The informer

By Liam O'Flaherty

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Title: The informer

Author: Liam O'Flaherty

Release date: March 10, 2025 [eBook #75583]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925

Credits: Brian Raiter


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INFORMER ***


The Informer

by Liam O’Flaherty

published by New York: Alfred A. Knopf (1925)
Copyright 1925 by Liam O’Flaherty



CHAPTER I

It was three minutes to six o’clock in the evening of the fifteenth of
March 192‒.

Francis Joseph McPhillip ran up the concrete steps leading to the
glass-panelled swing door that acted as street entrance to the Dunboy
Lodging House. The House, as it was called in Dublin, among criminal
and pauperized circles, was a grey concrete building of four stories.
It stood on the left-hand side of a wide wind-swept asphalt lane off
B—— Road on the south side of the city. A maze of slum streets
surrounded it. An indefinable smell of human beings living in a
congested area filled the air around it. From the building itself, a
smell of food and of floors being scrubbed with soap and hot water
emanated.

A drizzling rain was falling from a black bulging sky. Now and again a
flock of hailstones, driven by a sudden gust of querulous wind,
clattered down the lane, falling in little dancing groups on the hard,
perspiring asphalt.

McPhillip ran up the four steps and peered into the hall hurriedly
through the glass door. He put his face so close to the glass that his
excited breath caused an immediate blur of vapour on the frozen pane.
Then he turned about. He crouched against the angle of the doorway and
peered around the corner of the wall, up the lane through which he had
just come. He wanted to find out whether anybody was following him. He
was a murderer.

He had killed the secretary of the local branch of the Farmers’ Union
during the farm labourers’ strike at M—— in the previous October.
Since then he had been hiding out in the mountains with a group of men
who were evading arrest, brigands, criminals and political refugees.
He had just come into Dublin half an hour previously on a goods train.
The conductor of the train was a member of the Revolutionary
Organization, to which McPhillip himself had belonged when he shot the
Farmers’ Union Secretary.

He saw nobody of account in the lane. An old woman crossed near the
far end. She had a black shawl about her head and in her hand a milk
jug, with a corner of the shawl drawn across its mouth to keep out the
rain. A man was singing forlornly, facing the kerb on the right-hand
side, with his cap held out in front of him. He was begging, but
nobody took any notice of him.

McPhillip’s eyes darted about everywhere, with the speed and acuteness
of one who has perfected his detective sensibilities by necessity and
long practice. The street was quite safe. He sighed and turned about
to survey the interior of the House.

He was a man of middle size and slightly built, but his shoulders were
broad enough for a giant. His body narrowed down from the shoulders,
so that the hips and waist were totally out of proportion to the upper
part of the body. His right leg opened outwards in a curve below the
knee and he placed the toe of the right foot on the ground before the
heel when he walked, so that his walk had the crouching appearance of
a wild animal stalking in a forest. His face was thin and sallow. His
hair was black and cropped close. His eyebrows were black and bushy.
His eyelashes were long and they continually drooped over his eyes.
When his eyelashes drooped his eyes were blue, sharp and fierce. But
when he raised his lashes for a moment to think of something distant
and perhaps imaginary, his eyes were large, wistful and dreamy. They
were soft and full of a sorrow that was unfathomable. His jaws were
square, sharp and fleshless. His lips were thin and set tightly. This
gave the lower part of his face a ferocious appearance. His nose was
long and straight. His cheeks were hollow and on the cheekbones a
bright flush appeared when he was seized with a fit of hard, dry
coughing which he tried to suppress.

He was dressed in a shabby pair of wrinkled navy blue trousers and a
fawn-coloured, shabby raincoat, buttoned up around his throat like a
uniform. His boots were old and thin. They creaked with moisture
soaked in through their torn soles. He wore a grey tweed cap. Under
his left armpit he carried an automatic pistol in a leather holster.
The pistol hung from a lanyard that was suspended from his neck.

As he stood looking in through the door, the fingers of his right hand
were thrust in between the first and second buttons of his raincoat.
The tips of the fingers rested on the cold butt of the automatic.

Within the hall three old men were waiting in a row outside the closed
glass window of the office on the right-hand side. The nearest old man
to the door wore a brown pauper’s uniform. Both his eyes had cataracts
and he seemed to be on the point of going into a faint. He was leaning
on a stick and his head kept bobbing like a man that is in a drunken
stupor and is on the point of falling asleep. The second old man wore
a torn old dress suit. He looked like a waiter thrown out of
employment through old age. He had a sharp lean face. The farthest old
man was dressed in a medley of unspeakable rags and he shook his body
continually trying to scratch himself on the insides of his clothes.
The three of them stood in silence. Beyond them, four more concrete
steps led to a long passage through the building. A corridor crossed
the passage at the far end. Men passed along the corridor now and
again in groups.

McPhillip was about to push through the door when the glass panel was
pulled up with a screech and a man’s head appeared at the window. The
man cracked his thumb and forefinger and motioned the nearest old man
to approach, the old man dressed in rags. The old man started and
cried out in a weak, childish voice: “Oh be Janey I’d forgotten.”
Smiling weakly and muttering to himself he began to rummage among his
rags. The man at the window looked at him, pursed up his lips angrily
and disappeared.

Presently he reappeared from around the corner of the office. He came
up to the old man and stood in front of him with his hands on his hips
and his legs spread wide apart. His neat blue trousers were perfectly
creased. He was in his shirt sleeves, so that his diamond sleeve links
and the large diamond in his tie flashed in the half darkness. His
hair was glued to his head with perfumed oil. Its odour pervaded the
whole hallway. He looked at the old man with an expression of mixed
contempt and anger. The two other old men began to snigger fawningly
and tried to appear to have absolutely no connection with the ragged
old man.

At last the ragged old man found a red handkerchief, and in his
excitement he could not undo the knot that bound it together in a
ball.

“Here,” he cried, holding out the handkerchief to the clerk, “there
are five pennies and four halfpennies there. Me fingers are all stiff
with the rheumatism an’ I can’t untie it. Maybe ye’d do it for me for
th’ honour o’ God?”

Then he looked up into the clerk’s face with his mouth open. But the
clerk, without taking any notice of the handkerchief, was looking at
the old man’s face as if he were going to strike him. The old man
began to tremble.

“Get out of here,” yelled the clerk suddenly in a thunderous voice.

Then he became motionless again. The old man began to babble and
shiver. He turned about and shuffled down the steps to the door,
scratching his shoulder-blades against his clothes as he moved. He
went down two steps and then paused uncertainly and looked behind him.
Then he shuddered, took another step, lost his balance and slipped. He
slithered to the door on his buttocks. The other two old men began to
laugh and titter. The clerk scowled at them. “What are ye laughing
at?” he cried. They stopped immediately. “Hey you,” he continued,
pointing his finger at the ragged old man, who had reached the street
outside and was standing irresolutely on the kerb looking back over
his shoulders. “If I catch you here again, you old fool, I’ll hand you
over to the police. Go away now and get into the workhouse where you
belong. Huh!”

The old man wrinkled up his monkey-like face into a grimace of
surprise and misery. He cast a terrified look at the haggard face of
McPhillip, that peered at him out of the angle of the wall to the left
of the door. Then he mumbled something and set off down the lane at a
broken trot. The other two old men in the hall began to whisper to one
another as soon as the clerk turned his back and walked back into the
office.

“Be the holy,” said one, “he should be shot, wha?”

“So he should,” whined the other old man, “the dirty, rotten—to be
goin’ about like that.”

Then they shuffled up to the window for their bed tickets. The clerk
swore at them and called them filthy names, but they kept apologizing
to him and sniggering.

While the two old men were getting their bed tickets at the window,
McPhillip pushed through the door quietly and slipped along the hall.
He turned to the right at the far end. He stopped there. He leaned up
against the wall casually, took a cigarette from his pocket and lit
it. He looked around examining the passage. It was a wide corridor
with a concrete floor and walls of glazed brick. There were windows at
regular intervals opening on a large yard at the rear of the building.
In the alcoves formed by the windows seats were placed. By the
opposite wall there were spittoons placed at equal distances of three
yards or so. Men were strewn along the passage in groups, some sitting
on the seats conversing in low voices, others walking up and down
singly or in pairs, with their eyes on the ground and their hands
muffed behind their backs in their coat sleeves. They were all
wretchedly dressed and melancholy. Some were quite young, but their
faces had already assumed the dejected appearance that is usually
found only in the faces of old men who have been disappointed in life.

Puffing at his cigarette slowly, McPhillip examined the hall and the
men who passed, with the same quick, sharp cunning with which he had
examined the street. Again he could see nobody that aroused his
interest. Again he sighed gently and moved away to the right. He
entered a large room through a swing door.

The room was crowded. It was furnished with long tables and wooden
forms, like a café for the working class. There were newspapers on
some tables. On others there were games or draughts and dominoes. Men
sat at all the tables. Some read. Others played games. The majority,
however, sat in silence, their eyes staring vacantly in front of them,
contemplating the horror of their lives. Those who could find no seat
stood about the tables, watching the progress of the games, with their
hands in their pockets and their faces set in an expression of stolid
and absent-minded indifference.

McPhillip walked about from one table to another, his cigarette in his
left hand, the fingers of his right hand clutching the butt of his
automatic, between the two top buttons of his raincoat. Nobody noticed
him. The melancholy eyes, that were raised casually to look, saw only
another shabby wreck like themselves. Even had his identity been
suddenly disclosed by means of a loud trumpet to the men in that room,
it is questionable whether the news would have occasioned excitement
in more than a few breasts. Casual workers, casual criminals and
broken old men, their connection with the ordered scheme of civilized
life, with its moral laws and its horror of crime, was so thin and
weak that they were unable to feel the interest that murder arouses in
the tender breasts of our wives and sisters.

McPhillip examined the room carefully without discovering what he
wanted. Then he walked out into the corridor again. He entered another
room that was used by the occupants of the lodging-house for the
purpose of writing letters. That room was empty. Then he descended a
stairway to the lavatories and bathrooms. Here men were shaving and
washing themselves. He walked about and discovered nobody. He came up
again into the corridor and entered the dining-room.

The dining-room was very large and furnished with small deal tables
and long forms of the same material. The wooden floor was covered with
sawdust, like the floor of a slum public-house. Here and there the
sawdust was mixed with refuse that had been swept from the tables. At
the far end of the room a great number of men were gathered around an
immense range, some with frying-pans in their hands awaiting their
turn to cook, others rushing about attending to cooking utensils that
were already on the range. They all had knives, spoons and forks in
their hands. They were jostling, perspiring, cursing, laughing and
scratching themselves. There was a great din of voices and a smell of
food and of human bodies.

At the other end of the room there was a counter and behind the
counter a large bright kitchen, shining bright with white crockery,
polished brasses and the clean white uniforms of the women who served
in it. Three young women were there cooking and serving food, for the
lodgers who had not the means or the inclination to prepare their own
food. These lodgers stood at the counter buying tea, bread and butter,
cooked eggs and meat. They also purchased knives, forks, spoons and
salt, because these necessities were not provided by the management in
the lodging-house, owing to the moral character of the lodgers, except
on payment of a fixed sum, which was returned at the conclusion of the
meal, when the articles were handed back at the counter.

McPhillip walked down across the room to the far side. He had seen the
man he sought at the first glance. He walked straight to a table by
the wall at the far side. At that table a young man of thirty or so
was eating his supper.

He ate off an enamelled plate that was loaded high with potatoes,
coarse cabbage and a large piece of boiled bacon. A great steam rose
from the plate and twisted up towards the ceiling in front of the
man’s face. The man was dressed in a suit of blue dungarees, with a
white muffler wound round and round his neck. He had a close-cropped
bullet-shaped head, fair hair and dark eyebrows. The eyebrows were
just single tufts, one over the centre of each eye. They grew long and
narrowed to a single hair, like the ends of waxed moustaches. They
were just like ominous snouts, and they had more expression than the
dim little blue eyes that were hidden away behind their scowling
shadows. The face was bronzed red and it was covered by swellings that
looked like humps at a distance. These humps came out on the forehead,
on the cheekbones, on the chin and on either side of the neck below
the ears. On close observation, however, they almost disappeared in
the general glossy colour of the brownish red skin, that looked as if
there were several tiers of taut skin covering the face. The nose was
short and bulbous. The mouth was large. The lips were thick and they
fitted together in such a manner that the mouth gave the face an
expression of being perpetually asleep. His body was immense, with
massive limbs and bulging muscles pushing out here and there, like
excrescences of the earth breaking the expected regularity of a
country-side. He sat upright in his seat, with his large square head
bolted on to his squat neck, like an iron stanchion riveted to a deck.

He stared straight in front of him as he ate. He held his fork by the
handle, upright, in his left hand. He rapped the table with the end of
the fork, as if he were keeping time with the rapid crunching of his
jaws. But as soon as he saw McPhillip, his jaws stopped moving and the
hand holding the fork dropped noiselessly to the table. His face
closed up and his body became absolutely motionless.

McPhillip sat down at the opposite side of the table. He did not speak
and he did not express recognition by any sign or movement of his
body. But he knew the man quite well. They were bosom friends. The man
was Gypo Nolan, McPhillip’s companion during the strike of
farm-labourers, when McPhillip had killed the secretary of the
Farmers’ Union. Gypo Nolan had once been a policeman in Dublin, but he
had been dismissed owing to a suspicion at Headquarters that he was in
league with the Revolutionary Organization and had given information
to them relative to certain matters that had leaked out. Since then he
had been an active member of the Revolutionary Organization and had
always acted with Francis Joseph McPhillip, so that they were known in
revolutionary circles as the “Devil’s Twins.”

“Well, Gypo,” said McPhillip at last, “how is things?”

McPhillip’s voice was cracked and weak, but it had a fierce sincerity
that gave it immense force, like the force in the chirping of a tiny
bird whose nest is being robbed.

“Did ye leave them messages I gave ye?” he continued after a moment,
during which he gasped for breath. “I didn’t hear anythin’ from home
since I saw ye that evenin’ I had to take to the hills. What’s doin’,
Gypo?”

Gypo stared in silence for several moments, breathing slowly, with
open mouth and distended eyes. He never spoke. Then he made a strange
sound, like a suppressed exclamation, in his throat. He slowly cut a
large potato in four pieces with his knife. He transferred one piece
to his mouth on the tip of his knife. He began to chew slowly. Then he
stopped chewing suddenly and spoke. It was a deep thunderous voice.

“Where the divil did ye come from, Frankie?” he said.

“It don’t matter where I come from,” cried McPhillip in an irritated
tone. “I got no time to waste passin’ the compliments o’ the season. I
came in here to get wise to all the news. Tell us all ye know. First,
tell me . . . wait a minute. How about them messages? Did ye deliver
them? Don’t mind that grub. Man alive, are ye a savage or what? Here I
am with the cops after me for me life an’ ye go on eatin’ yer spuds.
Lave down that damn knife or I’ll plug ye. Come on, I’m riskin’ me
life to come in here and ask ye a question. Get busy an’ tell me all
about it.”

Gypo sighed easily and wiped his mouth with the back of his right
sleeve. Then he put his knife on the table and swallowed his mouthful.

“Ye were always a cranky fellah,” he growled, “an’ ye don’t seem to be
improvin’, with the spring weather. I’ll tell ye if ye hold on a
minute. I delivered yer messages, to yer father an’ mother and to the
Executive Committee. Yer ol’ man gev me dog’s abuse and drov’ me outa
the house, an’ he cursed ye be bell, book an’ candle light. Yer mother
followed me out cryin’ an’ put half a quid into me hand to give to ye.
I had no way o’ findin’ ye an’ I was hungry mesel’, so I spent it.
Well——”

McPhillip interrupted with a muttered curse. Then he was seized with a
fit of coughing. When the fit was over, Gypo went on.

“Well,” continued Gypo. “Ye know yersel’ what happened with the
Executive Committee. They sent a man out to tell ye. I wouldn’t mind
them sendin’ a letter to the papers sayin’ they had nothin’ to do with
the strike. It ud only be all swank anyway, an’ who cares? But I
declare to Christ they near had me plugged when I went in to report.
Commandant Gallagher was goin’ to send down men to plug ye too, but
lots o’ the other fellahs got around him and he didn’t. Anyway I was
fired out o’ the Organization as well as yersel’, although ye know
yersel’, Frankie, that I had nothin’ to do with firin’ that shot.
An’——”

“What the—” began McPhillip angrily, rapping the table; but again he
began to cough. Gypo went on without taking notice of the coughing.

“The police arrested me, but they could find no evidence, so they gev
me an awful beatin’ and threw me out. I ben wanderin’ around since
without a dog to lick me trousers, half starvin’!”

“What do I want to know about the Executive Committee?” grumbled
McPhillip angrily, recovering his breath. “I don’t want to hear
anything about executive committees or revolutionary organizations, me
curse on the lot o’ them. I want to hear about me father an’ mother.
What about ’em, Gypo?”

Gypo expanded his thick under lip and stared at McPhillip with
distended eyes. His eyes seemed to hold an expression of sadness in
their dim recesses, but it was hard to say. The face was so crude and
strong that the expression that might be termed sadness in another
face was mere wonder in his. For the first time he had noticed the
pallor of McPhillip’s face, the hectic flush, the fits of coughing,
the jerky movements and the evident terror in the eyes that used to be
so fearless.

“Frankie,” cried Gypo in his deep, slow, passionless voice, “yer sick.
Man alive, ye look as if ye were dyin’.”

McPhillip started and looked about him hurriedly as if he expected to
see death there behind his back waiting to pounce upon him.

“Have a bite,” continued Gypo, “’twill warm ye up.”

At the same time he himself began to eat again fiercely, like a great
strong animal, tackling the solitary meal of its day. The large red
hands with just stumps of fingers held the knife and fork so
ponderously that those frail instruments seemed to run the danger of
being crushed, like some costly thing picked up on the tip of an
elephant’s trunk. But McPhillip did not follow the invitation. He
looked angrily at the food for several seconds with wrinkled forehead,
as if he were trying to remember what it was and what it was for, and
then he spoke again.

“I know I’m dyin’, Gypo, an’ that’s why I came in. I got the
consumption.” Gypo started. He was struck at that moment by an insane
and monstrous idea. “I came in to get some money from me mother. An’ I
wanted to see her before I die. Good God, it was awful, Gypo, out
there on them hills all the winter, with me gun in me hand night an’
day, sleeping in holes on the mountains, with the winds blowin’ about
me all night, screechin’ like a pack o’ devils, an’ every blast o’
them winds spoke with a man’s voice, an’ I lyin’ there listenin’ to
them. Good God——”

Again he began to cough and he had to stop. Gypo was not listening to
him. He had not heard a word. A monstrous idea had prowled into his
head, like an uncouth beast straying from a wilderness into a
civilized place where little children are alone. He did not hear
McPhillip’s words or his coughing, although the monstrous idea was in
relation to McPhillip.

“So I said to mesel’, that I might as well chance me arm be comin’
into town as lyin’ out there, starvin’ to death with the cold an’
hunger an’ this cough. So I came along here to see ye, Gyp, first, so
as to get a bead on what’s doin’. Have they got a guard on the house?”

“Divil a guard,” replied Gypo suddenly, and then he started and
stretched out his right hand towards McPhillip with a little
exclamation. His eyes were wild and his mouth was wide open like the
mouth of a man looking at a spectre. Gypo’s mind was looking at that
uncouth ogre that was prowling about in his brain.

McPhillip leaned across the table. Gradually his eyes narrowed into an
intense stare of ferocity. His lips curled up and his forehead
wrinkled. He began to tremble.

“What is it, Gypo?” he hissed. “Tell me, Gyp, or I’ll . . .” He made a
rapid movement with the wrist of the hand that clutched his automatic.
“The cops are after me, Gyp, an’ I’m dyin’, so I don’t mind how I use
the twenty-four rounds I got left. I’ve notched their noses so they
can make a quare hole. There’s one for mesel’ too.” He shuddered as if
at the thought of a tender pleasure. Then he scowled fiercely and half
drew the butt of his pistol from his pocket. His voice was almost
inaudible. “Tell me the truth about how things stand without any jig
actin’ or I’ll plug ye.”

