“Do you deny that you know where they have gone?”
“I do,” retorted I; “and, if it please your worship, what has all this to do with whether I am a spy or not?”
“This, that a man who has lied in one particular is not to be believed in others. The same reason which induced you to pass yourself as a Frenchman may explain your refusal to say where the woman McQuilkin has gone. Her house is known to be a resort of spies and foreigners of doubtful character, and your connection with her, and the abduction of the young lady, and your refusal to give any information, are strongly against you.”
I am not learned in Dutch logic, and was not convinced now; but apparently my judges were, for I was ordered to be handed over to the military authorities of Amsterdam as a prisoner of war, suspected of being a spy, for them to deal with me as they might consider best.
Before I departed, the burgomaster handed me back my mother’s pocket-book, the contents of which he had had translated, and which he was good enough to say appeared not to be incriminating. My pistol he detained for the service of the Dutch republic.
The military authorities at Amsterdam were far too busy to attend to my affairs. They were in the midst of equipping an armament to land on Irish shores and strike at England with the cat’s-paw of an Irish rebellion. The place was full of Irishmen, some of whom honestly enough looked to see their country redeemed by Dutch saviours; others, hungry hangers-on, seeking what profit to themselves they could secure from the venture. A few faces, even during the short time I was kept waiting in quarters, seemed familiar to me as of men I had seen in former days in the secret conclaves at my father’s cabin or under his honour’s roof, and one or two I was certain I had seen that day in Dublin not long since when I was present at a meeting of the United Irishmen.
Little I knew then or for months after that among these very faces, had I looked long enough, I might have seen that of Tim, my brother, or (must I say now?) my brother that was, before he became Tim Gorman of Kilgorman.
But, as I said, the authorities were too busy to inquire into my case, and, taking the word of the Delft burgomaster, locked me up with a batch of other English prisoners to await the issue of the coming war.
For three months I languished here in a dismal dungeon in dismal company and fed on dismal fare. But I who had lodged in the Conciergerie at Paris in “the terror” could afford to think my Dutch hosts lavish in their comforts.
Once and again some new captive brought us news from outside, the purport of which was that the great Irish expedition, after lying for weeks and weeks at the Texel, held prisoner there by the unyielding west wind and by Admiral Duncan, had collapsed like a burst bubble. The troops had all been landed, the ships had returned to refit, and the pack of Irishmen, seeing the hunt up in this quarter, had gone off in full cry to Paris. If the Dutch ventured anything now, it would be against England, and on their own account.