‘Tell him I’ve work to do here,’ said he, ‘and can’t come; but if he’s fond of a bonfire he may as well step down this far and see one.’
By this time, at a gesture of command from me, the corporal had placed himself on the opposite side of Dowall’s horse, and, by a movement similar to my own, completely drove back the dense mob, so that we had him completely in our power, and could have sabred or shot him at any moment.
‘General Serasin only wishes to see you on duty, commandant,’ said I, speaking in a voice that could be heard over the entire assemblage; and then, dropping it to a whisper, only audible to himself, I added—
‘Come along quietly, sir, and without a word. If you speak, if you mutter, or if you lift a finger, I’ll run my sabre through your body.’
‘Forward, way, there!’ shouted I aloud, and the corporal, holding Dowall’s bridle, pricked the horse with the point of his sword, and right through the crowd we went at a pace that defied following, had any the daring to think of it.
So sudden was the act and so imminent the peril, for I held the point of my weapon within a few inches of his back, and would have kept my word most assuredly too, that the fellow never spoke a syllable as we went, nor ventured on even a word of remonstrance till we descended at the general’s door. Then, with a voice tremulous with restrained passion, he said—
‘If ye think I’ll forgive ye this thrick, my fine hoy, may the flames and fire be my portion! and if I haven’t my revenge on ye yet, my name isn’t Mick Dowall.’
With a dogged, sulky resolution he mounted the stairs, but as he neared the room where the general was, and from which his voice could even now be heard, his courage seemed to fail him, and he looked back as though to see if no chance of escape remained. The attempt would have been hopeless, and he saw it.
‘This is the man, general,’ said I, half pushing him forward into the middle of the room, where he stood with his hat on, and in an attitude of mingled defiance and terror.
‘Tell him to uncover,’ said Serasin; but one of the aides-de-camp, more zealous than courteous, stepped forward and knocked the hat off with his hand. Dowall never budged an inch, nor moved a muscle, at this insult; to look at him you could not have said that he was conscious of it.