He glared at Gypo, his hand on his pistol, his right arm rigid to the
shoulder, ready to draw the gun and fire in one movement. Gypo stared
him in the eyes without any emotion, either of fear or of surprise.
With the nail of his right forefinger he abstracted a string of meat
from between two teeth. He spluttered with his lips and then he
shrugged his shoulders. The spectre had suddenly gone out of his mind
without his being able to make head or tail of it.

“No use talkin’ like that to me, Frankie,” he murmured lazily. “The
only reason why I didn’t want to say anythin’ was because I didn’t
like to . . .” Again the ghoulish thing came into his mind and he
stopped with a start. But almost immediately he continued in a forced
voice. He was beginning to be ashamed of that spectre as if he had
already given way to the horrid suggestions it made, although he did
not at all comprehend those suggestions. “I didn’t like to maybe send
ye into harm’s way. Ye see, I don’t know if there’s a guard on yer
father’s house or if there’s not. I generally knock around Titt
Street, but I haven’t been near No. 44 since that night I went there
with yer message an’ yer ol’ man told me never to darken his door
again. There may be a guard on it or there may be no guard on it. But
if I told ye there wasn’t and ye went there and got nabbed, ye know——”

“What are ye drivin’ at, Gypo?” growled McPhillip suspiciously.

“Nothin’ at all,” said Gypo with a great deep laugh. “But it’s how
ye’ve come in on me so sudden, an’ I don’t know right what I’m talkin’
about. Ye see, I’m all mixed up for the last six months, wanderin’
around here, without a mate that ud give me a tanner for a flop if I
were to die o’ the cold lyin’ in O’Connell’s Street with a foot o’
frost on the ground. They——”

“Oh, shut up about yersel’ an’ the frost an’ tell us somethin’.”

“Now don’t get yer rag out, Frankie. I was comin’ to that. I was
comin’ to it, man. They held me up in the street the other day
and had a long talk about ye. They’re after ye yet all right.
Sergeant McCartney an’ another fellah from Sligo was there. That
Detective-Sergeant McCartney is a bad lot. Huh, he’s a rascal, an’ no
goin’ behind a wall to say it. He swore to me that he’d get ye dead or
alive. ‘I wouldn’t care much for yer job then,’ says I to him, just
like that, an’ he gave me an eye that ud knock ye stiff.”

“He says he’s goin’ to get me, did he?” murmured McPhillip dreamily.
Suddenly his mind seemed to wander away and he lost interest in his
present surroundings. His eyes rested vacantly on the table, about a
foot away to the right.

Gypo looked hurriedly at the spot upon which McPhillip’s eyes were
fixed. He saw nothing. He looked back again at McPhillip’s face and
wrinkled up his forehead. Then he made a noise in his throat and began
to eat once more with great rapidity. He breathed on his food, to cool
it, as he put it into his jaws. He made noises.

McPhillip stared at the table for a long time. His right hand toyed
nervously with the butt of his pistol. His left hand rapped the table.
Then a strange sparkle came into his eyes. He laughed suddenly. It was
a strange laugh. It made Gypo start.

“What’s the matter, Frankie?” he asked in a terrified voice.

“Nothin’ atall,” said McPhillip, shaking himself. “Gimme somethin’ t’
eat.”

He began to eat ravenously, using his penknife as a knife and fork. He
had not eaten for a long time. He did not taste the food but gulped it
down at a great speed.

Gypo ate also, but he kept staring at McPhillip while he ate. Every
time his wandering little eyes reached McPhillip’s eyes they narrowed
and became very sharp. Then he would roll his tongue around in his
cheek and make a sucking sound.

At last McPhillip stopped eating. He wiped his penknife on his
trousers and put it into his pocket.

“Gypo,” he said slowly, “are there any cops watchin’ our house, the
old man’s place in Titt Street?”

Gypo shook his head three times in reply. His mouth was full. Then he
swallowed his mouthful, he put his fork to his forehead and set to
thinking.

“Lemme see,” he said at last. “Yeh. They had two cops watchin’ the
place until after Christmas. Then they took ’em off. They didn’t put
any on since as far as I know, but I believe that a fellah goes around
there now an’ again to make inquiries. O’ course they might have
secret-service men on it as well. God only knows who’s givin’
information to the Government now, an’ who isn’t. Ye never know who
yer talkin’ to. I never in me life saw anythin’ like it. Tell ye what,
Frankie, the workin’ class is not worth fightin’ for. They think yer
gone to the United States, but all the same it might be dangerous
goin’ down there now. I’m sorry I have no money to give ye, so as ye
could——”

“Where the divil did ye get all the gab?” cried McPhillip suddenly,
looking suspiciously at Gypo. “I never knew ye to let out all that
much talk in a day, or maybe a whole week. Are ye goin’ to the
university now in yer spare time or what ails ye?”

McPhillip began to rap the table again. There was silence. Gypo
nonchalantly transferred the scraps from his plate to his mouth on the
flat of his knife. When the plate was completely cleaned up he rattled
the knife and fork on to it. Then he stuck out his massive chest and
rubbed his palms along it.

Suddenly McPhillip swore and jumped to his feet. He stood, as if in a
dream, looking at the table for several moments. Gypo watched his
face, with his little tufted eyebrows quivering. At the same time he
cleaned his teeth with his left thumb-nail. At last McPhillip drew in
a deep breath through his teeth, making a noise as if he were sucking
ice.

“Right,” he said, with his eyes still on the table. “My ould fellah is
at home now, is he?”

“Yes,” said Gypo. “I saw him yesterday. He was over in the ’Pool on a
job, but he’s back this fortnight. I think he’s workin’ on a new house
out in Rathmines.”

“Right,” said McPhillip again. Then he raised his eyes, looked at Gypo
fiercely and smiled in a curious fashion. “See ye again, Gypo, unless
the cops get me.”

As he spoke he seemed to think of something. His face quivered and
darkened. Then he shrugged his shoulders and laughed outright. He
nodded twice and turned on his heel. He strode hurriedly out of the
room.

Gypo looked after him for a long time without moving. He had finished
cleaning his teeth. He just stared at the door through which McPhillip
had disappeared. Then gradually his mind began to fill with
suggestions. His forehead wrinkled up. His body began to fidget. At
last he jumped to his feet. He collected the plate, the knife and fork
and the salt. He walked into the passage and put them in a locker,
which was provided by the management for the lodgers. The locker did
not belong to Gypo. He had no locker because he was merely a casual
lodger since he had no regular income to pay for a bed by the week.
The locker belonged to a carter of Gypo’s acquaintance. Gypo had seen
the man put his next-day’s dinner in the locker and go away without
turning the key. Gypo knew also that the man would not be back until
ten o’clock that night. So he took the dinner.

He placed the things in the locker and walked away casually. He sat on
the corner of a seat in one of the alcoves. He rummaged in the pockets
of his dungarees and collected several minute scraps of cigarettes. He
carefully unrolled the scraps, collecting all the tobacco in the palm
of his right hand. Then he begged a cigarette paper from an old man
who sat beside him. The old man had none and said so with an angry
curse. Gypo wrinkled his forehead and sniffed as if he were smelling
the old man. Then he turned to a young man who passed and requested a
cigarette paper. The young man halted and supplied one grudgingly.
Gypo took the paper in silence, without a word or a nod of thanks. He
rolled his cigarette and lit it at the gas jet. Then he sat down
again, crossed his legs, let his body go limp and began to smoke.

His ears seemed to stick out very far, as he lay back limply in the
seat, in the half-darkness of the corridor.

For a minute the odour and the taste of the tobacco held him in a
state of enjoyment. He did not think either of the fact that he had no
bed for the night or of his meeting with McPhillip. Then gradually his
forehead began to wrinkle and furrow. His little tufted eyebrows began
to twitch. When he pulled at his cigarette his face was enshrouded in
a bright glow and the humps on his face stood out, glistening and
smooth. He began to shift about in his seat. First he uncrossed his
legs. Then he crossed them again. He began to tap his knee with his
right hand. He sighed. His cigarette wore out until it was burning his
lips without his becoming aware of the fact. Then he spluttered it out
of his mouth on to his chest and he jumped to his feet.

He stood looking at the ground with his hands deep in his trousers
pockets. He seemed to be deep in thought, but he was not thinking. At
least there was no concrete idea fixed in his mind. Two facts rumbled
about in his brain, making that loud primeval noise, which is the
beginning of thought and which tired people experience when the jaded
brain has spun out the last threads of its energy. There were two
facts in his brain. First, the fact of his meeting with McPhillip.
Second, the fact of his having no money to buy a bed for the night.

These two facts stood together in an amorphous mass. But he could not
summon up courage to tackle them and place them in proper
juxtaposition and reason out their relationship. He just stood looking
at the ground.

Then a drunken bookmaker’s clerk named Shanahan brushed against him.
He stepped aside with a muttered oath. He pulled one hand from his
pocket to strike, with the fingers extended in the shape of a bird’s
claws. Shanahan, doubled up in the middle by the helplessness of
intoxication, stared at Gypo with blue eyes that had gone almost
completely red. Gypo turned away with a shrug of his shoulders. At any
other time he would gladly have availed himself of this opportunity of
begging a shilling from Shanahan. Shanahan was always good for the
loan of a shilling when he was drunk. A shilling would procure Gypo a
bed for the night and leave a little for a light breakfast in the
morning. Ten minutes ago, a _rencontre_ of this sort would have been a
godsend to Gypo. But now, those two cursed facts stood in his brain,
making him unconscious of everything else.

He walked out of the House and up the lane towards B— Road.

He walked with his hands deep in his pockets, slowly, with his thighs
brushing on the insides as he walked. He seemed to haul his big boots
after him, bringing them as near the ground as possible. His hips
moved up and down as his feet went forward. His eyes were on the
ground. His lips were distended outwards. His little torn, brown,
slouch hat was perched incongruously on the top of his head, much too
small for his large square skull, with the brim turned up closely all
around. When a squall of wind, laden with little sharp hailstones,
struck him across the face and body, his clothes puffed out and he
curled up his short stubby nose in an angry grin.

He was looking into the window of a saddler’s shop in Dame Street,
when the relationship between the two facts became known to him. He
was looking at a pair of bright spurs and his face contorted suddenly.
His eyes bulged as if he were taken with a fit of terror. He looked
about him suspiciously, as if he were about to steal something for the
first time. Then he rushed away hurriedly. He moved through lanes and
alleyways to the river. He crossed the street to the river wall. He
leaned his elbows on the wall and spat into the dark water. With his
chin resting on his arms, he stood perfectly still, thinking.

He was contemplating the sudden discovery that his mind had made,
about the relationship between his having no money for a bed and his
having met Francis Joseph McPhillip, who was wanted for murder in
connection with the farm-labourers’ strike at M—— in the previous
October. A terrific silence reigned within his head.

Now and again he looked around him with a kind of panting noise. He
snorted and smelled the air and screwed up his eyes. Then he leaned
over the wall again and rested his chin on his crossed hands. He was
that way for half an hour. Then at last he drew himself up straight.
He stretched his arms above his head. He yawned. He stuck his hands in
his trousers pockets. He stared at the ground. Then with his eyes on
the ground he walked away at the same slouching pace as before.

He crossed the river and traversed a maze of side streets, with his
eyes always on the ground, until he reached the corner of a dark side
street, that had a bright lamp hanging over a doorway, half-way down
on the right-hand side. That was a police-station. He stared at the
lamp with his eyes wide open for several moments. Almost a minute.
Then he said “Huh” out loud. Then he looked around him cautiously on
all sides.

The street was empty. Rain drizzled slowly. He examined the street,
the warehouses on his side of the street, the blank wall on the other
side. Then his eyes came back to the bright lamp that hung above the
door of the police-station. He sighed deeply and began to walk slowly,
ever so slowly and ponderously, towards the lamp.

He walked up the steps, steadily, one at a time, making a loud noise.
He kicked the swing door open with his foot without taking his hands
out of his pockets. In the hallway, a constable in a black,
cone-shaped, night helmet stood facing him, pulling on his gloves.
Gypo halted and stared at the constable.

“I have come to claim the twenty pounds reward offered by the Farmers’
Union for information concerning Francis Joseph McPhillip,” he said in
a deep, low voice.



CHAPTER II

At thirty-five minutes past seven Francis Joseph McPhillip shot
himself dead while trying to escape from No. 44 Titt Street, his
father’s house. The house had been surrounded by Detective-Sergeant
McCartney and ten men. Hanging by his left hand from the sill of the
back-bedroom window on the second floor, McPhillip put two bullets
into McCartney’s left shoulder. While he was trying to fire again, his
left hand slipped and lost its hold. The pistol muzzle struck the edge
of the sill. The bullet shot upwards and entered McPhillip’s brain
through the right temple.

When they picked him out of the orange box in the back garden where he
fell, he was quite dead.



CHAPTER III

At twenty-five minutes past eight Gypo left the police-station by a
door in the rear of the building. In his pocket he carried twenty
pounds in Treasury notes, the reward for information concerning
Francis Joseph McPhillip.

He walked quickly along a narrow passage into a dark lane. The lane
was empty. So it appeared at first. But as Gypo stood hidden in the
doorway of an old empty house, piercing the darkness with wild eyes,
he heard a footstep. The footstep made him start. It was the first
human footstep he had heard, the first sound of his fellow human
beings, since he had become an informer and . . . and an outcast.

Immediately he felt that the footstep was menacing, as if he were
certain that it belonged to somebody that was tracking him. How
strange! Within the course of ninety minutes the customary sound of a
human footstep had, by some evil miracle, become menacing. Ninety
minutes ago, his ears would not have challenged the sound of a human
footstep, no more than they would have challenged the sound of the
breath coming normally from his lungs. But now they pricked into
attention at the trudging shuffle that approached from the left. His
heart began to pant.

Of course it was nobody of consequence. It was only a ragged old woman
of ill fame, with a debauched face and melancholy eyes. She paused
drunkenly in front of him, muttering something unintelligible. Then
she bared her ragged teeth. She spat and passed on without speaking.
Was it an omen? Gypo did not notice that it was. He merely listened to
the sound of her footsteps, splashing carelessly through the pools.

Then he looked ahead of him furtively and moved off with the careful
listening, stooping movement of a man wandering alone at night in a
forest gorge where lions are about. He turned a corner and came face
to face with a blaze of light and a street with shops and crowds of
people going about. At first he shuddered with fear. Then he swore and
drew in a deep breath. What had he to fear? He knew the street well.
Who was going to interfere with him? His giant fists clawed up, like
talons enraged, and the muscles of his throat and shoulders stiffened.
He imagined himself throttling these enemies who might be inclined to
assault him. He felt comforted, reminded by this pressure of his
muscles, of his enormous strength. He settled his little round hat
jauntily on the back of his head. He stuck his hands in his trousers
pockets. He swung his legs and rolled like a sailor out of the lane,
arrogantly, into the glare of the street.

At the same slow, swinging, rolling gait, he crossed the street
through the traffic without pausing, without stepping aside, without
looking to the right or to the left. Motor-cars, carts, bicycles and
wagons swerved to avoid him. He went through them without looking at
them, like a great monster walking through a cloud of ants, that are
carrying on their futile and infinitesimal labours about his feet.
They turned towards him to curse, but those that saw his face gaped
and passed into the night with the curse unuttered. His face, with the
humps on it shining in the glare of the lamps, was like a subtle mask.
It was so . . . so dead.

He walked straight across the pavement into a public-house. He kicked
the swing door open with his foot, without taking his hands out of his
pockets, just as he had entered the police-station. He put a pound
note on the counter with a slap of his palm and uttered the one word:
“Pint.” He stared at the counter until the drink was served. He put
the measure to his head, opened his throat and swallowed the contents
at one draught. He uttered a deep sigh and handed the empty glass to
the barman. He nodded. When he received another pint and his change,
he walked over to the corner and sat down.

Now he definitely set out to form a plan of action. It had been a
habit with McPhillip and himself. Whenever they had done any “stunt,”
they immediately went into a public-house, got drinks and set about
forming plans for an alibi.

“Never bother about yer ‘getaway’ until yer job is done,” used to be a
motto of McPhillip’s.

Suddenly Gypo realized what a clever fellow McPhillip must really have
been. He used to make plans so easily. They jumped to his mind one
after the other, like lightning. Gypo had never given any thought to
the matter of plans. He often used to say to McPhillip with a queer
glassy look in his eyes: “Mac, you bite the easy side o’ the cheese. I
got to do all the rough work an’ you do all the thinkin’. Strikes me
you get away with it easy, mate.”

Now, for the first time, he realized the difficulty of making a plan
without McPhillip. When he had to think it out for himself it appeared
to be devilish work. His brain got all in a tangle and he could make a
beginning nowhere. He gathered himself together several times, with
set lips and stiffened back, like a horse stiffening for a great tug
at an immense weight, but it was no use. He could not overcome the
weight that seemed to fall on his brain every time his sensibilities
approached it, probing tentatively for information. Sitting on a deal
bench at the rear of the bar, with his legs crossed and his pint of
porter in his right hand, held in front of him, with his elbow resting
on his knee and the froth of the porter dripping from the glass slowly
on to the tip of his raised boot, he stared at the ground, in an agony
of complicated thought. His little tattered brown hat, perched on the
top of his skull, looked like a magic charm, endowed with reason and
knowledge, mounting guard over his stupid strength.

He had not even cleared his brain for a beginning with this devilish
work of making a plan when he was interrupted by the arrival of Katie
Fox. She had sat down beside him before he knew she was there. He was
so immersed in his struggles that she nudged him and spoke before he
was aware of her presence.

“How’s things, Gypo?” she cried in her hard thin voice, as she nudged
him in the ribs. “Are ye flush enough to give us a wet?”

Gypo jumped to his feet, spilling half his pint. He gazed at her with
fright in his eyes and his chest heaved. Then he recognized her and
sat down immediately, flurried and confused by his display of
excitement.

“Hello, Katie,” he muttered, pretending to be vexed, “ye shouldn’t
come in that way on a fellah. I look around me an’ there ye are
proddin’ me in the ribs. Why the divil didn’t ye shout same as ye
always do?”

She put the backs of her thin, red-veined hands on her hips and stared
at him in amazement, partly real, partly born of that love of emphatic
gesture and movement and speech which is a peculiar characteristic of
the women of the Dublin slums. Katie was a woman of the slums. Her
father had been an employee of the Corporation and her mother was a
charwoman. As a girl Katie worked in a biscuit factory. Her own beauty
of body and the grinding toil in the factory made her discontented.
She joined the Revolutionary Organization. That was six years ago.
After that, her first plunge from the straight path of the tremendous
respectability and conservatism of the slum woman, she was led by
excess of feeling into one pitfall after another. Finally she passed
out of the ranks of respectability altogether by being expelled from
the Revolutionary Organization on a charge of public prostitution. Now
she had become an abandoned woman, known as such even among the
prostitutes of the brothel quarter, a drug fiend, a slattern, an
irresponsible creature. Traces of her young beauty still remained in
the deep blue eyes, that were melancholy and tired and twitched at the
edges, in her long lean figure now grown emaciated, in her black hair
that strayed carelessly about her face from beneath the rim of her
ragged red hat. But the mouth, that tell-tale register of vice, had
completely lost the sumptuous but delicate curves of innocent girlhood
and blossoming maturity. The lips hung down at the sides. They were
swollen in the middle. Their colour had died out and had been renewed
with loud vulgarity by cheap paint. The poor tormented soul peered out
of the young face, old before the years had time to wrinkle it, sad,
hard and stupefied.

She thrust out her little chin and turned her head sideways, turning
down the corners of her lips farther at one side of her mouth.

“I thought as much,” she said slowly, contorting her lips and face as
she spoke. “That’s why I came in unknownst and sat down beside ye. I
saw ye be chance, me fine buck, as I was talkin’ to Biddy Mac over at
the corner opposite Kane’s. So I just prowled in to see ye on the
quiet. But it’s clear as daylight that ye don’t want to see me. Not
while ye got money to fill yersel’ with porter. It was a different
story, wasn’t it, this mornin’ when ye begged the price of a cup o’
tay off me, an’ me that didn’t see the colour of a half-crown for
three days runnin’. Oh then——”

“Now shut yer gob, will ye,” interrupted Gypo excitedly. “It’s just
like ye takin’ a man up wrong that way. Sure I didn’t mane anythin’
like that atall. Only ye just came in on me all of a sudden. What are
ye havin’?”

