"Good for you, Denny. Let him finish, Joe."
"Well, shure, saays farther at last, ses he, 'If y're Riall Hoiness wud let me have wan shot, maybe Oi'd bring ye luck.' An' he did it. So farther, he gits th' Dook's big gun, an' th' Dook he tuk th' pathles, an' bynby they see a mob iv dooks all in a loine acrost th' boat's bows, saalin' for all th' warld loike th' owld loin-iv-batthle ships in th' pictures, stim an' starn.
"'Howld aisy,' saays farther, ses 'e, whin they got abreast thim fowls. With that he pinted th' gun at th' la-adin' dook, an owld dr-a-ake be th' same token—pulled th' thrigger an' let her off. Wud ye bela-ave me, so quick was he that before all th' shot had got out iv th' way-pon he'd got her down to th' tail-most birr-d, an' betune you an' me an' little Garr-ge Washintong in th' Bible, ivry sowl iv thim dooks lay spaachless dead upon th' wather. Now thin, phwat div ye think iv that f'r shutin', ye gosoons?"
"Think of it, Denny," said Maggie, who had been standing at the kitchen door, unobserved of the boys, an amused listener. "Why, you'll be writing a book one day that will put the Kybosh on Baron Munchausen."
"Well, if iver Oi does, Miss Maggie," replied the incorrigible Irish boy, "Oi'll pit y'reself in as th' laaden acthress—Oi mane th' herr-owyne."
"Maggie!"
"Coming, mother."
CHAPTER XXIV
THE CORROBBERIE
"Deep in the forest depths the tribe
A mighty blazing fire have spread:
Round this they spring with frantic yells,
In hideous pigments all arrayed.
* * * * *
One barred with yellow ochre, one
A skeleton in startling white,
Then one who dances furiously
Blood-red against the great fire's light.
* * * * *
Like some infernal scene it is—
The forest dark, the blazing fire,
The ghostly birds, the dancing fiends,
Whose savage chant swells ever higher."
WILLIAM SHARP.