“It’s a lie,” Ronan shouted. “I’m no more Dunloe than any of you. I’m Ronan Malachy, I tell you, and my home is in Dublin. I heard an Irish voice just now, surely he can tell I’m Irish, too.”
“Arrah, I believe you,” said the new-comer. “It’s the real brogue you’ve got, and none other, though it’s not so pronounced as is my own; but may be you’ve lived longer in this country than I. Pull down those bricks, boys, and let me have a look at him.”
“No, no,” cried several voices, angrily. “Anybody could take you in, Pat. He’s Dunloe right enough; and now we’ve got him, we intend to keep him.”
In the altercation that now ensued, some sided with the Irishman, and some against him; but over and above all the clamour and confusion the voice of the Banshee could still be heard shrieking, and wailing, and clapping her hands.
At last someone struck a blow, and in an instant swords were drawn, sticks and cudgels were used, furniture was flung about freely, and table, brazier, and cauldron were overturned; and the blazing pitch and red hot coals, coming in contact with piled up articles of all kinds—casks, chests, boxes, musty old books, paper and logs—it was not long before the whole chamber became a mass of flames.
One or two of the calmer and more sober revellers attempted to get to the recess and batter down the bricks, which were merely placed together without cement, but the fury of the flames drove them back, and the hapless Ronan was, in the end, abandoned to his fate.
Hideously aware of what was going on, he struggled desperately to free himself, and, at last succeeding, made a frantic attempt to reach a small window, placed at a height of some seven or eight feet from the floor. After several fruitless efforts he triumphed, only to discover, however, that the aperture was just too small for his body to pass through.
The flames had, by this time, reached the entrance to the recess, and the heat from them was so stupendous that Ronan, weak and exhausted after his long fast and all the harrowing and exciting moments he had passed through, let go his hold, and, falling backwards, struck his head a terrific crash on the floor.
Much to his amazement, on recovering his faculties, Ronan found himself lying out of doors. Above him was no abysmal darkness, only the heavens brilliantly lighted by moon and stars, whilst as far as his sight could travel was free and open space, a countryside dotted here and there with gorse bushes and the silvery shimmering surface of moorland tarns. He turned round, and close beside him was a big boulder of rock that he now remembered slipping from when he had dropped over the wall to take cover from the storm. And there, sure enough, was the shelter. He got up and went towards it. It was quite deserted, no one was there, not even a cow, and the silence that came to him was just the ordinary silence of the night, with nothing in it weirder or more arrestive than the rushing of distant water and the occasional croaking of a toad. Considerably mystified, and unable to decide in his mind whether all he had gone through had been a dream or not, he now clambered back into the road and pursued his way, according to his original intention, towards Lockerbie.