Katie looked at him in high dudgeon, still with her chin thrust out,
her head turned sideways, her lips turned downwards and her hands on
her hips. She murmured: “Double Gin,” without moving her eyes from
Gypo’s face. Gypo arose and slouched up to the counter for the drink.
Her eyes followed him shrewdly and she kept nodding her head slowly at
his immense back.

Her relationship with Gypo was of that irregular kind which is hard to
describe by means of one word. She was undoubtedly not his wife and in
the same manner she could not be called his mistress. But their
relationship partook both of the nature of lawful marriage and of the
concubinage that is sanctified by natural love. Katie loved Gypo
because he was strong, big, silent, perhaps also because he was stupid
and her ready slum “smartness” could always outwit his lumbering
brain. Whenever Gypo had any money he spent it with her. Sometimes
when he was without any money, she brought him home with her and
provided him with his breakfast next morning. On the whole they were
good friends. During the past six months after Gypo had been expelled
from the Revolutionary Organization and left without friends or money
or employment, Katie had stood between him and death from exposure or
starvation. She loved him in her own amazing way. The last remains of
her womanhood loved him as she might have loved a mate. But those
shreds of love lived charily among the rank weeds of vice that
flourished around them. It was only at times that they peeped out and
covered the desert waste of her soul with the soft warmth and
brilliance of their light. Each kindly act of pity for the lumbering
giant was counteracted by a score of other acts that were vicious and
cruel. While Gypo, with the nonchalance of the healthy strong man,
took her for granted as if she were a natural contrivance of life,
like fresh air or food. He would only notice her absence when she was
needed.

He brought the gin and handed it to her. She took it in silence. She
sipped it slowly, holding it within an inch of her lips, staring at
the ground as she drank, shivering now and again, as if the drink were
ice cold. Gypo watched her suspiciously out of the corner of his eyes.

“What brought ye around here anyway?” he said at last.

He was extremely irritated that she should have come in on him, just
at that moment, when he was trying to make a plan, when he had the
money of his betrayal hot on his person, without being yet embalmed by
a plausible excuse for its presence. He was irritated, but in a
confused and ignorant way. He had not reasoned out a plausible excuse,
even for his irritation.

Katie held her empty glass upside down in her hand and looked at him,
with her blue eyes almost shut.

“Why, what’s the matter with ye, kiddo?” she asked arrogantly,
encouraged by the gin. “Why shouldn’t I knock around here if I want
to. I’m not employed by a charitable institution at so much an hour to
keep out o’ yer honour’s way, ha, ha, when it’s yer lordship’s
pleasure to come into this pub. There’s no law agin me comin’ around
this part o’ the city at this hour, is there?” She worked herself into
a fit of anger gradually as she spoke. She had an idea that Gypo was
concealing something important from her and that her arrival at that
moment gave her some power over him. That peculiar intuition of the
slum woman could pierce the surface of Gypo’s embarrassment, but
without being able to probe into the real nature of it. She pushed
back her coat with her left hand and put the back of her hand against
her reddish frayed blouse below the heart. How slight her breasts
were!

“Now Katie—” began Gypo.

But she interrupted him immediately. She had been only waiting for him
to begin to speak in order to interrupt him. She was quite happy when
given the opportunity of a “barge” of this description.

“Go on with ye,” she cried, “pug nose! I know ye, Ya. You’re bum all
right. Yer all right as long as ye get nothin’. But as soon as ye can
smell yersel’ after a good meal an’ there a gingle in yer rags, ye
stick yer nose into the air an’ ye know nobody. D’ye know what I’m
goin’ to tell ye, Gypo? D’ye know what I’m goin’ to tell ye? Yer a
mane, lyin’, deceitful twister an’ I got yer measure from now on.
Don’t look for nothin’ from me from now on, my fine bucko. No then;
’twill be little use for ye.”

Gypo became nervous and shifted his huge body. He wanted to let his
left hand fly out and hit her in the jaw. One slight blow would make
her senseless. But he had never struck a woman, owing to some obscure
prejudice or other. Still, he was terribly tired of her. Now that he
had this money on his person, without as yet having decided what to do
with it, he wanted to be free from her.

“You shut up,” he cried angrily, “or I’ll fix ye. Haven’t I given ye a
drink?” Then he added half-heartedly: “D’ye want another drink?”

Katie was still staring at him. Suddenly a change came over her.
Something suggested itself to her peculiar reason and she changed her
attitude.

“Don’t mind what I said now, Gypo,” she continued in a low mournful
voice, looking at the ground with hanging lower lip, like a person
overwhelmed and utterly defeated by some persistent calamity. “God
Almighty, the world is so hard that a person loses her mind
altogether. Misery, misery, misery an’ nothin’ but misery. You’re as
bad off as mesel’, Gypo, so ye know what I mane. No man has pity on
us. Every hand is agin us because we have got nothin’. Why is that,
will ye tell me, Gypo? Is God Himself agin us too? Ha, ha, o’ course
we were both of us Communists and members o’ the Revolutionary
Organization, so we know there’s no God. But supposin’ there was a
God, what the hell is He doin’——”

“Katie,” cried Gypo angrily, “none o’ that talk. Lave God alone.”

“God forgive me, yer right,” cried Katie, beginning to sob. But she
pulled herself together suddenly with surprising speed and turned to
Gypo almost sharply. Her eyes narrowed slightly and a quaint weird
smile lit up her face. There was a trace of beauty in her face under
the influence of the smile, a trace of beauty and merriment. “Tell us
where ye got all the money, Gypo. Ye had none this mornin’.”

Gypo started in spite of himself and glanced at her in terror. He
struggled violently, trying to formulate an excuse for his sudden
wealth. He fumed within himself for not having made a plan.
Unconsciously he cursed McPhillip, whom he had sent to his death, for
not having made a plan. He looked at Katie with glaring eyes and open
lips. Then he bent towards her, tried to speak and said nothing. But
she misunderstood him.

“Ya,” she said, “I knew ye were yellow. Have ye robbed a church or
what, an’ are ye afraid of bein’ turned into a goat be the priests?”

“Shut up,” he hissed suddenly, gripping at the word “robbery” and
hooking a plan on to it. It was a customary word, a friendly thing
that he recognized, with which he felt at home. He bent down, with
quivering face, eager to hurl out the words of his plan before he
could forget them again. “It wasn’t a church. It was a sailor off an
American ship. I went through him at the back o’ Cassidy’s pub in
Jerome Street. But if ye say a word ye know what yer goin’ to get.”

“Who? Me?” Katie laughed out loud and looked at him with emphatic
scorn over her shoulder. “What d’ye take me for? An informer or what?”

“Who’s an informer?” cried Gypo, gripping her right knee with his left
hand. The huge hand closed about the thin frail knee and immediately
the whole leg went rigid. Katie’s whole body shrivelled at the mere
touch of the vast strength.

There was silence for a second. Gypo stared at Katie with a look of
ignorant fear on his face. The word had terrified and infuriated him.
It was the first time he had heard it uttered in the new sense that it
now held for him. Katie, hypnotized by the face, panted and looked
back at him.

“What are ye talkin’ about informin’ for?” panted Gypo again,
tightening his grip on her knee. He had not meant to hurt. He merely
wanted to give emphasis to his words.

“Lemme go,” screamed Katie, unable to endure the pain any longer and
terrified by the look in Gypo’s face and by his strange behaviour.

Gypo let go immediately. The barman came striding over, wiping his
hands in his apron. He pointed toward the door. Gypo got to his feet
and stared at the barman, glad to have a man in front of him, against
whom he could vent his ignorant rage. He lowered his head and he was
about to rush forward when Katie hung on to him and cried out.

“Come on, Gypo,” she cried rapidly, “let’s get out of here. Let him
alone, Barney. He’s got a few pints on him. He didn’t mane any harm.
Come on, kid.”

Gypo allowed himself to be dragged out backwards by the right hand
into the street. They stood together on the kerbstone, with Katie’s
arm entwined in his.

“Come on up to Biddy Burke’s place,” she whispered in a friendly tone.
“Come on up.”

In front stretched a main road, brilliantly lighted and thronged with
people. The light, the people, the suggestion of gaiety and of freedom
attracted Gypo. To the rear stretched a dark, evil-smelling lane. It
repelled him. There was where Katie wanted to bring him, down towards
the slum district and the brothel quarter. Down there were his own
haunts, people who knew him. He feared the darkness, the lurking
shadows, the suggestion of men hiding in alleyways to attack him. Out
there in front he could wander off, among strange people who did not
care a straw about informers.

“Come on Gyp, down to Biddy’s and buy us a sniff,” murmured Katie
entreatingly, in a soft voice. “Yer flush, aren’t ye? I know well them
American sailors carry a quare wad around with ’em. Let’s walk along.
I’m perished with the cold.”

“No,” muttered Gypo in a surly voice. “I’m goin’ down to the House to
book a bed for the night.”

He now remembered with pleasure that the reason for his going to the
police-station was the fact that he wanted money for a bed. So why not
go and buy a bed? It was a good excuse to get rid of her.

“What are ye talkin’ about a bed for?” cried Katie angrily, clutching
at his arm. Then her voice softened again. There was an eager glitter
in her eyes. “Sure it’s not thinkin’ about a bed ye are when ye got
money in yer pocket. Haven’t I got a bed anyway, an’ if it’s not good
enough for ye, sure we can get a bed at Biddy’s, seein’ ye have money
in yer pocket.”

“I don’t want yer bed,” snarled Gypo, “an’ I’m not goin’ near Biddy
Burke’s. I been robbed by the thievin’ old robber often enough.”

“Ye don’t want me bed, don’t ye?” cried Katie, losing her temper again
completely. “Ye were glad enough to have it last week when I brought
ye in outa the rain like a drownded rat. Wha’?”

“Now I’ll give ye nothin’ for yer imperence,” grumbled Gypo. “Yer too
ignorant. That’s what ye are.”

She moved up under his chin and held her two clenched fists to his
jaws. They looked white and tiny against the size of his face.

“All right,” she hissed, “you watch out for yersel’, Gypo Nolan.”

She turned on her heel and went off at a fierce walk to the left,
muttering curses as she disappeared rapidly into the darkness. Gypo
stared after her, listening. He strained his neck in an effort to
catch a final mumble of sharp words that floated up to him through the
dark lane, as her obscure figure drifted around a corner. Then he
shrugged his shoulders with a gasp as if he had just watched a
valuable possession suddenly drop over a cliff. With his hands in his
trousers pockets he stared at the ground.

“Look here, Katie,” he called out suddenly, reaching out his right
hand impotently towards the corner off the lane, around which she had
swept. Then he put his hand back into his pocket and gripped the tight
wad of Treasury notes. He wanted now to give her some money. She had
been good to him. He began to walk up the lane slowly. There was no
need to hurry. He knew where to find her. He must not let her go like
that.

But he had not gone ten yards before he halted again. He turned about
and walked back quickly into the main road. He had suddenly remembered
a terrifying thing.

Supposing somebody were to come into Biddy Burke’s and say that Frank
McPhillip had been killed owing to information being given to the
police? They were sure to say that. They would see him there with
money in his pocket. They would suspect. . . .

He turned to the right, past the corner of the main road. He went
twenty yards down the street and then brought his two feet together
like a soldier coming to a halt on parade. He wheeled inwards, still
in the same mechanical manner, towards a shop window. He stood at
ease, clasping his hands behind his back in military manner. Somehow,
it gave peace to his distracted thoughts, as if he had suddenly given
over the responsibility of his thoughts and actions to an imaginary
superior officer.

Into his resting mind pleasant memories came, distant pleasant
memories like day-dreams on a summer day, dreamt on the banks of a
rock-strewn river, among the flowering heather. They were memories of
his youth. They came to him in a strange bewildered manner, as if
afraid of the dark, ferocious mind into which they came. Gypo stared
at them fiercely, with bulging lips, as if they were enemies taunting
him. Then gradually he softened towards them. Then a mad longing
seized him for the protection of the environment of his youth, the
country-side of a Tipperary village, the little farm, the big
red-faced healthy peasant who was his father, his long-faced
kind-hearted mother, who hoped that he would become a priest.

He wrinkled up his face and looked at his youth intently. He stiffened
himself, as if he were about to hurl himself by sheer force back
through the intervening years, of sin and sorrow and misery, to the
peace and gentleness and monotony of life, in that little village at
the foot of the Galtees.

Various, intimate, foolish, little recollections crowded into his
mind. He remembered goats, asses’ foals, rocks in a mountain torrent,
a saying of the village smith, a glance from a girl, his first drink
of wine stolen in the sacristy of the parish church while he was
serving Mass. Thousands of memories came and went rapidly. They passed
like soldiers before a saluting-point, some gay, some sad, some dim,
some distinct and almost articulate as if they had happened a moment
ago.

Suddenly he felt a wet daub coming down each cheek. He started. He was
shedding tears. The horror of the act made him stare wild eyed. He
swore aloud. He bared his teeth of their covering of thick lips and
ground them. His youth went out like a candle that is quenched by a
squall in a long passage. The grinning spectre of the present became
real once more. He shut his mouth. He sighed very deeply. Putting his
hands in his pockets again, he walked off at his habitual slouch, with
his head hanging slightly forward, hung on the pivot of his neck like
a punchball.

“I must make a plan,” he said to himself once more.

Somehow he was convinced that the Revolutionary Organization already
suspected him of having given information concerning McPhillip. He
felt that he was being sought for already. So he must make a plan. He
must have a plausible excuse.

“If ye got a good aliby,” McPhillip used to say, “the divil himself
couldn’t fasten anythin’ on ye.”

But how was he going to get an alibi for himself? He walked the whole
length of the road three times irresolutely, with his eyes fixed on
the ground. He was unable to think of anything. His mind kept
branching off into the contemplation of silly things that had nothing
at all to do with the question, the favourite for the Grand National
and whether Johnny Grimes, the comedian, had drowned himself in the
Canal or whether he had been murdered and then thrown in; the two main
questions that were agitating the Dublin slums just then.

At one moment he decided to go to the Dunboy Lodging House, pay for a
bed and go to sleep. But immediately he was terrified at this
suggestion. They might know already that he had given information.
Then maybe, while he was asleep, somebody would be sent into his
little cell with a loaded stick to murder him in his sleep. Or they
might give him “the bum’s rush,” breaking his neck silently like a
rabbit’s neck. He pictured the little narrow wooden cells in the
lodging house, the silence of the night, broken only by the dismal
sound of snoring on all sides, an indiscriminate number of unknown
people snoring loudly, dreaming, grumbling, snoring and sleeping in
all directions, while _“they”_ approached silently to murder him.

He shuddered. Perspiration stood out on his forehead. Eagerly, with
relief, he decided to keep in the open, where he could use his hands
and his strength. If he were going to be murdered he would be murdered
with his hands gripping a dead throat.

Then at last he stood stock-still and thumped himself in the chest.

“Well, I’m damned!” he cried. “Amn’t I an awful fool? Why didn’t I
think of it before? They’ll be wonderin’ why I’m not there already.
Everybody in the town must ’a heard of it be now, an’ me that was his
pal an’ I not there to say a word to his mother. They’ll surely
suspect something if I don’t go at once.”

Narrowing his eyes, he set out at a smart pace in the direction of
McPhillip’s home in Titt Street. He took his hands out of his pockets
and swung them by his sides after the manner of a policeman. He threw
his head back and towered like a giant over those whom he passed.

He passed them, almost over them, like a being utterly remote, a
unique creation.



CHAPTER IV

Titt Street was in turmoil like an ant-hill that has been rooted up by
the ponderous hoof of a cow. Under the scattered street lamps, between
the parallel rows of two-storied, red-brick houses, groups of
wild-eyed men were talking. The pale light of the lamps showed the
drizzling rain falling like steam on their rough, dirty clothes, on
their thick-veined necks, on their excited faces, on their gnarled
hands that were raised in gesticulation. Their voices filled the
hollow darkness of the street with a hushed murmur, that rose and fell
turbulently, like the chattering of a torrent coming through rocks.
Their voices were nervous, as if they awaited a storm at sea.

Old women with shawls over their heads flitted about like shadows.
They darted from doorway to doorway, talking, making threatening
gestures at something remote, crossing themselves with their haggard
faces turned upwards to the sky. Young women walked arm-in-arm,
slowly, up and down the street. They looked at No. 44 as they passed
it, in silence, with awe in their open, red lips.

No. 44 was the centre of interest. The horror that had come to it had
aroused the whole street. It had aroused the whole quarter. Three
streets away, bar attendants stood gaping behind their counters, while
some man, with an excited red face and a big mouth, recounted the
manner of Frank McPhillip’s death, with oaths and frenzied
gesticulations. Everywhere, in the streets, in the public-houses, in
the tenement kitchens, where old red-nosed men craned forward their
shrivelled necks to hear the dreadful news, one word was whispered
with fear and hatred.

It was the word “Informer.”

Gypo heard that word as he reached the junction of Titt Street and
Bryan Road—a long wide road, lined with little shops, the sidewalks
strewn with papers, little heaps of dirt in the gutters, two tram-car
lines rusted by the drizzling rain, groups of loafers at every
lamp-post, at the public-house doors and on the Canal Bridge, where
the road disappeared abruptly over the horizon, as if it had fallen
over a precipice into space. He was passing Ryan’s public-house that
stood at the corner, half in Titt Street, half in Bryan Road. The word
came to him through the open door of the public bar. He had slowed
down his pace on reaching the neighbourhood and when he heard the word
uttered, he brought his left leg up to the right and instead of
thrusting it forward for another pace, he dropped it heavily but
noiselessly to the wet pavement of red and white glazed brick
diamonds, with which the front of the public-house was decorated.

A squall of wind came around the corner just then and buffeted him
about the body. He opened his mouth and nostrils. He distended his
eyes. He thrust forward his head and listened.

“There must ’a been information gev, ’cos how else could they—” a tall
lean man was saying, as he stood in the middle of the sawdust-covered
floor, holding a pint of black frothing porter in his right hand.

Then a burly carter, with a grey sack around his shoulders like a
cape, jostled the man who was speaking, in an awkward attempt to cross
the floor through the crowd. But the man had said enough. Gypo knew
that they were talking about the death of Francis Joseph McPhillip and
that they suspected that information had been given.

Again the idea came into his head that he must form a plan without a
moment’s delay. But the inside of his head was perfectly empty, with
his forehead pressing against it, hot and congested, as if he had been
struck a violent blow with a flat stick. The idea floundered about in
his head, repeating itself aimlessly, like a child calling for help in
an empty house. “No,” he muttered to himself, as he gripped his clasp
knife fiercely in his trousers pocket, “I can’t make out anythin’
standin’ here in the rain in front of a pub. Better go ahead.”

He hurled himself around the corner against the squall into Titt
Street with almost drunken violence. Then he realized with terror the
fate that menaced him if . . . He saw the groups under the lamp-posts.
He saw the flitting women. He saw the youths, hushed, strained,
expectant. He heard the rumble of human sound. The dark, sombre, mean
street that had been familiar to him until now, suddenly appeared
strange, as if he had never seen it before, as if it had suddenly
become inhabited by dread monsters that were intent on devouring him.
It appeared to him rather, that he had wandered, through a foolish
error of judgment, into a strange and hostile foreign country where he
did not know the language.

He glared about him aggressively, as he walked up the street. He
planted his feet on the ground firmly, walking with his legs wide
apart, with his shoulders squared, with his head thrust forward into
the wind like the jib boom of a ship.

As he was passing an open doorway somebody cried “hist.” He halted
like a challenged sentry. He wheeled savagely towards the doorway and
called out.

“Who are cryin’ hist after?”

