For he had handed, to each, a heavy bludgeon.
"Sure, your honour, 'tis not safe to be in the streets after nightfall. It is like that part of Paris where no dacent man could walk, without being assaulted by thieves and cutthroats. Dressed as we are, it is not likely anyone would interfere with us in the hope of finding money on us, but they are not particular at all, at all, and a party of these rascals might try to roll us in the mire, just for fun. So it is as well to be prepared."
However, they met with no interruption, passed out through Holborn Bars, and soon arrived at the house where Mike had taken a lodging. They were not sorry, however, that they were armed, for, several times, they heard outbursts of drunken shouting and the sound of frays.
Mike had hired two rooms. In one of these were three straw beds, for the officers. He himself slept on a blanket on the floor of the other room, which served as kitchen and sitting room.
Now, for the first time, they were able to talk freely.
"Mike, we have not said much to you, yet," Desmond began, "but I and these gentlemen are fully conscious that you have saved us from death, for we hear that Government is determined to push matters to the extremity, and to have all the officers captured condemned to be hanged."
"Bad cess to them!" Mike exclaimed, indignantly. "If I had two or three of them, it's mighty little they would talk of execution, after I and me stick had had a few minutes' converse with them.
"As to the getting you out, I assure you, your honour, there is little I have done, except to carry out your orders. When I first saw the prison, and the little white flag flying from the window, I said to myself that, barring wings, there was no way of getting to you; and it was only when I got your first letter that I saw it might be managed. Faith, that letter bothered me, entirely. I took it to the woman downstairs, and asked her to read it for me, saying that I had picked it up in the street, and wondered what it was about. She was no great scholar, but she made out that it was writ in a foreign language, and seemed to her to be a bit of an old bill. When I took it up to my room, I looked at it every way. I knew, of course, that it was a message, somehow, but devil a bit could I see where it came in.
"I fingered it for an hour, looking at it in every way, and then I saw that there were some small holes pricked. Well, I could not ask the woman what they meant, as I had told her I picked it up; so I went across to an Irishman, whose acquaintance I had made the day before, and who had recommended me, if I wanted work, to hire one of these chairs and get a comrade to help me carry it. I could see that he was a man who had seen better days. I expect he had come over in the time of the troubles, and had been forced to earn his living as he could; so I went to him.
"'I have got a message,' I said, 'pricked on a piece of paper. I picked it up, and am curious-like to know what it is about.'