinded us as he took this tremendous oath, which terrified me almost as much as though I were really planning the treachery he feared. I covered my eyes with my hands, while crash upon crash of thunder that followed nearly deafened us. Niall sat tranquil and unmoved.
"I love the voice of the storm," he murmured presently. "It is Nature at its grandest—Nature's God commanding, threatening."
When the last echo of the thunder died away he turned back again to the subject of our discourse.
"If I should trust you with my secret," he began again, with that same strange, wild manner which led me to believe that his mind was more or less unhinged, "you will have to swear in presence of the great Jehovah, the God of the thunder, the God of vengeance, that you will not betray it."
"I can not swear," I said firmly; "but I will promise solemnly to keep your secret, if you can assure me that there is nothing in it which would injure any one, or which I should be bound in conscience to declare."
"Oh, you have a conscience!" cried this singular being, with his evil sneer. "Well, so much the better for our bargain, especially if it is a working conscience."
"And you have a conscience too," I declared, almost sternly; "though you may seek to deaden it—that Catholic conscience which is always sure to awaken sooner or later."