“It’s only me,” chirped an old lady in a clean white apron, a woman he
knew well. “I thought ye were Jim Delaney, the coalheaver. I got to
whisper on account o’ me throat. I got a cold a fortnight ago,
scrubbin’ floors out at Clontarf, an’ it’s getting worse instead of
better. The doctor——”

But Gypo glanced angrily at her bandaged throat and her dim blue eyes
and passed on with a grunt without listening to her further. He
arrived at No. 44 and entered through the open door without knocking.

No. 44 was the most respectable house in the street. Its red-brick
front was cleaner than the other fronts. Its parlour window was
unbroken and was decorated with clean curtains of Nottingham lace. Its
door was freshly painted black. Its owner Jack McPhillip, the
bricklayer, had already begun the ascent from the working class to the
middle class. He was a Socialist and chairman of his branch of the
trade union, but a thoroughly respectable, conservative Socialist,
utterly fanatical in his hatred of the status of a working man. The
whole house was in keeping with his views on life. The door opened on
a little narrow hall, with the stair-way rising midway in it. The
stair-way was spotlessly clean, with brightly polished brass rods
holding down the well-washed linoleum carpet that struggled upwards
rigidly to the top of it. From the door, in daytime, the backyard
could be seen. In the backyard there were outhouses and stables, for
Jack McPhillip kept a yellow she-goat, three pigs, a flock of white
hens and a little pony and trap, in which he was in the habit of
driving out into the country on Sundays, in summer, with his wife, to
visit his wife’s relatives at Talmuc. To the right of the hall there
were two doors. The first door opened into the parlour. In the parlour
there was a piano, eight chairs of all sizes and sorts, innumerable
photographs, “ornaments,” and absolutely no room for anybody to move
about without touching something or other. The second door opened into
the kitchen, a large clean room with a cement floor, an open grate and
a narrow bed in the corner farthest from the door. The bed belonged to
old Ned Lawless, the epileptic relative of Mrs. McPhillip. He lived in
the house and received his meals and half a crown per week, in
exchange for his labours in looking after the backyard. He was never
clean, the only dirty thing in the house. On the second floor there
were three rooms. One was used by the old couple. The second by the
only daughter Mary, a girl of twenty-one who worked in the city as a
clerk, in the offices of Gogarty and Hogan, solicitors and
commissioners for oaths. The third room, opening on the backyard, had
been closed for six months. It had been Francis’s bedroom. That
evening he had just entered it to go to bed when the police arrived.

When Gypo entered, the house was crowded with neighbours who had come
in to sympathize. Some were even standing in the hallway. Gypo walked
through the hallway and pushed his way into the kitchen. Nobody
noticed him. He sat down on the floor to the left of the door, with
his back to the wall and his right hand grasping his left wrist in
front of his drawn-up knees. He sat in silence for almost a minute
waiting for an opportunity to speak to Mrs. McPhillip. He could see
her through the people in the room, sitting on a chair to the right of
the fire. She had black wooden rosary beads wound round and round her
fingers. There were tears in her pale blue eyes and streaming down her
great white fat cheeks. Her corpulent body flowed over the chair on
all sides like a load of hay on a cart. Her long check apron hid her
feet. She was looking dimly at the fire, murmuring prayers silently
with her lips. She nodded her head now and again in answer to
something that was said to her.

She held Gypo’s attention like a powerful magnet. Even when somebody
came between his eyes and her body, he stared through the intervening
body as if it were transparent. His eyes were centred on her forehead
and on her grey-white hair, that had a yellowish sheen at the top of
the skull where the parting was. He was thinking how good she had been
to him. She had often fed him. More precious still, she always had a
word of sympathy for him, a kind look, a tender, soft, smooth touch of
the hand on his shoulder! These were the things his strange soul
remembered and treasured. There were no others who were soft and
gentle to him like she was. Often when he and Francis came into the
house at dawn, after having done some revolutionary “stunt,” she used
to get up, in her bare fat feet, with a skirt drawn over her
night-dress. She used to move about silently with quivering lips,
cooking breakfast. It was a huge meal from her hands, an
indiscriminate lavish Irish meal, sausages, eggs, bacon, all together
on one plate.

And she would often press half a crown into Gypo’s hand when nobody
was looking, whispering: “May the Virgin protect ye an’ won’t ye look
after Frankie an’ see that he comes to no harm.”

“She is a good woman,” thought Gypo, impersonally, looking at her.

Then the kitchen emptied suddenly in the rear of a fat short man with
a pompous appearance, who wore a dark raincoat and a black bowler hat.
Every one made way for him going out the door and there were whispers.
Some scowled at him angrily, but it was obvious that everybody had a
great respect for him and envied him, even those that scowled at him.
He was an important Labour politician, the parliamentary
representative of the constituency that comprised Titt Street and the
surrounding slums. This important politician had been a bricklayer
with Jack McPhillip in his youth and Jack McPhillip was still his main
supporter.

When the politician had disappeared there were only five people left
in the room, other than Jack McPhillip and his wife. Three men in the
corner by the window, to the left of Gypo, had their heads close
together, whispering with that sudden intimacy that is born of the
presence of a calamity, or of something that has a common interest.
Gypo knew two of them. Two of them were members of the Revolutionary
Organization.

“That skunk Bartly Mulholland is here,” muttered Gypo to himself, “an’
that’s Tommy Connor with him. Mulholland is lookin’ for Frankie
McPhillip’s job on the Intelligence Department, I believe; an’ I
suppose that big stiff Connor is trainin’ to be his butty. Huh.”

Jack McPhillip sat on the narrow bed in the other corner, almost
opposite Gypo. He was talking to two women, who had chairs close to
the bed. They had pushed in to talk to McPhillip as soon as the
politician had left. They were nodding their heads and fidgeting, with
that amazing prodigality of emotion, which women of the very lowest
rung of the middle class ladder display, when in the presence of
members of the working class who are still _in puris naturalibus_. One
was the wife of the Titt Street “small grocer.” The other was the wife
of John Kennedy the lorry driver, who had just set up in business “for
himself.”

Jack McPhillip sat on the bed, with his right shoulder leaning against
the pillow. One foot was almost on the floor. The other foot was on
the bed. He held his right hand, palm outwards, in front of his face,
as if he were trying to drive away some imaginary idea, as he talked.

“There ye are now,” he was saying; “see what that man has done for
himsel’ in life. That’s what every man should aim at doin’, instead of
jig actin’ and endin’ up by bringin’ disgrace on his class an’ on his
family. Johnny Daly is a member o’ Parliament this day because he
spent any money and time he had to spare on his education. He looked
after his business and he did his best to educate and better the
condition of his fellow-men. That’s what every man should do. But my
son . . . I put him into a good job as an insurance agent an’ if he
had minded himself he’d be well on his way now towards a respectable
position in life for himself, but instead o’ that——”

Suddenly there was an amazing interruption that caused everybody to
start. Gypo had spoken in a deep thunderous voice that filled the
whole house.

“I’m sorry for yer trouble, Mrs. McPhillip,” he cried.

The sentence re-echoed in the silence that followed it. It had been
uttered in a shout. Gypo’s voice had suddenly broken loose from his
lungs into a spontaneous expression of the emotion that shook him into
a passion of feeling, looking at Mrs. McPhillip. He felt suddenly that
he must express that feeling forcibly. Not by a whisper, or a plain
restrained statement, but by a savage shout that would brook no
contradiction. The shout wandered about in the room long after its
sound had vanished. Nobody spoke. Its force was too tremendous.
Everybody, for some amazing reason or other, sniffed at the smell of
fried sausages that now permeated the atmosphere of the kitchen. The
smell came from the pan still left on the fireplace, containing the
sausages that had been cooking for Francis Joseph McPhillip’s supper
when the police came. He had been so tired that he told his mother to
bring his supper to him in bed. So they still remained there, on the
side of the fireplace, forgotten.

Then the initial amazement wore off and everybody looked at Gypo. They
saw him sitting on the floor, doubled up, bulky in his blue dungarees
that clung about his thighs like a swimming suit, with his little
round hat perched on his massive head, still staring at Mrs.
McPhillip’s face as if drawn by a magnet, unconscious of the amazement
he had caused by his shout.

And alone of all the people in the room, Mrs. McPhillip was not
amazed. She had not started. She had not moved her eyes. Her lips
still moved in prayer. Her mind was drawn by another magnet to the
contemplation of something utterly remote from the people in that
room, utterly remote from life, to the contemplation of something that
had its roots in the mystic boundaries of eternity.

Then Jack McPhillip jumped to a sitting posture on the bed. He grabbed
at the old tweed cap that had fallen off his grizzled grey head.

“Oh, it’s you that’s in it, is it?” he cried. “Ye son o’ damnation!”

He glared at Gypo so ferociously that his face began to twitch. His
face was so burned by the sun that it was almost black at a distance.
At close quarters it looked a reddish brown. He had a glass eye. The
other eye looked straight across the glass one, as if guarding it. He
had to look away from a man in order to see him. This distortion in
his vision had always filled his wife with terror, so that now she
trembled whenever he looked at her. It was so uncanny, his looking at
space like that. His body was short and slight. He was fifty years
old.

He jumped off the bed and stood on the floor in his grey socks, his
blue waistcoat unbuttoned, the little white patch of linen on the
abdomen of his grey flannel shirt puffing in and out with his heavy
breathing, his throat contorting, his hands gripping and ungripping
restlessly.

Mrs. McPhillip had awakened from her reverie as soon as her husband
spoke. She had started up and gripped her breast over her heart with a
dumb exclamation. Then she rubbed her two eyes hurriedly and looked at
him. As soon as she saw him, her eyes grew dim again and her body
subsided into the chair from which it had risen slightly.

“Jack,” she cried in an agonized voice, “Jack! Jack, leave him alone.
He was Frankie’s friend. He was a friend of me dead boy’s. Let him
alone. What’s done is done.”

“Be damned to that for a story,” cried Jack. His voice was weak and
jerky, just like the voice of his dead son. “A friend d’ye call him?
What kind of friend d’ye call that waster that never did a day’s work
in his life? That ex-policeman! He was even driven outa the police.
That’s fine company for yer son, Maggie. It’s the likes o’ him that’s
brought Frankie to his death an’ destruction. Them an’ their
revolutions. It’s in Russia they should be where they could act the
cannibal as much as they like, instead of leadin’ good honest Irishmen
astray. Why don’t they get out of here and go back to England where
they came from, with their rotten gold, gev to them be the Orangemen
to turn Ireland into an uproar, so that the Freemasons could step in
again and capture it. Ah-h-h-h, I’d like to get me fingers on yer
throat, ye——”

He was rushing across the floor at Gypo, but the three men had jumped
up and caught him. They held him back. Gypo stared at him, as if in
perplexity, without moving. But the muscles of his shoulders
stiffened, almost unconsciously. His eyes wandered slowly from the
fuming husband to the sobbing wife, who had again turned to the fire.

Then the people from the parlour rushed into the kitchen, attracted by
the shouting. They were headed by Mary McPhillip, the daughter of the
house. She was a handsome young woman, with a full figure, plump, with
red cheeks, a firm jaw, auburn hair cropped in the current fashion,
blue eyes that had a “sensible” look in them and a rather large mouth
that was opened wide by her excitement. Every bit of her except her
mouth belonged to an average Irishwoman of the middle class. The mouth
was a product of the slums. Its size and its propensity for disclosing
the state of the mind by exaggerated movement, which is the hallmark
of the slum girl, belied the neat elegance of the rest of the body and
of all the clothes. She was still dressed just as she had arrived from
the office, in a smart navy-blue costume which she had made herself.
The skirt was rather short, in the current fashion, and she stood with
her feet fairly wide apart, in the arrogant posture of a woman of good
family. Her well-shaped calves were covered with thin black silk
stockings. But she had her hands on her hips, unconsciously, as she
stood in front of the indiscriminate crowd that had followed her in
from the parlour, to find out what had caused the disturbance in the
kitchen.

“What’s the row about, father?” she said.

The accent was good, but a little too good. It was too refined. The
pronunciation of the words was too correct. It had not that careless
certainty of the born lady. She spoke in an angry tenor voice, in the
rich soft tones of the Midlands, her mother’s birthplace. Her voice
had the softness of butter, that voice which patriotic Irishmen always
associate with kindness and unassailable innocence and virtue, but
which is really the natural mask of a stern, resolute character.

“Aren’t we bad enough,” she continued, “without your acting like a
drunken tramp? Shut up and don’t disgrace yourself.” She stamped her
right foot and cried again: “Shut up.”

The father relaxed immediately. He began to tremble slightly. He was
very much afraid of his daughter. In spite of the power of
vituperation which he undoubtedly possessed, he had been afraid of
both his children. When Francis had become discontented and joined the
Revolutionary Organization, the father had poured out threats and
abuse for hours, almost every night, for the edification of his wife,
but when the son came in he said nothing. He was a weak, nervous
character, slightly hysterical, capable of committing any act on the
spur of the moment, but incapable of pursuing a logical course of
action resolutely. But his children were resolute. The son was
resolute in his hatred of existing conditions of society. He was a
resolute, determined revolutionary, with his father’s energy. The
daughter was resolute in her determination to get out of the slums.

The father slipped out of the hands of the men that were holding him
and moved backwards until he reached the bed. He sat down on it
without looking at it. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve although
it was perfectly dry. But it had a prickly feeling in it, as if scores
of needles had thrust themselves out from his brain through it. He
always felt like that when he got an attack of nerves, especially
since his son became a revolutionary, and it became known that his
activities were being watched at police headquarters.

He looked at his daughter, at first in a cowed fashion. He was afraid
of her, because she had become what he had urged her from her infancy
to become, “a lady.” He was afraid of her because she was so well
educated, because she had such “swell” friends, because she dressed so
well, because she washed herself several times a day, because she
spoke properly. But then he became irritated with all this and
remembered that he himself was a Socialist, the chairman of his branch
of the trade union, a political leader in the district, that all men
were free and equal and . . . all the pet phrases with which
respectable Socialists delude themselves into the belief that they are
philosophers and men of principle. He spoke with a ring of indignation
and of warning in his voice.

“Am I to be called a tramp by me own daughter in me own house,” he
cried, “when I tell this ruffian his true character? Yes, an’ every
other ruffian that’s the curse o’ the workin’-class movement with
their talk of violence an’ murder an’ revolution. All me life I have
stood straight for the cause of me fellow-workers. I was one o’ the
first men to stand up for Connolly an’ the cause o’ Socialism, but I
always said that the greatest enemies o’ the workin’ class were those
o’ their own kind that advocated violence. I . . .”

“I told you to shut up,” said Mary in a calm, low voice, as she walked
over to the bed, with her hands still on her hips. “It’s just like
you,” she almost hissed, putting her doubled fists into the little
pockets of her jacket. “It’s just like you to go back on your own
son.”

She did not know why she was saying this, but she felt some force
driving her on in opposition to her father, in defence of her dead
brother. Perhaps it was the audience she had behind her. Because,
strangely enough, she herself hated Frankie for belonging to the
Revolutionary Organization, since she got a position two years before
as clerk in the offices of Gogarty and Hogan. Before that she had been
a revolutionary herself, but not a member of any organization. She
used to attend meetings and cheer and get into arguments with
irritated old gentlemen, etc. But during the past two years her
outlook on life had undergone a subtle change, gradual but definite.
At first she began to get “disillusioned,” as she used to tell
Francis, with the blasé air of a young girl of nineteen. Then she used
to lecture him on the desirability of keeping better company. This was
at the time when she made the acquaintance of Joseph Augustine Short,
a young gentleman who was serving his apprenticeship with Gogarty and
Hogan and wore plus fours and left Harcourt Street Station every
Sunday morning, to play golf down the country somewhere. Finally, she
became opposed violently “to the whole theory of revolution,” as being
degenerating and “subversive of all moral ideas.” She became religious
and got the idea into her head that she could convert Commandant Dan
Gallagher, the leader of the revolutionary movement. All this later
development had been quite recent, however, and had not matured fully
in her character. It was yet merely plastic. It had not become a fixed
habit of thought, surrounded by deep and bitter prejudices, that form
themselves into “firm convictions.”

For that reason she had responded suddenly to that strange exaltation,
born of hatred for the law, which is traditional and hereditary in the
slums. The one glorious romance of the slums is the feeling of intense
hatred against the oppressive hand of the law, which sometimes
stretches out to strike some one, during a street row, during an
industrial dispute, during a Nationalist uprising. It is a clarion
call to all the spiritual emotion that finds no other means of
expression in that sordid environment, neither in art, nor in
industry, nor in commercial undertakings, nor in the more reasonable
searchings for a religious understanding of the universal creation.

“I stand by what Frankie has done,” she cried, turning to the people.
“I don’t agree with him in politics, but every man has a right to his
opinions and every man should fight for his rights according to . . .”
she got confused and stammered a little. Then she raised her hand
suddenly with an enthusiastic gesture and cried in a loud voice: “He
was my brother anyway and I’m going to stand up for him.”

Then she suddenly put her handkerchief to her nose and blew it
fiercely. There was a loud murmur of applause. The father made a
half-hearted attempt to say something, but he subsided. Mrs. McPhillip
was heard to mumble something, but nobody paid any attention to her.
Nobody noticed her except Gypo, who still sat on the floor staring at
her, fondling the memory of her past goodness to him, like a sumptuous
luxury that he must soon relinquish. Although he had been the cause of
all the excitement, he was now forgotten in the still greater
excitement, caused by the argument between the father and daughter of
the dead revolutionary.

Then Mary turned to Gypo and addressed him.

“If you were a friend of my brother,” she said, “you are quite welcome
here. Come into the parlour a minute. I want to talk to you.”

Gypo started and looked at Mary with his tufted eyebrows twitching
ominously like snouts. But he said nothing. She was embarrassed by the
uncouth stare and flushed slightly. She coughed in her throat and put
her fingers to her lips. She began to talk rapidly, as if apologizing
to the uncouth giant for having had the temerity to address him a
request.

“It’s because Frankie told us that he met you in the Dunboy Lodging
House before he came here. You are the only one he met in town before
he came in here, so I thought maybe that . . . you might be
able . . .”

She stopped in confusion, amazed at the startling change that had come
over Gypo. He had become seized by some violent emotion as she spoke
until his face contorted as if he were gazing at some awe-inspiring
horror. Then she stopped. His face stood still gaping at her. Then for
some reason or other he jumped to his feet, shouting as he did so at
the top of his voice: “All right.”

As he bent his head and the upper part of his body to jump to his
feet, his right trousers pocket was turned mouth to the ground. Four
silver coins fell to the cement floor with a rattling noise. These
coins were the change he had received in the public-house.

He was petrified. Every muscle in his body stiffened. His head stood
still. His jaws set like the teeth of a bear trap that has been sprung
fruitlessly. Behind his eyes he felt the delicious cold and congealed
sensation of being about to fight a desperate and bloody battle. For
he was certain that the four white silver coins lying nakedly, ever so
nakedly, on the floor, were as indicative of his betrayal of his
comrade as a confession uttered aloud in a crowded market-place.

Somebody stooped to pick up the coins.

“Let them alone,” shouted Gypo.

He swooped down to the floor and his right palm, spread flat, covered
the coins with the dull sound of a heavy dead fish falling on an iron
deck.

“I only wanted to hand them to ye, Gypo,” panted the weazened
flour-mill worker who had stooped to pick them up. He had been knocked
to his knees by Gypo’s swoop.

Gypo took no notice of the explanation. As he collected the coins in
his left fist and rose again, leaning on his right hand, he was
listening, waiting for the attack.

But there was no attack. Everybody was amazed, mesmerized by the
curious movements of the irritated giant. They stared with open
mouths, all except Bartly Mulholland and Tommy Connor, who stood in
the background, looking curiously at one another with narrowed eyes.
Darting his eyes around the room Gypo caught sight of the two of them.
Spurred by some sudden impulse he held up his right hand over his
head, he stamped his right foot, he threw back his head and shouted,
looking straight upwards:

“I swear before Almighty God that I warned him to keep away from the
house.”

