Outside the gate there was a great crowd, behind a regiment of red-coated soldiers, and when the Governor and the Attorney-General drove off they broke into a cheer which drowned the clash of steel and the first bars of the National Anthem.
But that was as nothing compared with the demonstration when Stowell went off in his car, sitting at the wheel, with Fenella beside him.
"Long live the new Deemster—hip, hip—hip!"
The great shout, the mighty roar of voices, brought a surging to Stowell's throat and a tightening to his breast. It followed his car, going off in the sunshine, until it shot over the bridge that crossed the harbour, and there Fenella turned back her glistening wet eyes and bowed.
* * * * * * *
Others heard it. The prisoners in their dark cells, rising from their plank beds and hunching their shoulders in the chill air, listened to the joyous sounds from without, which broke the usual silence of their gloomy walls, and said to themselves,
"What are they doing now, I wonder?"
There were seven prisoners in the Castle that day. One of them was Bessie Collister.
II
"Addio! See you at supper!"