“Dhar Chriestha,” exclaimed Flanagan, “I have it; thim I spoke about has paid Bodagh Buie the visit they promised him.”
“Come round the hip o' the hill,” said Connor, “till we see where it really is; but I'll tell you what, Bartle, if you be right, woe betide you! all the water in Europe wouldn't wash you free in my mind, of being connected in this same Ribbon business that's spreading through the country. As sure as that sky—that fearful sky's above us, you must prove to me and other's how you came to know that this hellish business was to take place. God of heaven! let us run—surely it couldn't be the dwelling-house!”
His speed was so great that Bartle could find neither breath nor leisure to make any reply.
“Thank God!” he exclaimed; “oh, thank God it's not the house, and there lives are safe! but blessed Father, there's the man's whole haggard in flames!”
“Oh, the netarnal villains!” was the simple exclamation of Flanagan.
“Bartle,” said his companion, “you heard what I said this minute?”
Their eyes met as he spoke, and for the first time O'Donovan was struck by the pallid malignity of his features. The servant gazed steadily upon him, his lips slightly but firmly drawn back, and his eye, in which was neither sympathy nor alarm, charged with the spirit of a cool and devilish triumph.
Connor's blazed at the bare idea of his villainy, and, in a fit of manly and indignant rage, he seized Flanagan and hurled him headlong to the earth at his feet. “You have hell in your face, you villain!” he exclaimed; “and if I thought that—if I did—I'd drag you down like a dog, an' pitch you head—foremost into the flames!”
Bartle rose, and, in a voice wonderfully calm, simply observed, “God knows, Connor, if I know either your heart or mine, you'll be sorry for this treatment you've given me for no rason. You know yourself that, as soon as I heard anything of the ill-will against the Bodagh, I tould it to you, in ordher—mark that—in ordher that you might let him know it the best way you thought proper; an' for that you've knocked me down!”
“Why, I believe you may be right, Bartle—there's truth in that—but I can't forgive you the look you gave me.”