There was a dead silence for three seconds. Then a perceptible shudder
ran through the room. Everybody remembered with horror that there was
a suspicion abroad, a suspicion that an informer had betrayed Francis
Joseph McPhillip. Informer! A horror to be understood fully only by an
Irish mind. For an awful moment each one present suspected himself or
herself. Then each looked at his or her neighbour. Gradually rage took
the place of fear. But it had no direction. Even the most daring
gasped when their minds suggested, that possibly the great fierce
giant might have had . . . Impossible!

“There’s no man suspects ye, Gypo. Ye needn’t be afraid of that,”
cried Tommy Connor, the huge red-faced docker with immense jaws like a
bullock, who had been whispering to Bartly Mulholland.

He had spoken spontaneously with a queer note of anger in his voice.

“Nobody suspects ye. Good God, man! . . .”

There was a chorus of agreement. Everybody was eager to assent to the
statement that Connor had made. Somebody put his hand on Gypo’s
shoulder and began to say: “Sure it’s well known that . . .”

But Gypo elbowed the man away fiercely and set out hurriedly across
the floor towards Mrs. McPhillip. He elbowed the people out of his way
without looking at them. He stood in front of Mrs. McPhillip. He
stared at her impassively for a few moments. Then he put his hand
slowly to his head and took off his hat. He felt moved by an
incontrollable impulse. All his actions had completed themselves
before his mind was aware of them. His mind was struggling along
aimlessly in pursuit of his actions, impotently deprecating them and
whispering warnings. But it was powerless.

This impulse that had possession of him now was of the same origin as
the one that controlled him when he was looking into the shop window
thinking of his youth.

He was beyond himself. His lips quivered. His throat got stuffed. He
swallowed his breath with an articulate sound, resembling a cry of
pain. He held out his left hand towards Mrs. McPhillip. He opened the
hand slowly. The four white silver coins lay there.

“Take it,” he muttered. “Ye were good to me an’ I’m sorry for yer
trouble.”

He felt a mad desire to pull out the roll of notes and give them to
her also, but the very thought of such a mad action made him shiver.
Instead he dropped the four coins into Mrs. McPhillip’s lap.

Mrs. McPhillip glanced at the money and then burst into loud sobs. The
sound maddened Gypo. He turned about and rushed towards the door. He
stubbed his foot against the door-jamb and hurtled into the hall. He
rushed along the passage, cursing and striking furiously at everybody
that came in his way. He stood outside the street door and breathed
deeply.

Two men rushed out after him. They were Bartly Mulholland and Tommy
Connor, the docker.



CHAPTER V

“Gypo!”

Gypo had taken three steps down the street when his name came to him
through the darkness, uttered in that long-drawn-out whisper which is
the customary intonation among revolutionaries. He contracted his back
suddenly like an ass that has been struck with violence. Then he
halted. He did not turn about or reply. He waited. He listened with a
beating heart to the slow footsteps that came up to him from behind.
One, two, three, four . . . they stopped. Gypo looked to his left.
Bartly Mulholland was standing there.

The two of them stood in front of a window through which lamp-light
was streaming, across Gypo’s chest on to Mulholland’s face.
Mulholland’s yellow face looked almost black in the lamp-light. It was
furrowed vertically from the temples to the jaws, with deep black
furrows. The mouth was large and open, fixed in a perpetual grin that
had absolutely no merriment in it, that fixed grin of sardonic
contempt that is nearly always seen on the faces of men who make a
business of concealing their thoughts. The nose was long and narrow.
The ears were large. The forehead was furrowed horizontally. The skin
on the forehead was very white in contrast to the dark skin on the
cheeks. The furrows on the forehead were very shallow and narrow, like
thin lines drawn with a sharp pencil. In fact, the whole appearance of
the face was that of an artificial face, such as that produced in the
dressing-room of an actor by means of paints, etc. This suggestion was
strengthened by the appearance of the hair that straggled in loose
wisps from beneath the shovel-shaped peak of the grey tweed cap. The
hair appeared to be a dirty brown wig, much the worse for wear. But
neither the hair nor any portion of the face was artificial.
Everything had come from the hand of Nature, which seemed, by some
peculiar whimsey, to have cast this individual for the rôle of a
conspirator. The face was the face of a clown to hide the
conspirator’s eyes, except from a very close scrutiny. The eyes were
the colour of sea water that is dirty with grey sand. These eyes are
sometimes described as watery blue, but it is a totally wrong
description. There was an indescribable coldness and depth in them
which it is beyond the power of any colour to describe. They stared
without a movement of the pupils or of the lashes at Gypo’s face,
expressing no emotion whatever. They were not doors of the soul like
ordinary eyes, but spy holes. They stared glassily like a cat’s eyes.

This curious creature was dressed like a workman, in heavy hobnailed
boots, brown corduroy trousers with strings tied around the legs below
the knees, a black handkerchief tied in sailor fashion around his neck
and an old grey tweed coat that almost reached half-way down his
thighs. His hands were stuck deep down in the pockets of his coat.

“Where’s yer hurry takin’ ye, Gypo?” he drawled in a low lazy voice,
as if he were half-drunk or lying on his back in a sunny place on a
hot summer’s day.

“Who’s in a hurry?” growled Gypo. “How d’ye make out I’m in a hurry?”

“Oh, nothin’ atall. Don’t get yer rag out, Gypo. Ye might talk to the
people. We never see ye atall now since ye left the Organization. Are
ye workin’?”

“No,” snapped Gypo angrily. The short ejaculation coming from his
thick lips sounded like a solitary gunshot coming a long way over
still air. “I ain’t workin’ an’ all o’ you fellahs, that were supposed
to be comrades o’ mine, take damn good care to keep out o’ the way,
for fear I might ask ye for the price of a feed or a flop. Yer a quare
lot o’ Communists.”

Mulholland drew himself in at the middle, emitted his breath, shrugged
his shoulders, thrust out his right foot and leaned his weight
backwards heavily on his left foot. Then he turned his head up
sideways to let the drizzling rain beat on the back of his neck
instead of on his face. The grin left his mouth and for a moment he
appeared to have become angry.

“Ye don’t seem to be in any need o’ money to-night, Gypo,” he breathed
ever so gently.

Then just as suddenly he broke into an almost fawning and ingratiating
smile. He continued in his ordinary lazy voice:

“Don’t be tryin’ to make out yer broke, after me seein’ the money that
fell outa yer pocket in the kitchen beyond just now. Aren’t ye goin’
to stand us a wet?”

Gypo had begun to shiver. He shivered with minute movements, just as a
massive tree shivers, when the forest earth is shaken beneath it by a
heavy concussion. Then suddenly he recovered himself. Without pausing
to think, he shot out both hands simultaneously like piston-rods.
Mulholland gasped as the two huge hands closed about his throat. He
struck out helplessly with his own hands at Gypo’s body. His blows
were as ineffective as the flapping of a linnet’s wings against its
cage. Gypo’s face was lit with a demoniac pleasure as he raised
Mulholland’s body from the ground, clutching it by the throat with his
two hands. He raised it up like a book which he wanted to read, until
Mulholland’s eyes were level with his own. Then they both looked at
one another.

Mulholland’s eyes were still cold and glassy, impenetrable and
absolutely without emotion. Gypo’s eyes were ferocious and eager, full
of a mad savage joy. His mouth had shut tight and the skin had run
taut over the glossy humps on his face, so that his face looked like
tanned pigskin. Mulholland’s tongue was hanging out.

Then Gypo groaned and prepared to crush out Mulholland’s life between
his thick fingers, when he was disturbed by a shout from behind. He
dropped Mulholland to the street like a bag and whirled about. Tommy
Connor had rushed up from the doorway of No. 44 where he had been
waiting. He was standing now with his mouth wide open in astonishment
and terror.

“What’s wrong, boys?” he cried. “In the name o’ God what are ye up
to?”

“He suspects me,” cried Gypo, “and . . .” Then he sank into silence,
unable to say any more. His unsatisfied fury choked him.

“Suspects ye of what?” cried Connor. “What d’ye say he suspects ye
of?”

“I didn’t suspect him of anythin’ atall,” cried Mulholland, rising to
his feet slowly. His face was contorting with pain. “I only asked him
to——”

“Yer a liar, ye did,” bellowed Gypo. “Ye suspect me, an’ well I know
ye, Bartly Mulholland. D’ye think I don’t know ye an’ all about ye? Ye
got a grudge agin me an’ Frankie McPhillip this long time. Don’t I
know yer Intelligence Officer for No. 3 Area an’ that yer nosin’
around now——”

“Shut up or I’ll plug ye where ye stand,” hissed Connor, ramming the
muzzle of his revolver into Gypo’s side. “Don’t ye know there are
people listenin’? D’ye want to let the dogs o’ the street know the
secrets o’ the Organization that ye swore on yer oath to kape?” He
panted and continued in a lower voice still: “Are ye mad or are ye
lookin’ to get plugged?”

Gypo’s mouth remained open in the act of beginning a word, but he did
not utter the word. He half-turned his body in order to look into
Connor’s face. He saw it, big, angry, menacing, with the nostrils
distended, so that the insides, blackened with coal, were visible. The
face was within four inches of Gypo’s face. Connor’s revolver muzzle
was pressing into Gypo’s right armpit. Gypo feared neither the face
nor the revolver. He stared with wrinkled forehead at Connor, knowing
that he could crush him and Mulholland, both together, crush them to
death, to a shapeless pulp, by clasping them in his arms.

But they were not merely two men, two human beings. They were
something more than that. They represented the Revolutionary
Organization. They were merely cogs in the wheel of that Organization.
That was what he feared, what rendered him powerless. He feared that
mysterious, intangible thing, that was all brain and no body. An
intelligence without a body. A thing that was full of plans,
implacable, reaching out everywhere invisibly, with invisible
tentacles like a supernatural monster. A thing that was like a
religion, mysterious, occult, devilish.

Frankie McPhillip had once told him that they tracked a man to the
Argentine Republic, somewhere the other side of the world. Shot him
dead in a lodging-house at night too, without saying a word. What d’ye
think of that?

“All right,” he said at last, “put away yer gat, Tommy. I’ll stay
quiet.”

A few people had gathered on the far side of the street and were
looking on curiously. An immense crowd would have already gathered on
ordinary occasions, but there was tension and anxiety in the district
that night. Shooting might begin at any minute. It was always so. One
death brings another in its train. Each man thought this in his own
mind, although nobody breathed a word. It was a kind of silent terror.

“Come on, boys,” said Connor, “let’s get away from here. We’re
gatherin’ a crowd.”

“Come on down to Ryan’s,” whispered Mulholland to Gypo, in his usual
lazy, insinuating voice, as if nothing had happened, “Commandant
Gallagher is down there. He wants to see ye.”

“What does he want with me?” growled Gypo. “I’m not a member o’ the
Organization any more. He’s got nothin’ to do with me. I’m not goin’.”

“Come on, man,” whispered Connor, “don’t stand here chawin’. He’s not
goin’ t’ate ye. Come on. Is it afraid o’ the Commandant ye are? Why
so?”

“I’m not afraid of any man that was ever pupped,” growled Gypo. “Come
on.”

The three men walked off abreast, in step like soldiers, their feet
falling loudly on to the wet pavement, heels first. At the corner the
footfalls became confused. Gypo spat into the street. Mulholland
sneezed. They entered the public-house by a little narrow side door
that had a bright brass knob on it. They went along a narrow passage,
through a stained-glass swing door, into a brightly lit oblong room.

A man was sitting by a little gas fire on a high three legged stool
facing the door. When Gypo saw the man he stopped dead.

The man was Commandant Dan Gallagher.



CHAPTER VI

During the previous autumn a terrific sensation had been caused all
over Ireland by the farm-labourers’ strike in the M—— district. The
sensation was brought to a crisis by the murder of the Farmers’ Union
Secretary. For the first time it was discovered that the Revolutionary
Organization had spread its influence among the farm-labourers and
over the whole country. Something had been discovered. A Government
secret organization had overlapped the Communist organization and
there was a little effervescence, which was immediately suppressed by
the Government. Very little leaked out publicly. The newspapers were
forbidden to talk about it. The Conservative organs in Dublin had
timid editorials demanding that the Government should take the people
into its confidence. What really was the extent of this “conspiracy
against the national safety?”

Then immediately Commandant Dan Gallagher became a public figure and a
general topic of conversation. He came out of obscurity in a night as
it were. People suddenly discovered that he was a power in the
country. He was photographed and interviewed and his photographs
appeared in all the newspapers both in this country and in England and
in America. He promptly denounced the murder as a “foul crime against
the honour of the working class and the whole revolutionary movement.”
He began to be feared intensely in official quarters as a “slippery
customer.” This phrase was used at a Government Cabinet meeting.

Just about that time, the leading organ of the English aristocracy had
a two-column leading article on the subject of Commandant Dan
Gallagher. In the course of the article a short survey of Gallagher’s
life was given sarcastically. The following is an extract from the
article:

  “. . . This flower of Irish manhood grew on an obscure dunghill, in
  the daily practice of all these virtues, which are indigenous to the
  Irish soil, if one is to believe the flowery utterances of the
  politicians on St. Patrick’s Day. His father was a small peasant
  farmer in Kilkenny. Having assisted very probably in the gentle
  assassination of a few of his landlord’s agents in the past,
  reverently decided to devote the activities of his promising son to
  the service of his God. But Daniel would have none of it. He was
  meant for other fields of conquest. He succeeded in making himself
  famous in the ecclesiastical seminary in which he was being prepared
  for the priesthood, by smashing the skull of one of the Roman
  priests during a dispute on the playground. The instrument used in
  this display of boyish gaiety was the favourite Irish weapon, a
  hurling stick.

  “The young Fionn McCumhaill was expelled and fled the country. He
  drifted around for eight years without a trace of his whereabouts.
  Very possibly he spent the time in the United States. We can well
  imagine that he was favourably received among those organizations in
  the United States which are governed by Irishmen intent on the
  destruction of the British Empire by conspiracy, murder, slander,
  and all the other delectable schemes that come to life so readily in
  the Gaelic brain. We can imagine him perfecting himself in the arts
  of gunmanship, deceit and those obscure forms of libidinous vice
  which are said to be practiced by this morose type of revolutionary
  in order to dull his sensibilities into an apathy which the
  consciousness of even the most horrible enormities cannot
  penetrate. . . .

  “At any rate he has returned to his beloved motherland endowed
  liberally with those qualities which make him dear to the hearts of
  all Irishmen of murderous inclinations. These latter unfortunately
  form as yet a considerable portion of the population of Ireland. Mr.
  Gallagher has a powerful and enthusiastic following.

  “His brand of Communism is of the type that appeals most to the
  Irish nature. It is a mixture of Roman Catholicism, Nationalist
  Republicanism and Bolshevism. Its chief rallying cries are: ‘Loot
  and Murder.’” . . .

The following is an extract from an article which appeared a little
while later in the columns of the official organ of the American
Revolutionary Organization:

  “When the glorious history of the struggle for proletarian
  liberation in Ireland comes to be written, the name of Comrade Dan
  Gallagher will stampede from cover to cover in one uninterrupted
  blaze of glory. . . . No other living man has given nobler service
  to the world revolution than this sturdy fighter, who rules the
  workers of Dublin with greater power than is wielded by the Irish
  bourgeoisie, who are still nominally in the saddle. The collapse of
  the farm-workers’ strike need not dishearten those comrades who
  expected great things from the hoisting of the red flag at M—— last
  October. Comrade Gallagher has not seen fit as yet to call the Irish
  bourgeois bluff. When the time arrives. . . .”

In November a representative of the International Executive of the
Revolutionary Organization was sent over from the Continent to make a
special report on the situation in Ireland. The following is an
extract from a secret report drawn up by him, after spending three
months in Ireland secretly touring the country:

  “. . . For the moment it would be a tactical blunder to expel
  Comrade Gallagher from the International. At the same time there can
  be no doubt that the Irish Section has deviated entirely from the
  principles of revolutionary Communism as laid down in the laws of
  the International. Comrade Gallagher rules the national Organization
  purely and simply as a dictator. There is a semblance of an
  Executive Committee but only in name. The tactics are guided by
  whatever whim is uppermost in Comrade Gallagher’s mind at the
  moment. Contrary to the orders issued from Head-quarters, the
  Organization is still purely military and has made hardly any
  attempt to come into the open as a legal political party. This is
  perhaps not entirely due to Comrade Gallagher’s fault. There are
  local causes, arising out of the recent struggle for national
  independence, which has left the working class in the grip of a
  romantic love of conspiracy, a strong religious and
  bourgeois-nationalist outlook on life and a hatred of constitutional
  methods. This makes it difficult for the moment to check Comrade
  Gallagher’s hold . . .”



CHAPTER VII

Gallagher’s eyes had opened wide when the three men came into the
room. Then they narrowed until they became thin slits under their long
black lashes. He nodded to Mulholland and Connor. Then he stared at
Gypo.

Gypo returned the stare. The two men, unlike in their features and
bodies, were exactly alike in the impassivity of their stare. Gypo’s
face was like a solid and bulging granite rock, impregnable but
lacking that intelligence that is required by strength in order to be
able to conquer men. Gallagher’s face was less powerful physically,
but it was brimful of intelligence. The forehead was high and it
seemed to surround the face. The eyes were large and wide apart. The
nose was long and straight. The mouth was thin-lipped. The jaws were
firm but slender and refined like a woman’s jaws. The whole face had
absolutely no colour, but there was a constant movement in the cheeks,
as if tiny streams were coursing irregularly beneath the smooth glossy
skin. The hair was coal-black and cut close. The ears were large. The
neck opened out gradually from the base of the shoulders on either
side, like a hill disappearing into a plain.

Then he jumped off his high stool and stood with his legs wide apart
in front of Gypo. He was five feet eleven inches and a half in height,
but Gypo towered over him with his extra two inches. Gallagher wore a
loose brown raincoat, from his throat almost to his ankles, that made
his well-built frame look larger and stouter. Yet Gypo, standing bare
in his dungarees that were now almost sodden with rain, looked immense
compared to him. Gallagher held his hands in his raincoat pockets
thrust in front of his body, as if he were pointing pistols at Gypo.
Gypo held his hands loosely by his sides, two vast red hands hanging
limply from whitish round wrists. Gallagher wore a broad-brimmed black
velour hat of a fashionable make. Gypo’s tattered little round hat was
still perched on his skull, like a tiny school cap on an overgrown
youngster.

They looked at one another, the one, handsome, well dressed, confident
and indifferent; the other crude, ragged, amazed, anxious.

“Well, Gypo,” drawled Gallagher, in the irritating, contemptuous tone
that he affected. “Ye don’t seem glad to see me.”

“Can’t say that I am,” replied Gypo curtly, almost without moving his
lips. “I don’t see no reason to be glad to see ye, Commandant
Gallagher. Ye were never a friend o’ mine, an’ I ain’t in the habit o’
crawlin’ on me belly to anybody that don’t like me. I’m not one o’ yer
pet lambs any more, so ye needn’t do any bleatin’ as far as I’m
concerned. One man is as good as another in this rotten ould world.
I’m usin’ yer own words, amn’t I?”

Gallagher laughed out loud, a merry laugh that showed his white teeth.
He shrugged his shoulders and took a turn around the room. He took a
packet of cigarettes from his pocket as he walked and selected one. He
kept laughing until he paused to light the cigarette over near the
stained-glass window.

“Yer a queer fish, Gypo,” he said, again laughing, as he paused to
throw the used match into a spittoon.

Then he cast a glance all round the room and came back again to Gypo.
Mulholland and Connor watched him all the time with that loving
interest with which a crowd watches the movements of a champion boxer
who is walking around the ring in his dressing-gown, preparatory to a
big fight. They smiled when Gallagher laughed. They stopped smiling
when he stopped laughing.

Gypo, on the other hand, watched Gallagher’s movements angrily. He
felt a desire to pounce on him and crush him to death before he could
do any harm.

Then Gallagher came up to him and caught him by the right shoulder in
a friendly and confidential manner.

