"For the moment I do not know," Sir Denis confessed. "Advise me, all of you. I undertook this enterprise partly because of its danger, partly for a great sum of money which I should have handed over to our cause, partly because if I succeeded it would hurt England. Now I have come back and I find you all moved by a different spirit."
"There isn't a man in this island," Michael Dilwyn said slowly, "who has hated England as I have. She has been our oppressor for generations, and in return we have given her the best of our sons, their life-blood, their genius, their souls. And yet, with it all there is a bond. Our children have married theirs, and when we've looked together over the side, we've seen the same things. We've made use of Germans, Denis, but I tell you frankly I hate them. There are two things every Irishman loves—justice and courage—and England went into this war in the great manner. She has done big things, and I tell you, in a sneaking sort of way we're proud. I am honest with you, you see, Denis. You can guess, from what I've said, what I'd do with that packet."
Sir Denis turned to the O'Clory.
"And you?" he asked.
"My boy," was the reply, "sure Michael's right. I've hated England, I've shouldered a rifle against her, I've talked treason up and down the country, and I've known the inside of a prison. I've spat at her authority. I've said in plain words what I think of her—fat, commerce-ridden, smug, selfish. I've watched her bleed and been glad of it, but at the bottom of my heart I'd have liked to have seen her outstretched hand. Denis, lad, that's coming. We've got to remember that we, too, are a proud, obstinate, pig-headed race. We've got to meet that hand half-way, and when the moment comes I'd like to be the first to raise the boys round here and give the Germans hell!"
Another blue ball shot up into the sky. Sir Denis took the packet of papers from the table and stood by the great open stone hearth. Michael Dilwyn moved to his side, a gaunt, impressive figure.
"You're doing the right thing, Denis," he declared. "What fighting we've done, and any that we may still have to do with England, we'll do it on the surface. I was down at Queenstown when they brought in some of the bodies from the Lusitania. To Hell with such tricks! There's no Irishman yet has ever joined hands with those who war against women and babies."
Denis drew a log of burning wood out on to the hearth and laid the packet deliberately upon it. He stood there watching the smoke curl upwards as the envelope shrivelled and the flames crept from one end to the other.
"That seems a queer thing to do," he observed, with a dry little laugh. "I've carried my life in my hands for those papers, and there's a hundred thousand pounds waiting for them, not a mile away."
"Blood-money, boy," the O'Clory reminded him, "and anyway there's a touch of the evil thing about strangers' gold.—Eh, but who's this?"