"What is it?"
"Wait."
CHAPTER XXIV.
[KILCASH.]
O'Brien and O'Hanlon gained the top of the cliff, and reached the car waiting on the road without saying anything further. The former was busy with his thoughts; the latter, after O'Brien's word "Wait," sank into indifference.
"I'm ashamed of two sensible men such as you," said the driver, in a southern brogue, "going down there on an uncertain season like this, and at the end of daylight. It's a mercy you ever got back alive."
"Or dead," said O'Brien, with a laugh.
"Never mind, Terry; we're none the worse for it. Now, drive on to Kilcash, and pull up at the Strand Hotel."
The driver whipped his horse, and the remainder of the journey was accomplished in silence.
Kilcash is a small, straggling village, built on the slopes of the cliffs surrounding Kilcash Bay, and on the low ground lying in front of the bay. In summer it is usually pretty full of people, for although no railway has yet reached it, hundreds of families live in the neighbourhood, and many who dwell at a distance use it as a holiday resort. In winter it is dreary, deserted, dead. The closed-up lodging-houses and cottages which, under the influence of the summer sun, grow bright and cheerful with flowers and the faces of children, in winter stare with blank window eyes at the cold gray sky and monotonous level of the sea. It was difficult to say who governed Kilcash--five policemen and seven coastguardsmen, possibly; for there was no other sign of official life.