“Listen Gypo,” he said. “You’ve got a grudge against me no doubt for
getting you expelled from the Organization, but you have nobody to
blame but yourself. I sent ye down, on the orders of the Executive
Committee, you and Frank McPhillip, to look after the defence work of
the strikers. What orders did I give the two of you? Can you remember?
Well, I’ll remind you. _To keep off the booze and not to use the lead
unless you were attacked._ But what did you do? The very first thing,
the two of you got hold of two women. That, of course, must have been
Frankie’s work because I don’t suppose you were ever a great magnet
among the women. Women were Frankie’s weak spot, damn it. But anyhow,
it doesn’t matter very much which of you started the hunt. You tasted
the honey as well as he did it, as far as was reported to me. The two
of you got drunk at M—— in company with these two women. You got so
mad drunk that McPhillip went to shoot up the town. You might have
assisted him in that pastime, but your time was occupied trying to
pull a lamp-post up by the roots in Oliver Plunket Street, for a bet
of a gallon of stout. In the very middle of your entertainment,
McPhillip met the secretary of the Farmers’ Union and shot him dead.
That made you get over your drunkenness damn quick, didn’t it? The two
of you bolted without making any attempt to cover your tracks. You ran
like two hares. You came into Dublin with a red herring of a story
about an attack and what not. It was a tall yarn. Well? D’ye know what
I’m going to tell you, Gypo?”

He paused dramatically and looked Gypo closely in the eyes. Gypo never
moved a muscle in his face. He grunted interrogatively from somewhere
deep down in his chest. Gallagher continued very slowly:

“I’m going to tell you this much, Gypo. Only for me, you wouldn’t have
got away with it as easily as you did that time. There were others who
wanted to give you this, for disobeying orders.”

He moved his right hand suddenly beneath his raincoat, thrusting it
forward against Gypo’s lower ribs. Gypo felt the contact of a blunt
hard metal. He knew it was the muzzle of Gallagher’s Colt automatic
pistol, but Gypo took no notice of the pistol. He was not afraid of
the pistol. But he was afraid of Gallagher’s eyes into which he was
looking steadily. He didn’t like them. They were so cold and blue and
mysterious. Goodness knows what might be hidden behind them. His face
began an irregular chaotic movement. His jaws, cheek-bones, nose,
mouth and forehead convulsed in opposite directions, as if a draught
of wind had stolen in under the skin of his face and caused it to
undulate. Then the face set again. The neck swelled and the little
eyes bulged.

“No use tryin’ yer tricks on me, Danny Gallagher,” he growled,
knocking the pistol muzzle away with a slight movement of his right
hand. Although the blow was slight, it caused Gallagher to reel
backwards two paces before he regained his balance. His face darkened
for a moment and then again he broke into a smile. Gypo continued in a
thunderous melancholy voice: “Gallagher, I got no use for you. Them’s
all lies ye were tellin’ just now about tryin’ to save me life when I
was before the Court of Inquiry last October. I know very well they
was. Yerrah, are ye goin’ to tell me that yer not the chief boss an’
God knows what in the Organization? Who else has got any authority in
it except yersel’? Yah. I got no use for ye. Yer a liar. Yer no good.
An’ I’d be in my job yet in the police only for ye an’ yer soft talk.
It was you that got me outa me job with yer promises o’ the Lord knows
what. I declare to Almighty God that I done more for yer bloody
Organization than any other man in Ireland. I done things that no man
unhung could do. An’ ye went an’ threw me out on account of an ould
farmer gettin’ plugged. Me an’ McPhillip. What did we get for it?
Wha’ . . . ye rotten . . .”

Gypo rambled off incoherently into a long string of blasphemous
curses, raising his voice as he did so. His arms were raised outwards
in a curve and his head was lowered, as if he were in the act of
performing a swimming exercise. He frothed at the mouth and glared
from one to the other of the three men, as if undecided which to
attack first.

Then suddenly a little wooden panel in the wall to the right was
raised up and a pretty red head was pushed through. It was Kitty the
barmaid.

“Lord save us,” she cried, putting her fingers to her lips as she
looked at Gypo. “Who is that fellah? What’s he doin’ here, Dan?”

“That’s all right, Kitty,” said Gallagher with a light laugh; “he’s a
friend of mine. We are having a cursing competition.”

And he laughed heartily as he walked to the spittoon with the stub of
his cigarette.

Gypo turned around and looked at the terrified face of the barmaid. As
he looked at her beautiful face and her pretty soft hair that
shimmered in the artificial light, his head swam and his eyes went
watery. His anger left his body immediately so that it seemed to empty
and collapse. It had been rigid and like a tree. Now it became loose
and jointless. He stood with stooping head and wondering eyes, looking
at the barmaid.

The barmaid, seeing the change she had effected by her presence in the
unruly giant, grew conceited. She smiled in a superior way and dabbed
at her hair. She looked around at the others with an air of: “D’ye all
see that now?”

Then Gallagher came up to the aperture jauntily, took her two hands in
his and looked enticingly into her eyes. Her eyes winced for a moment
as if she had become suddenly afraid. Then she smiled softly, wearily,
like a woman passionately in love. Gallagher bent down his head and
whispered something in her ear. She burst into a loud laugh. Gallagher
smiled, listening to her. Then he suddenly sighed and rapped the
counter curtly.

“Four glasses of Jameson’s quickly,” he said in a low sharp cold
voice.

The barmaid stopped laughing as suddenly as if she had been stricken
by a pain. She pulled down the shutter, lisping as she did so: “Yes
Dan.”

Gallagher came back to Gypo and put his hand again on Gypo’s shoulder.
Gypo had his two hands now in his trousers pockets. After his
unsuccessful outburst he felt tired. He wanted to go away somewhere
and lie down and sleep for days and days. His mind was in a maze. He
was very tired. As he looked at Gallagher he even felt a longing to
confide his secret to him. Gallagher’s eyes were so devilishly
attractive. They seemed to draw things out of Gypo towards themselves.
They would be able to form a plan and . . .

Gypo had uttered one syllable of Gallagher’s name before he realized
the real identity of the man and the consequences of a confession to
him. The name died on his lips. Gallagher smiled.

“Gypo, old boy,” he said in a friendly tone, “ye had better forget all
that’s past. We’ve got something on hand that’s as much your business
as ours. So we can act together on it. That’s why I sent Bartly
Mulholland into McPhillip’s house to look for ye. A pal of yours has
been done in by the police. D’ye hear? It looks like an informer’s
job. We have to get that informer. It’s really no business of the
Organization because Frank had ceased to be a member. He was only an
ordinary civilian criminal as far as we are concerned. But an informer
is an informer. He’s got to be wiped out like the first sign of a
plague as soon as he’s spotted. He’s a common enemy. He’s got to be
got, Gypo. And it’s up to you to give us a hand in tracking the
traitor that sent your pal to his death. Because . . .”

At that moment the slide was drawn up again sharply and the barmaid
appeared at the aperture with four glasses of whisky on a tray.
Gallagher went to the aperture, paid for the whisky, handed glasses to
Connor and Mulholland, received his change, pinched the barmaid’s
cheek and made her scream, laughed, pulled down the shutter himself
and then advanced smiling to Gypo with a glass of whisky in each hand.
He held out one glass to Gypo. Gypo stared at it without making any
movement to take it or reject it.

He had followed all Gallagher’s movements with the stupid and
suspicious wonder of a terrified wild animal that thinks some trick is
being played on it. Now he stared at the glass as if he suspected some
trick in that too.

“Take it,” said Gallagher coldly. “Take it, man, if you’ve any sense.
It’s better to have me as a friend than as an enemy. If you are not
going to help us in this job . . . er . . . people might think . . .
er . . . that . . .”

“Uh,” began Gypo with a shrug of his whole body. Then he stopped
panting. He went on, speaking at a very high pitch. “It’s not that
but . . . Look here . . . It’s how . . .” His voice suddenly deepened
into a hoarse shout, “It’s how I don’t know what I’m doin’.”

He stopped. Gallagher glanced at Mulholland. Mulholland’s cat’s eyes
both winked inperceptibly.

“I’ve been starvin’ here for the past six months,” continued Gypo,
suddenly breaking out into a torrent of words. He talked like a negro,
hollow, thunderous and melancholy. “I’ve been kicking about this town
an’ every one o’ you fellahs I met passed me by without a word as if I
never knew ye. I been over in the House there, livin’ from hand to
mouth on whatever I could bum from sailors and pimps and dockers. I
got no clothes. I got no money. I got nothin’. An’ then you come up
all of a sudden with yer soft talk. Well . . . uh . . . how is it
that . . .”

He came to a stop once more with his chest heaving. He seemed to be
about to go into a rage once more, but suddenly Gallagher moved closer
to him and whispered gently and soothingly:

“Look here, Gypo. I’m going to make a fair deal with you. I’ll admit
you have done a lot for the movement. You have paid the penalty during
the last six months for the dangerous position you placed the whole
Organization in last October. We’ll call that quits on one condition.
If you can give us a clue to the man that informed on Francis Joseph
McPhillip I’ll get ye taken back again into the Organization at yer
old job on Head-quarters Staff. Here. Take this drink.”

Gypo’s hand shot out immediately. He grasped the glass and Gallagher’s
hand both together in his immense paw. The two men almost struggled
trying to disengage their hands. As soon as the glass was free Gypo
put it to his lips and drained it. Then he stalked slowly over to the
mantelpiece and placed the empty glass on it. With his back to his
companions he paused to wipe his mouth with his sleeve.

He wanted time to compose himself. Gallagher’s proposal had taken him
so completely by surprise that he was beside himself. Since that
infernal moment when he kicked open the door of the police-station,
his whole life had been submerged in a pitch-black cloud that was
impenetrable and offered no escape. He had been alone, outcast,
encompassed by a universal horde of enemies. Now, suddenly, he was
offered a means of escape by the great Gallagher himself. Gallagher,
the great Gallagher, had made him an offer. He would get back again
into the Organization. Again people would be afraid of him. Again
clever men would be always at hand to make plans for him, to provide
him with money for doing daring things, to protect him, to praise his
recklessness, his strength and his . . . Mother of Mercy! What Luck!

As he wiped his mouth on his sleeve at the counter an insane idea
struck him, such was his eagerness to qualify immediately for
readmission to the Organization. For a moment he contemplated the man
who had gone into the police-station as a being apart from himself.
Sound began to gurgle up his throat. It was an attempt on the part of
his present personality to speak and deliver information against that
dazed Gypo Nolan who had stumbled into the police-station. But the
sound froze in his throat, in a ball, hurting him as if his tonsils
had swollen suddenly. He realized that he himself was one with that
ponderous fellow, wearing a little tattered round hat, who had gone
into the police-station. It was only another artifice on the part of
something within him, his conscience maybe, to persuade him to make a
confession of his betrayal.

That same impulse had confused him all the time that he was looking at
Mrs. McPhillip.

And then, just as in the public-house, when he had been terrified by
Katie Fox, his mind had given birth to an insane plan about a sailor
in a tavern, so now also his mind conceived an amazing fabrication. It
entered his brain suddenly, like a thunder-storm, with noise and fury.
His face and eyes lit up. He opened his mouth. He walked over to
Gallagher quickly and spoke in a hissing whisper.

“I’ll tell ye who informed,” he gasped. “It’s the Rat Mulligan. It’s
him as sure as Christ was crucified.”

The three men gathered up close to him. They all looked behind them
suspiciously and then stared at him with narrowed eyes. There was a
moment of tense silence. Then each drew a deep breath. Connor slipped
his finger over the trigger of his revolver.

“The Rat Mulligan!” exclaimed Gallagher at length. “How d’ye make that
out, Gypo?”

“I’ll tell ye,” cried Gypo triumphantly. Then he paused again and
looked about him with furrowed brows dramatically. “I didn’t like to
say anythin’ mesel’ for reasons that everybody knows. A man can never
be sure of a thing like that. An’ God knows it’s a quare charge to
bring agin a man. But as ye put it the way ye put it, Commandant,
about him bein’ me pal an’ me duty to the Cause, well . . . Still!
Poor Mulligan!”

“Oh, come on,” cried Gallagher twitching with excitement. “Get
finished with what you have to say. Make your statement, man.”

But Gypo was not to be hurried. An amazing arrogance had taken
possession of him. He reached out towards the glass of whisky that
Gallagher still held untasted in his hand.

“Gimme that, Commandant,” he said, “seein’ as yer not tastin’ it.”
Gallagher nervously handed him the drink. “Thanks. Here’s luck. Ah!
Good stuff that. Well. This is how it was. Just after Frankie left me
in the dining-room, I suddenly thought to mesel’ that I had better run
after him and try an’ head him off from goin’ home. I had been tryin’
to make him clear out of town again an’ not go near Titt Street, but
the same cranky fellah that he always was wouldn’t listen to a word of
what I said. So that I said to mesel’, Lord have mercy on him, ‘Well,
me fine fellah, I’m not goin’ to get mesel’ into a fever, tryin’ to
keep ye outa harm’s way an’ get cursed upside down for doin’ so.’ Well
anyway, as soon as he had gone, I decided to follow him and give him a
last shout. I ran out into the hall an’ who do I see but the Rat
sneakin’ around the corner. I ran down the hall. There was the Rat at
the door with his hands in his overcoat pockets peerin’ up the lane.
Then he dived out into the street, I chased after him. I was just in
time to see Frankie turnin’ the corner into the road with the Rat
crawlin’ after him. It’s as clear as daylight. So it is. Lord have
mercy on the dead, if I had only thought of it at the time, Frankie
might have been alive at this minute instead o’ bein’ a frozen corpse.
Give us another drink, Commandant. Me throat is parched.”

Without a word or a glance Gallagher walked up to the counter and
rapped at the aperture. Gypo did not even condescend to follow his
movements. His conceit was now boundless. He realized that he himself
was amazingly cunning. He even felt a contempt for Gallagher in his
mind. As for Mulholland and Connor . . . He glanced at them
appraisingly, as a man might glance at a useful pair of dogs. It was
the same kind of glance that Gallagher was in the habit of directing
towards everybody.

Gallagher brought a fresh glass of whisky and handed it to him. He
took it without a word of thanks. He walked to the spittoon and
emptied his mouth into it. Then he swallowed the drink again at one
draught. He put the empty glass on the mantelpiece and coughed deeply.
He clasped his hands behind his back with a loud sound. He began to
balance himself backwards and forwards on his heels like a policeman.

“How didn’t I think of it before?” he cried, looking thoughtfully at
the ceiling.

He was completely immersed now in the contemplation of his own
cleverness. He did not notice the utter silence with which his story
had been received by Gallagher and the other two men. He was
contemplating with pleasure the old days, when he had a criminal in
his charge, in the cells, at the police-station. He used to stand for
a whole hour in the stillness of the night, baiting the prisoner,
terrorizing him with his eyes, with a sudden display of strength, with
a mad laugh, with silent staring. He was feeling that same sensation
now. Exhilarated by the whisky he had drunk and carried away by the
concentrated nerve strain of the past few hours, he imagined that he
had Gallagher and the other two men at his mercy, that he was a
policeman and that they were civilians who were asking a favour of
him, an illegal favour that put them in his power. It was just that
way in the old days, when he used to sell Gallagher little tit-bits of
information over a drink; little harmless, he thought, bits of
information, about head-quarters routine and the disposition of the
detective-force personnel.

“Think of what before?” Gallagher remarked coldly.

He spoke slowly and casually, looking at Gypo in a brooding way.

“Why, I mean the grudge that the Rat had in for Frankie,” Gypo replied
confidentially and with an air of great importance.

“What grudge are you referring to?”

“Oh, it’s a long story,” said Gypo with a sigh, as he walked over to
the spittoon and spat into it. Then he hitched up his trousers. He
cleared his throat with a tremendous noise. It was very tantalizing.
“Stand us another drink, Commandant, before they close,” he cried
suddenly, with amazing nonchalance.

“By the lumpin’ Moses!” ejaculated Gallagher. “You’re a cool customer,
Gypo. Ha, ha, ha! Well now! You’re worth another drink anyway.”

He winked secretly at Mulholland and Connor as he walked over to the
aperture. Gypo called after him almost contemptuously.

“Hurry up,” he said, as he looked at the clock with a scowling face,
“we only have another minute. It’s a minute to eleven.”

Again four glasses of whisky were passed around. Gypo took his and
swallowed it at a draught. This time he took the glass from
Gallagher’s hand without asking for it. He swallowed that also at a
draught, as if he were going through a public exhibition of his
drinking powers. Mulholland and Connor swallowed their drinks
hurriedly, as if they were afraid that he was going to take theirs
too. He walked over to the mantelpiece and put the two empty glasses
on it. He looked at the five glasses he had emptied and smiled
broadly. He whacked his chest with a loud sound.

“Come on now, comrade,” said Gallagher sharply, “out with your news.
No fooling.”

“All right,” said Gypo, thrusting forward his huge head so that it
looked like a battering-ram, suddenly attached to his collar-bone.
“D’ye remember the Rat’s sister Susie? She used to be a member o’ the
Organization. She——”

“All right,” snapped Gallagher angrily. “I remember her. What about
her? What has she got to do with it?”

“Well, why wouldn’t she have a lot to do with it? She had a baby,
didn’t she? Didn’t she leave——”

“What d’you know about her baby?” hissed Gallagher. He was deadly
pale.

“Don’t get yer rag out, Commandant,” leered Gypo with a broad laugh.
He was slightly drunk and insolent. “Hit a sore spot, wha’? Well, I
don’t know anythin’ about that. Ye can set yer mind at rest. Frank
McPhillip was the father o’ that kid an’ he refused to marry her. I
remember me an’ him were at the back o’ Cassidy’s havin’ a pint one
night, when somebody came in an’ asked Frankie to step around the
corner a minute. He was gone a long time so I followed him, suspectin’
that there might be a bit o’ foul play. But I found him an’ Susie
jawin’ away to beat the band. She was cryin’ an’ askin’ him to take
her away with him somewhere. O’ course he didn’t budge. Next day she
went to the ’Pool. Gone on Lime Street, as far as I can hear. Well!
You bet yer life that’s why the Rat did it. That’s why he informed.”

Gallagher looked at Mulholland. Mulholland wrinkled his forehead and
shook his head slightly. Then he looked at Gypo curiously. Connor’s
mouth was wide open and there was a look of wonder in his eyes as he
gaped at Gypo. Gypo was tightening his trousers belt.

“Well, Commandant,” he said, when he had finished, “Yer word holds
good about takin’ me back into the Organization?”

“Steady on,” murmured Gallagher dreamily, staring at the ground. “We
have to verify your statement first. If your statement is true you’ll
get back all right.” Suddenly he looked up, smiling, with sparkling
eyes. He seized Gypo by the right hand and smiled into his face in a
friendly intimate way. “Listen. There’s a Court of Inquiry to-night at
half-past one. Be there. Mulholland will take you up there. You can
arrange to meet him somewhere. You can rely on me, comrade, to fix you
up again. You did good work before, comrade, and you’ll do good work
again for the liberation of your class.”

Gypo gripped Gallagher’s hand and squeezed it eagerly. Then he clicked
his heels and saluted in a grandiose fashion. Then he turned to
Mulholland.

“I’ll be at Biddy Burke’s place,” he whispered; “about one o’clock.
I’ll see ye there.”

“Right ye are,” answered Mulholland.

“Good night, boys,” cried Gypo in a loud hearty voice.

Then he stalked out of the room, striking the floor with his heels
fiercely and clearing his throat.

They all looked after him in silence for two seconds. Then somebody
called, “Time, gentlemen, time.” Gallagher started.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he cried, striking his left hand into his
right.

“It’s him,” hissed Connor, rushing up to Gallagher with open mouth.

“Shut up, you fool,” snapped Gallagher.

“Listen, Commandant,” cried Mulholland excitedly; “it’s him. I’ll
swear it is, because——”

“Damn you,” snarled Gallagher, “who is asking your opinion? Give me
your report. Quick, quick. Don’t make a song of it.”

In short jerky statements, with rapid gestures, Mulholland described
all that had happened at No. 44 Titt Street, Gypo’s excitement, the
falling of the money to the floor, Gypo’s giving it to Mrs. McPhillip,
his rush from the house. Then suddenly he began in a whining voice to
recount all he had done since he had been mobilized at eight o’clock
on receipt of the news of Francis McPhillip’s death. But Gallagher cut
him short.

