“Go before us,” said the officer, addressing the informer.
“I didn’t undertake to do that,” said the wretch, trembling in every limb.
“We’ll go, captain,” said one of the soldiers, and, bayonet in hand, he descended, followed by three of his comrades. Then the informer, plucking up some courage, began to descend. Suddenly the noise of shouting and the report of a musket shot was heard, and the informer, white with fear, was climbing up again.
“Go down and be d——d to you,” cried the officer, “and make way for my men!”
“Oh, captain, darling, save me.”
They were the last words he ever spoke. The crane was flung back from the wall right over the hole. As quick as thought the heavy pot was loosened from it, and it fell with a sickening thud on the informer’s head. A squirt of blood struck the wall just beside my head.
“Seize that woman,” cried the astonished officer.
“Shamey! Shamey!” shouted Maurya to me, her whole face as bright as if all her sorrow had left her. “Shamey, my dhrame came true.”
I never saw Maurya na Gleanna again. I heard that they said (and sure they were right, and they were wrong at the same time), that she didn’t know what she was doing, and they put her in an asylum somewhere.
“But did you,” said I, “ever find out who Red Michil was, and was he the informer?”