"Will you murder us?" Colonel John said. "Do you know, man," he continued sternly, "what you do? What have we done to you, or your master?"
"Done?" O'Sullivan Og answered with sudden ferocity. "And murder, say you? Ay, faith, I would, and ten thousand like you, for the sake of old Ireland! You may make your peace, and have five minutes to that—and no more, for time presses, and we've work to do. These fools would have a priest for you"—he turned and spat on the ground—"but it is I, and none better, know you are black Protestants, and 'twould take the Holy Father, God bless him, and no less, to make your souls!"
Colonel John looked at him with a strange light in his eyes. "It is little to you," he said, "and much to me. Yet think, think, man, what you do. Or if you will not, here is my servant. Let him go at least. Spare his life at least. Put him, if you please, on board the French sloop that's in the bay——"
"Faith, and you're wasting the little breath that is left you," the ruffian answered, irritated rather than moved by the other's calmness. "It's to take or leave. I told the men a heretic had no soul to make, but——"
"God forgive you!" Colonel John said—and was silent; for he saw that remonstrance would not help him, nor prayer avail. The man's mind was made up, his heart steeled. For a brief instant, something, perhaps that human fear which he had so often defied, clutched Colonel John's heart. For a brief instant human weakness had its way with him, and he shuddered—in the face of the bog, in the face of such an end as this. Then the mist passed from his eyes, if not from the landscape; the gracious faith that was his returned to him: he was his grave, unyielding self again. He took Bale's hand and begged his forgiveness. "Would I had never brought you!" he said. "Why did I, why did I? Yet, God's will be done!"
Bale did not seem able to speak. His jaw continued to work, while his eyes looked sideways at Og. Had the Irishman known his man, he would have put himself out of reach, armed as he was.
"But I will appeal for you to the priest!" Colonel John continued; "he may yet prevail with them to spare you."
"He will not!" O'Sullivan Og said naïvely.
CHAPTER XII