“Cut that out,” he cried. “Did the police find any papers at No. 44?
No. Good. Was anything found on the body? You don’t know. Well, you
better find out to-morrow at the inquest. Now beat it. Keep at Gypo’s
heels like a pot of glue. Find out every damn thing you can. Bring him
along sharp to the Bogey Hole at one-thirty. Off.”

Mulholland disappeared without a word. Gallagher turned to Connor.

“You Connor. Mobilize six men of your section. Round up Mulligan. Get
him to the Bogey Hole. Get busy.”

Connor mumbled something and disappeared.

Gallagher remained staring at the ground, alone, lost in thought.
Drunken voices were singing in the next compartment. Feet were
shuffling. A droning voice cried constantly: “Time, please, gentlemen,
time.”

Gallagher’s eyes distended dreamily. He sighed.

“The least little rift,” he murmured to himself, “and everything is
burst open. Then it’s all up with me. I’ve got to stamp out this
damned informer whoever he is. It may be Gypo. It might be the Rat,
though that’s very doubtful. That’s of no consequence. What is of
consequence is the fact that there is an informer. . . . Good God! An
informer is the great danger. Every man’s hand is against me. It’s
only fear that protects me. I must make an example of this fellow.”

His voice had gradually died out. Now silence reigned in the room
again. The room was hot and stifling, full of the smell of stale drink
and tobacco. He stared at the floor.

A cockroach peered out of its hole, contemplated a blotch of drink
four inches away from its snout and then disappeared again. It would
come out later on and suck the blotch.

The distance was full of sound as if many things were happening there.

Then Gallagher raised his head with a start. He sighed and walked
rapidly over to the aperture. He tapped the panel with his knuckles.
It was raised up almost immediately. The pretty red head appeared.
Gallagher nodded. The red head disappeared again and the slide was
pulled down. Gallagher waited. After three seconds a little door to
the left was opened quietly and the barmaid stepped into the room,
shutting the door carefully behind her. She rushed immediately to
Gallagher and threw her arms around his neck. He kissed her lips
several times rapidly. Then he unwound her arms.

“Got anything for me?” he asked.

She nodded and took a piece of paper from within the breast of her
black dress. He stuck it within his raincoat.

“Right,” he muttered dreamily.

Then he kissed her again on the lips and patted her cheek. He took a
pace away, but she grabbed at him. She held him, looking beseechingly
into his face.

“Have ye got nothin’ to say to me, Dan?” she whispered, almost
sobbing.

“For goodness’ sake, Kitty, have sense,” he muttered savagely. “This
is no time for jig-acting.” He put a finger to his throat. “I’m up to
here in it. The whole Organization is in danger.”

“O Lord! What is it, Dan? Tell me.”

“An informer. See ye to-morrow. Let me go. Good night.”

He kissed her on the forehead. Her arms loosened. He was gone. She
looked after him dejectedly. Then she shivered and gripped her
breasts.

Gallagher walked up Titt Street. Here and there a workman recognized
him and saluted respectfully. He did not acknowledge the salutes. He
wheeled sharply in at the door of No. 44 and knocked. The door was
opened almost immediately by Mary McPhillip. She also started and put
her hand to her breast when she saw him.

“Good evening, Mary,” he said gently, holding out his hand. “May I
come in? I want to speak to your mother.”

“Yes,” said Mary excitedly; “mother is in the kitchen, but you had
better come into the parlour. Father is in the kitchen, too, and there
would surely be a row if he saw you.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Gallagher. “Is there anybody else there?”

“No, everybody else is gone.”

“Who is that yer talkin’ to, Mary?” came Jack McPhillip’s voice from
the kitchen.

“Nobody atall, father,” cried Mary.

“Don’t I hear a man’s voice,” cried the father. “Who is he?”

“Hist! It’s all right,” whispered Gallagher, pushing past her as she
tried to speak again. “He won’t bite me. It’s just me, Mr. McPhillip.
How are you? I’m very sorry to hear of your trouble.”

The two of them met at the kitchen door. They stared at one another
for a moment. Then Gallagher made a movement to come forward and
McPhillip with a little start, moved backwards. He did not speak until
he was near the bed again.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” he said angrily. “An’ what brings you here at
this hour of the night?”

Gallagher took no notice of him. He turned to Mrs. McPhillip who was
still in the same position by the fire, telling her rosary beads.

“I am sorry to trouble you, Mrs. McPhillip,” he said gently and
respectfully, “in the middle of your . . . eh . . . but there’s a
question or two I have to ask you for the sake of him that’s dead.
Would you be kind enough to——”

“And what right have you to ask a question or two?” cried McPhillip,
raging because Gallagher had refused even to talk to him.

He was sitting on the bed now. He sat on the bed timidly, as if he
were in somebody else’s house.

Gallagher turned to him slowly and looked at him fiercely in the eyes.

“I have the right,” he said, “of a revolutionary to track a traitor to
the cause.”

“Ha!” sneered McPhillip. “An’ what kind of a revolutionary d’ye call
yersel’?”

“A revolutionary Communist,” answered Gallagher.

Then he turned about insolently and bent down his head to talk to Mrs.
McPhillip.

“Communist be damned,” cried McPhillip, jumping off the bed. “D’ye
know what I’m goin’ to tell ye? Ye——”

“Father,” cried Mary, wringing her hands, “don’t——”

“Shut up, you young rip,” stamped the father; “am I master in me own
house or am I not? You, ye Communist, as ye call yersel’! Yer the
greatest scoundrel in Ireland. Yer the greatest enemy o’ yer class.
Now, let me alone, Mary, or I’ll tan yer skin for ye. Let me tell
him. . . . Let me . . . Let go,” he screamed shrilly, as she seized
him tightly about the body and began to push him forcibly from the
room.

He placed his hands and feet against the jambs of the door and turning
his head around, he continued in a half-hysterical voice:

“It’s the likes o’ me that’s the revolutionaries, but we get no credit
for it. It’s the likes o’ me that does the hard work, eddicatin’ me
fellow-men, an’ at the same time strikin’ an honest blow for better
conditions. But men like you are criminals. Criminals, criminals,
that’s what yez are. Don’t lay hands on yer father, Mary. Don’t——”

“I’m not touching you,” cried Mary. “Come on now. Get to bed.”

She got him into the hall. He sighed and broke into half-stifled sobs.
Going up the stairs he kept saying in a low melancholy voice:

“If I had only put him on the scaffoldin’ with me, instead of
eddicatin’ him, maybe he’d be alive an’ an honest man to-day. If I had
only . . .”

Then his voice died away into a mumble as a door closed behind him
upstairs.

When Mary returned to the kitchen after putting him to bed, she found
Gallagher sitting beside her mother, writing rapidly in a notebook. He
had taken off his hat. His close-cropped black head looked very
handsome to her. Still she shivered looking at it. The side face
looked very cruel, with the brooding expression on it, as he looked
downwards at the notebook.

She stood watching him until he finished writing. Then he sighed. He
got up. He said a few words to Mrs. McPhillip. Then he shook hands
with her and turned to Mary.

“I want to speak to you,” he said.

She led him into the parlour excitedly. It was dark there and she had
to fumble around for matches to light the gas. She couldn’t find them.
Gallagher offered his box. He lit a match. She went to take it from
him. Their fingers touched. She started and stumbled over something.
The match fell from his fingers and went out. He reached out his hands
to catch her as she stumbled. He caught her by the wrists and held her
tightly. They had not spoken a word. It was very queer in the
darkness. Their faces were very close together, but they could not see
one another. They stood still, each of them mastered by some strange
impulse, that bound their tongues. They stood still, in the utter
darkness and silence of the little stuffed room, for almost a minute.
Then Gallagher spoke. He spoke in a soft whisper. The sound of his
voice was soft and caressing. His lips were so close to hers that his
breath came moist to her lips. There was a catch in his voice, as if
the volume of sound were not strong enough to steady itself on the
air.

“Mary,” he said, “I want you to come to a Court of Inquiry with me
to-night.”

She made no attempt to reply. Neither did he seem to expect a reply.
It seemed that the words and their implication were foreign to the
purpose of their meeting here. It seemed that the coursing of their
blood and the confused beating of their hearts, was in response to
some prearranged assignation of declared love.

But there had never been a question of amorous relations between them.
They had never met in privacy like this before. Their previous
meetings were more in the nature of quarrels. Mary had always disputed
with Gallagher, particularly of late, when she had become violently
opposed to him. But now in the darkness, in the solitude, both she and
he were mastered by some amazing emotion that was inexplicable.

“Dan,” she whispered suddenly, “you make me afraid. Why are we
standing here in the darkness? What do you want with me?”

“I want you to revenge your brother,” said Gallagher suddenly, as if
he had obeyed an unforeseen impulse and broached an unexpected
subject, with which his mind had hitherto only toyed nervously. “I
want you to join me, Mary. I want you to take your brother’s place in
the Organization. But a greater place than he held. No. It’s not your
brother’s place I want you to take but . . .”

“Dan, what are you talking about?” she panted in a terrified voice.

There was a pause during which Gallagher imperceptibly moved his face
closer to hers. Their lips met. They kissed gently. Then she drew back
suddenly, shivering violently. She wanted to rush away and to shout,
but the fascination of his voice was upon her. His voice and the
glamour of his face. His face and the romance of his life. She was
bound suddenly by it. Suddenly too, it became apparent to her why she
had been eager to convert him. It had been in order to meet him, with
a plausible excuse.

And she was almost engaged to Joseph Augustine Short, who was a
“gentleman,” who would place her in a respectable sphere of life, who
would free her for ever from the hated associations of her slum life
with its squalor, its revolutionary crises, its damnable insecurity,
its soul-devouring monotony.

Mother of Mercy! Was she in love with Gallagher? Was she going to be
drawn into the web of his conspiracies by the deadly fascination of
his face and of his voice, by the romance of his life?

“Mary,” he murmured at last, “you are the remainder of me. The two of
us together would make a complete whole. There would be nothing else
wanting to the two of us, no unfulfilled . . . er . . . well . . .
it’s not that either. I have not fully worked out that part of the
theory. I have approached it from another point of view.”

“What is it, Dan?” She drew away her face farther and loosened one
hand. He was wrapped in dreams now and he did not attempt to stop her.
In fact he let her go altogether suddenly and sat on the table, simply
holding her right hand in his. “What do you want with me?” she said
again.

“I want you to join me,” he muttered almost inaudibly, wrapped in his
thoughts.

“Dan, I don’t understand,” she gasped, afraid of his voice.

“How? How?” he muttered. “Why don’t you understand? I want you to join
me.”

“Do you mean . . . to . . . to . . . to marry you?”

“Oh rot,” he cried irritably, waking from his half-reverie and turning
towards her. “These ridiculous conventions don’t enter my
consciousness. Not only have I no respect for them, but they don’t
enter my consciousness. You understand the significance of that. My
personality is entirely in keeping with my mission in life. For me all
these words attain their true values. Marriage, for instance, is truly
a capitalist word meaning an arrangement for the protection of
property so that legitimate sons could inherit it. So I don’t have to
argue with it in my own mind in order to rid myself of a belief in it.
Most men have to do that. I am a hundred years before my time. I want
to destroy the idea of property. It is my mission. I don’t want to
leave property to my children. I don’t want children. They are nothing
to me. The perpetuation of my life is in my work, in men’s thoughts,
in the fulfillment of my mission. That’s why I want you to join me,
because I feel something, an affinity maybe—that’s a wrong word
though—between you and myself. I am sure there is a natural
relationship, chemical maybe, between the two of us. We are two parts
of one whole. I am sure of that. No, damn it all. What a ridiculous
idea! I don’t want you to join me for the purpose of cohabitation. I
have no time to make sentiment a main impulse of my desire to live.
Neither have you. I am certain of it. You are governed by other
impulses. Maybe you don’t know it. Probably you are afraid to analyse
yourself. But I know it. I don’t know it. I feel it. ‘Know’ is not a
proper word. It’s out of use. ‘Feel’ is better. It is an outcome of
the new consciousness that I am discovering. But I haven’t worked that
out fully yet. It’s only embryonic.”

He paused. She started when he stopped. She had not been listening to
what he had been saying. She had been arguing with herself. She had
not succeeded in settling with her conscience what she had been
discussing when he stopped. She bit her lip and started. She was
blushing.

“Tell me, Dan,” she whispered, “do you believe in anything? Do you
even believe in Communism? Do you feel pity for the working class?”

Gallagher uttered an exclamation of contempt and shrugged his
shoulders. He panted as he spoke, such was the rapidity of his words,
in an effort to keep pace with the rapidity of his tempestuous
thoughts.

“No,” he said, “I believe in nothing fundamentally. And I don’t feel
pity. Nothing fundamental that has consciousness capable of being
understood by a human being exists, so I don’t believe in anything,
since an intelligent person can only believe in something that is
fundamental. If I could believe in something fundamental, then the
whole superstructure of life would be capable of being comprehended by
me. Life would resolve itself into a period of intense contemplation.
Action would be impossible. There would be no inducement for action.
There would be some definite measurement for explaining everything.
Men seek only that which offers no explanation of itself. But wait a
minute. I haven’t worked out that fully yet. It’s only in the
theoretical stage yet. I have no time.

“But you spoke of pity. Pity? Pity is a ridiculous sensation for a man
of my nature. We are incapable of it. A revolutionary is incapable of
feeling pity. Listen. The philosophy of a revolutionary is this.
Civilization is a process in the development of the human species. I
am an atom of the human species, groping in advance, impelled by a
force over which neither I nor the human species have any control. I
am impelled by the Universal Law to thrust forward the human species
from one phase of its development to another. I am at war with the
remainder of the species. I am a Christ beating them with rods. I have
no mercy. I have no pity. I have no beliefs. I am not master of
myself. I am an automaton. I am a revolutionary. And there is no
reward for me but the satisfaction of one lust, the lust for the
achievement of my mission, for power maybe, but I haven’t worked out
that yet. I am not certain that the lust for power is a true impulse,
a true . . . but listen. That can come later. Can you give me an
answer now? Will you join me?”

“No . . . no, Dan. Stop. Listen.” She gasped, holding him back. “Not
now. Later on I’ll tell you. On a night like this, with death in the
house, how can you talk of . . . ?”

“Why?” he uttered fiercely. “What night would be better suited for you
to join me? Don’t you want to avenge your brother’s death? Don’t you
want . . .”

“Dan, Dan,” she gasped, struggling away as he attempted to seize her
in his arms, “don’t touch me or I’ll scream. I’m so excited.”

There was a pause. Their breathing was loud in the silence. A noise
came from the kitchen.

“That’s mother going to bed, Dan,” said Mary hurriedly. “You must go,
Dan.”

“Will you come to the Court of Inquiry to-night?”

“Dan, I’d rather——”

“You must come, Mary. You must. You——”

“All right, Dan, I’ll come.”

“Good. I’ll come for you. Be ready at one o’clock.”

“All right, I’ll be ready.”

“Be waiting in the parlour here. I’ll knock on the window.”

“All right, Dan. Go now immediately. I’m coming, mother. Good night.”

He bent hurriedly and kissed her lips. Then he stumbled from the room.
She waited until the hall door closed behind him. Then she shuddered
as the barmaid had done.

Gallagher walked away northwards furiously, with glittering eyes,
thinking.



CHAPTER VIII

Walking out from the public-house into the street, Gypo felt as if he
had leapt suddenly into an arena, where he was to perform astounding
feats, while an amazed audience, with two million eyes, gazed silent
and spell-bound. He thrust his head into the air. He let his arms hang
limply from his shoulders in front of his body. He took two staggering
steps forward and uttered a long-drawn-out yell.

It was that peculiar yell that mountaineers will utter in the west of
Ireland, when the fair is over in the district town and night is
falling, as they issue from the public-houses, bareheaded and
wild-eyed, dragging their snorting and shivering mares after them by
the halter.

Gypo’s yell was just such a one. It was like a challenge to mortal
combat issued to all and sundry. He felt beside himself with strength.
He was free again. Had not Gallagher given him his word that
everything would be all right? Would he not be taken back again into
the Organization? Had he not thrown suspicion on to the Rat Mulligan?
He was free again. Ye-a-a-aw!

He staggered to the kerbstone and yelled, letting his body go
completely limp with ecstasy. Then, breathing heavily through his
nostrils, he stood erect and looked about him to see what effect his
yell had produced. There was a small crowd of people near by. They had
just come out of Ryan’s public-house and from Shaughnessy’s, another
public-house ten yards away at the corner of a lane. The corner was
brilliant with light, from the public-houses, from a fried-fish and
potato shop, and from a drapery shop where the lights were kept on all
night by the owner, with the idea that the light might terrify gunmen
and housebreakers.

Gypo stood out in the blaze of light, on the kerbstone, with the beads
of rainwater on his white woollen muffler reflected like dewdrops in
the artificial light. The people looked at him in amazement and with
that intense satisfaction which the proletariat of the slums always
derives from something unexpected and extraordinary happening, at no
cost to themselves. A spectacle had presented itself. The crowd began
to swell.

Gypo had not intended to carry the affair any further. In fact he had
not intended to yell at all. But when he saw the crowd he became
amused. He pitched on a man who stood near, a tall, thin, respectably
dressed man, who had a sour expression on his face.

“What are ye lookin’ at me for?” cried Gypo, staring the fellow in the
face insolently.

“I’m not lookin’ at ye,” snapped the man irritably.

“Yer a liar,” bellowed Gypo, “don’t I see ye lookin’ at me?”

“Well a cat can look at a king,” cried the stranger, thrusting out his
chin and spitting venomously to his left.

“What are ye sayin’ about kings?” said Gypo angrily.

“Better say nothin’ about kings around here, me lad. I think yer
lookin’ for trouble. I’ve got a good mind to give ye a wallop in the
jaw.”

“Ye would, would ye?” cried the stranger, making a move to take his
hands out of his coat pockets.

But he was too late. Gypo’s right hand swung around. The man went down
like a bag of nails dropped to an iron deck. Somebody cried: “Lord,
save us.” Gypo stood over the fallen man with his chest heaving. A
policeman appeared from somewhere in the rear. He advanced rapidly,
shouldering the people and trying to snatch something from under his
cape as he made for Gypo.

“Look out, look out,” cried an old woman, through her cupped hands.

Gypo looked on either side hurriedly and then he heard the excited
breathing of the policeman approaching from behind. He tried to turn
about, but the policeman was upon him. The policeman’s hands closed
about his biceps and jerked back both his arms to lock them behind his
back. The arms were half-way back before Gypo could mobilize his vast
strength to arrest their retreat. There was a loud snap of bones being
strained taut when Gypo’s strength collided with the policeman’s
strength at the point on Gypo’s biceps where the policeman’s hands
rested.

Both men groaned loudly. The policeman’s boots tore at the wet
pavement, making a noise like dry cloth being rent, as he struggled to
keep firm. Slowly Gypo leaned forward until the policeman’s body was
on his back.

Then he thrust back his head with a snarl. His poll collided with the
policeman’s chin. There was a dull thud and a snap. Gypo uttered an
oath and thrust his head downwards towards his knees, holding his
thighs rigid. Before the head had reached the knees, the policeman had
hurtled through the air with a scream of terror, right over Gypo’s
head.

He fell with three separate soft sounds to the street, with his right
side against the concrete wall of a house. He fell on his back. He
rose again in the middle, resting on his right hand and on his heels.
He brandished his left hand towards Gypo and at the same time he tried
to grip a fleeing spectator with it. Then he moaned and subsided
again.

“Run, Gypo,” said somebody.

Gypo ran towards a lane at a fast run. He was followed by a crowd.
Others gathered around the fallen policeman.

Gypo halted at the far end of the lane, in a dark corner. The crowd
gathered around him. Everybody was panting with excitement. They all
stared down the lane towards the blaze of light where the policeman
lay. They began to jabber.

“I can see trouble comin’,” said one. “The sojers ’ll be here shortly.
Then yer goin’ to see some pluggin’.”

“Gwan,” said another contemptuously. “There’s no sojers goin’ to come
down here. Ye wouldn’t get a sojer in the town to dare come within a
mile of Titt Street on this blessed night, after what happened
to-day.”

At the mention of “what happened to-day,” a man cursed, a woman
crossed herself piously under her shawl, an angry silence fell.

Gypo stood with his hands in his pockets, paying no heed to the talk.
With his lips stuck out, he was looking gloomily down the lane towards
the blaze of light. He was enjoying himself immensely.

“Hist, hist!” somebody cried. “Look, look.”

Two policemen crossed the blaze of light, bearing their fallen comrade
between them. A few women and small boys followed them. Then two more
policemen came, hauling along the man whom Gypo had struck. They were
dragging him unceremoniously, holding him by the armpits, with his
feet trailing along the ground and his arms dangling. They were
probably under the impression that it was he who had felled their
comrade. The man made an effort to wrench himself free, but they
tightened their hold on his arms. He writhed and went limp again,
allowing himself to be dragged lifelessly. A woman, with straggling
red hair and a child on her back in a black shawl, danced in front of
the policemen, screaming and gesticulating, demanding the man’s
release. Then the procession passed out of sight with a mad rush of
feet and a medley of indiscriminate noises.

“Let’s go back,” muttered a young man who had a slight hump.

Gypo grunted and hitched up his trousers. He put his hand to his head
to settle his hat jauntily before leading the way back. But instead he
uttered an oath. His little round torn hat was not there. His massive
round skull stood bare under the night. It stood naked, hummocked and
gashed here and there, like a badly shorn sheep. He traversed the
skull with his right palm, in little flurried rushes, as if he had had
a vague suspicion that the hat was hiding somewhere along the expanse
of skull. Then he set out at a wild rush down the lane, followed by
the crowd, to retrieve the hat, as if his life depended on it. For the
first time, since Gallagher had given his word, terror again invaded
his mind. If they discovered the hat they might be able to discover
the identity of that ponderous fellow who had gone into the
police-station. . . .

But no. He rushed into the road and brought up with a slither of his
right foot on the wet pavement. The hat was lying in the gutter before
his eyes. It lay crushed beside a flattened little cardboard chocolate
box and an orange skin. It had been trodden on by a small bare foot.
The impress of a wet heel was on its right side.

He grabbed it up hurriedly, punched it into shape and crammed it on to
his skull with both hands. Then he laughed aloud and turned to the
people.

“I thought I had lost it,” he cried affectionately. “I had it this two
years.”

The crowd gaped at the hat as if it had magical properties. Others who
had run up without knowing what had already happened gaped at Gypo’s
humpy face, at his ruminative eyes and his eyebrows that were like
snouts, at the red fat backs of his hands, as he held them to his
throat tightening the white woollen muffler about his neck. There were
agitated whispers on the outskirts of the ragged crowd.

“He’s stronger than any bull.”

“How? Why? What did he do?” from a dozen throats.

“Wait till I tell ye. I saw him with me own eyes send Scrapper Moloney
o’ the B Division flyin’ over his shoulder like a man divin’ off the
Bull Wall. I declare to me——”

“I know him well. He used to be a bobby himself once. His name is
Nolan. Gypo Nolan. Didn’t ye ever hear of him?”

“Sure; usen’t he be pals with Frankie McPhillip that was shot to-day?”

“Sure I was,” broke in Gypo, overhearing the remark; “an’ when ye
speak o’ the dead, ye might add Lord Have Mercy on him.”

“Hear, hear,” cried several voices. “Hit him a puck in the jaw. Who is
he?”

A noisy argument and a scuffle arose. The culprit was hustled away,
kicked and struck about the face, until he made his escape by running
at full speed up the lane. Then they all crowded around Gypo again.

He stood head and shoulders above them, revelling in the attention he
was attracting. He stood so impassively with his arms folded, that he
might be mistaken for a great scowling statue at a distance. Then he
suddenly raised his right hand and made a circular movement with it.

“Come on,” he cried wildly. “I’m goin’ to give everybody here a feed.
Come on. Come on every mother’s son in this crowd that’s hungry.”

He waved his arm towards the fried-fish and chip shop and headed off
towards the door.

“Hurrah!”

“Long life to ye, me darlin’ son of Erin.”

“More power to yer elbow.”

“Up the rebels.”

Gypo strode in front of the disreputable throng as proud as a king
leading his courtiers. They came after him with pattering feet,
panting, pushing, snivelling, emitting that variegated murmur of sound
that comes from a pack of wild things in a panic, coming from afar,
unseen, without a guiding reason. They were the riff-raff and the
jetsam of the slums, the most degraded types of those who dwell in the
crowded warrens on either bank of the Liffey. But to Gypo they were an
audience to acclaim his words and his deeds.

“Before long ye’ll see me cock o’ the walk around here,” he thought,
as he strode into the shop. “Me an’ Gallagher. Come on, every man jack
an’ woman too. Come on.”

They packed the little shop to the door. There was an overflow
outside. It was warm within after the drizzling rain and the sharp
wind outside. The air within the shop became almost immediately full
of the vapour of human breath. The low murmur of breathing could be
heard distinctly through the hum of whispered conversation.

“Hey there, towny,” cried Gypo to the shopkeeper, “chuck us a feed for
all hands. I’m payin’ for the lot.”

The shopkeeper was an Italian, a dark middle-aged fellow with
plaintive eyes. He looked at Gypo and then at the crowd. Curiosity,
fear, suspicion and surprise raced across his face. Then he smiled and
nodded his head. He said something in a foreign language to the girl
who stood behind him and then he began immediately to put steaming
portions of potatoes and fish into slips of old newspapers that lay
ready to hand. The girl, a red-cheeked young woman with big black
eyes, dressed in white, busied herself, pushing to and fro on a long
arrangement like a sink, more fish and potatoes that were being fried.
A crackling noise came from this frying. A hot, sweet and acrid smell
permeated the whole room.

The starved wastrels revelled in that smell. They looked towards the
frying food with eager mouths and glistening eyes. Their nostrils
smelt its heat and its savour greedily. Their faces were all fierce
and emaciated. Their bodies were unkempt, crooked, weazened. But just
then, the joy of an unexpected banquet had filled even their haggard
and stupefied souls with a pleasure that made them laugh and chatter
irresponsibly like children. The sorrows and the miseries of life were
forgotten in that moment of common rejoicing. And perhaps that joyous
mumble of chattering voices, rising through the steam in that slum
eating-house, was a beautiful hymn of praise to the spirit of life.

And Gypo stood among them like some primeval monster just risen from
the slime in which all things had their origin.

While around him crowded the others, like insects upon which he had
been destined to fatten.

As he looked about him, with the slow, languorous eye movement of a
resting bull, he felt the exaltation and conceit of a conqueror at the
hour of victory. An intelligent being, gifted with such strength and
the power to analyse his sensations, would have said: “This is the
greatest moment of my life.” But Gypo did not think. There was nothing
about him in relation to which he could think. A queen will not dream
of flaunting her beauty and her raiment at a boors’ banquet. But she
will, on a public holiday, bow to their clamorous cheers. So with
Gypo.

The cumbersome mechanism of his mind had been put in motion that
evening by the necessity for forming a plan after leaving the
police-station. The unaccustomed strain had unmoored it. It floundered
about until Gallagher’s promise perched it on a foolish eminence
whence it regarded the rest of humanity with contempt. It sprawled its
ponderous foundations on that crazy eminence as arrogantly as if it
were about to rest there for eternity.

He rolled his eyes about at the heads that were standing thickly
around him, some on a level with his biceps, some on a level with his
waist, while here and there a tall man like himself, stood with a red,
lean, knotted neck strained forward, with throbbing throat, towards
the food counter.

“Biga lot o’ people,” murmured the Italian suddenly, making a polite
gesture with his hands to indicate the number of people present and
the nature of his suspicions.

“That’s all right,” muttered Gypo. “Count ’em as ye hand out the grub.
I’ll pay. Don’t you fret yersel’. Keep back there.”

He had been standing with his palms against the edge of the
marble-topped counter. Now, in order to put his hand into his right
trousers pocket, he had to pick up a small-sized man and crush him in
between two women, who leaned away behind their shawls. Then he thrust
his hand into his pocket and fingered the wad of Treasury notes. The
very touch of them sent a wave of remembrance through his body. A
slight tremor ran up, almost tangibly like a breath of cold wind in a
hot place, up the extent of his body until it entered his brain. The
remembrance of the origin of that wad of notes staggered him
momentarily. He remembered the fat white hand, surmounted by a
carefully brushed blue sleeve, that had handed him the wad over a
desk, saying ever so icily: “You’ll find twenty pounds there. Go.”

But after the first shock he curled his thick upper lip slightly and
licked it with the tip of his tongue. The movement of his mouth had
the appearance of a grin. The girl who happened to glance at him just
then, found his gaze centred on her. She dropped the fish slice into
the pan with some sort of an exclamation in a foreign language. But
Gypo, though he was looking at her, did not see her. He was busy with
his clumsy thick fingers, separating a single note from the roll
without taking the roll from his pocket. At last he succeeded in doing
so. He grunted and pulled out a single Treasury note.

He held it up.

“Here ye are,” he cried. “This’ll pay for the lot. Hand out the grub.”

The Italian smiled immediately and began to serve the packages into
the eager hands that reached out for them. He counted out loud as he
did so: “One, two, three, four . . .”

An uproar commenced immediately. People crowded in from the door
struggling to get served. Those who had been served struggled to get
out into the street, with their food in steaming, dripping, paper
packages in their hands. Altercations arose. The shop was full of
sound. There were catcalls, whistling, cursing and laughing. Then a
big docker brought the uproar to a climax by smashing his big boot
through the wooden bottom of the counter, uttering a drunken yell as
he did so. Then he sprawled over the counter, laughing foolishly and
reaching out with his two hands towards the girl who shrank away
terrified. The Italian uttered an exclamation of terror. Gypo turned
towards the docker, lifted him up by the back and shouted:

“Keep quiet.”

The two words re-echoed through the shop, like two rocks rolled down
from opposite precipices and meeting in a glen, with two separate
sounds, a heavy thick sound as they collide, a loud rasping sound as
their splintered fragments fly clashing into the air.

The words had scarcely passed out the door into the night before a
silence fell. Everybody stood still. One man stopped in the act of
sucking a fish-bone between his lips.

“Now carry on,” continued Gypo, “but don’t kick up a row like a lot o’
cannibals. Don’t disgrace yer country. A man ud think ye didn’t see a
bite for a year.”

Then he himself turned towards the counter and asked the Italian how
many meals had been served. Twenty-four meals had been served. He
threw the pound note on the counter.

“Take out o’ that for three rounds for mesel’,” he said.

Then he pushed back his hat, drew a paper full of food towards him and
began to eat. Without speaking, the Italian held the Treasury note
between him and the electric light and peered at each side of it
several times. Then he nodded his head and opened his till.

Mulholland had also strained his neck to peer at the Treasury note. He
had been standing in the angle of the doorway all the time, silent and
immovable. As soon as he saw the pound note, he drew out into the open
and craned over the heads of the people to look at it. A neighbour
noticed him, a ragged little fellow, who mistook the cause of
Mulholland’s curiosity.

“Didn’t ye get any grub?” said the little man to Mulholland. “It’s yer
own fault if ye didn’t. Come on, man. Don’t stand there hungry. Go on
up to the counter.”

He caught Mulholland by the arm and tried to push him towards the
counter.

“Leave me alone,” hissed Mulholland. “I don’t want any grub. Let go.”

“Go on up,” pursued the little fellow; “go on, man. Didn’t ye hear him
say he was standin’ a round for everybody. Go on up.”

“Let go, I tell ye. Let go. I don’t want it, I say.”

But it was no use for Mulholland to refuse. The more he refused the
more the little fellow was determined that he should be fed. Others
joined in, eager for some amazing reason or other that Mulholland
should be fed. It seemed that they suspected something indecent and
improper in Mulholland’s refusal to eat.

“Call out,” cried somebody, “call out for another ration. Bring it
down to him.”

“Yes, why shouldn’t he have his share as well as the next?”

“Let me alone,” cried Mulholland in a rage; “let me alone, or I’ll
smash yer skull for ye.”

That put a different aspect on the question. There were a dozen angry
oaths.

“So that’s what’s the matter with ye. Yer lookin’ for fight, eh?”

“Stand back an’ let me at him,” cried somebody in the rear, pressing
forward.

Mulholland tried to rush for the door, but they held on to him.

“What the hell is the matter now?” thundered Gypo, striding over.

Immediately the scuffling stopped. Gypo came face to face with
Mulholland. He saw Mulholland’s little eyes, gleaming and flashing
like the eyes of a cat beset by dogs. There was a tense moment during
which Gypo struggled with obscure suspicions. But suddenly the
expression on Mulholland’s face changed into an expression of cunning
intimacy. His face instead of being fierce and resentful suddenly
seemed to say: “We are members of the Revolutionary Organization, you
and I. Get this rabble out of my way.” Gypo immediately remembered
Gallagher’s promise. He looked at Mulholland with a good-natured
condescension. “Ha,” he thought, “this fellah’ll be useful.”

“Let him alone,” he cried arrogantly; “he’s a friend o’ mine. How are
ye gettin’ on, Bartly?”

Then he continued carelessly, to impress the crowd with his own
importance and his intimacy with the affairs of the Revolutionary
Organization, which was the most impressive thing in the lives of
those about him.

“Hear anythin’ yet about what I was tellin’ ye? I mean about the
fellah that informed on Frankie McPhillip?”

Mulholland was amazed for a moment. What audacity! But it was not
audacity. Gypo had completely forgotten the ponderous fellow in the
little tattered round hat who had gone into the police-station. His
sudden conceit had completely swallowed that ponderous fellow.

“He must be drunk,” thought Mulholland. He said aloud, whispering to
Gypo, as he bent his head close and turned up his face sideways in his
peculiar manner, “I was just passin’ an’ saw ye. I just thought I’d
drop in an’ tell ye I’d be there at one o’clock. Ye know where I mean?
No, we didn’t hear anythin’ yet about that.”

He winked his right eye. Gypo winked his right eye and nodded
solemnly. Then Mulholland walked quickly out the door, evidently going
off somewhere in a hurry. But he halted at the corner of the lane,
distended his eyes and gritted his teeth. He rubbed his chin
meditatively, looking at the ground. He couldn’t make it out, whatever
it was, that was troubling his mind.

Gypo turned once more to the counter and continued his meal. He ate as
if he were about to travel for days and he were deliberately devouring
a store of food sufficient to last to the end of the journey. Behind
him and on either side of him, they were talking about his strength
and praising him, but he paid no heed to them. He was immersed in
dreams about his future, now that Gallagher was going to take him back
again into the Organization.

“Aha!” cried an old woman, with watery blue eyes and a wrinkled white
face, as she shook her fist upwards at him, “I wish I had a son like
ye. Me own Jimmy, Lord Have Mercy on him, was killed in the big war.
He was the boy that could bate the polis! Don’t be talkin’. I seen him
wan night an’ it took six o’ them to pull him off a coal cart an’ he
holdin’ on to the horse’s reins all the time with wan hand while he
was fightin’ them with th’ other.”

She stamped on the floor and yelled, her eyes gleaming ferociously, as
if the contemplation of her dead son’s fight gave her tangible
pleasure. Then she walked towards the door, trailing her shawl and her
arms with bravado. The poor woman was slightly insane as the result of
paralysis.

A tall, sour-faced, lean man, with a red nose shaped like a reversed
scimitar, who had just come in, looked after the old woman and shook
his head. He mumbled something under his breath. The old lady halted
and looked at him contemptuously.

“What are ye sniggerin’ at,” she cried, “you with a face like a plate
o’ burnt porridge?”

There was a loud laugh.

“Mary Hynes,” said the hook-nosed man, “if ye were more careful of yer
son’s upbringin’ an’ of yer own immortal soul, ye wouldn’t be in the
state ye are in now. Is it boastin’ of yer son’s lawlessness ye are?
Are ye boastin’ of his livin’ crimes an’ he already gone to meet his
God?”

The hook-nosed man raised his right hand dramatically to point at the
ceiling and he glared at the old woman with fierce and menacing
sorrow. But his words produced a contrary effect to that which he
expected on the old woman. She looked at him contemptuously and then
curled her mouth up in anger.

“Yerrah, d’ye call it a crime to bate a policeman?” she cried in
amazed indignation.

“Certainly it is a crime,” cried the hook-nosed man.

“Damn an’ blast it, what are ye talkin’ about, Boxer Lydon?” cried a
burly fellow coming up to Lydon and staring him excitedly and angrily
in the face. “Didn’t ye hear of what the polis did to-day to Frankie
McPhillip? D’ye call it a crime to bate that murderin’ lot? Aye or
shoot them either!”

“I don’t say they were justified in what they did to-day,” cried
Lydon, raising his voice to a querulous shout in order to drown the
uproar; “but neither will I say that the dead man was justified in
what he done. Do none o’ ye think o’ the man McPhillip killed? Wasn’t
he a fellow-man like yersel’? Wasn’t he an Irishman of the same flesh
an’ blood?”

“Aw! that’s nationalism,” cried somebody. “What’s an Irishman no more
than a Turk? Ye belong to the I. R. B., an’ that’s where ye get yer
lingo. Up the workers!”

The hook-nosed man paused with his hand raised until the interrupter
finished. Then he continued unmoved:

“Do none o’ ye think that maybe that man left a mother an’ a——”

But he had to stop. His voice was drowned in the uproar and the
scuffling. The old woman began to sing “Kelly the boy from Killane,”
as she strolled out the door. Another man was pushing his way in
through the crowd at the door towards the hook-nosed man. This
new-comer had been standing at the door for some time. He was dressed
from head to foot in a heavy black overcoat. He was better dressed
than everybody present, but he looked as pale and haggard as the
others. His face continually twitched and his eyes were bloodshot. He
looked at the hook-nosed man fiercely and seized him nervously by the
buttonhole. The hook-nosed man edged away.

“For God’s sake, let up on that rubbish,” cried the new-comer,
stammering at each word. His upper lip was contorting as if he were in
a fit.

“Let me go,” cried the hook-nosed man. “I’ll have my say, an’ I won’t
be intimidated by any Socialist agitator. Keep back from me.”

“I only wanted to tell ye,” shouted the other, “I only wanted to tell
ye . . . I say . . . I say . . .”

Then nothing could be distinguished above the uproar. Everybody
present took part in the argument. The ragged fellows who had come in
with Gypo, curiously enough, took no interest in the argument. Those
of them that had not already disappeared as soon as they got their
food, now took their leave when the argument began. There was even a
look of fear in their faces as they slunk away, as if this
demonstration of interest in the affairs of the world terrified them,
who had no interest in anything, since their souls were numbed by the
hopelessness of despair. Only a few of the most wretched remained,
crouching against the counter, in the comforting shadow of Gypo’s
immensity. They remained because the presence of his powerful
personality comforted them and gave them the imaginary feeling of
having something to protect them from the menace of civilized life.

Those that were now taking part in the argument were of a better
class. They were workers of all sorts, members of trade unions and
respectable people. They had appeared somehow, one by one but rapidly,
in that mysterious way in which crowds of people of a certain type
gather in the Titt Street district and carry on an argument with
furious heat.

Gypo suddenly turned around and looked at the wrangling group, at the
open mouths, the listening ears, the distorted faces, the glittering
eyes. He listened. He blinked. Then he laughed softly within himself.
He felt a crazy desire to yell and fall on them with his fists. The
mixed murmur of their agitated voices had a maddening effect on him.
But he looked back at the counter. He still had food to eat. He
continued his meal. The argument went on.

The man with the long overcoat who had just arrived held the attention
of the crowd. He was a well-known man in the district and all over the
city. He owned a small tobacconist and newsvendor’s shop. He was
called The Crank Shanahan and indeed he was a crank. He belonged to no
organization, he went about alone, he attended every political meeting
in the city and he was continually, in all weathers, agitating and
preaching in a loud shrill voice his own peculiar philosophy of social
life. That philosophy was a mixture of all sorts of political creeds,
but its main basis was revolt against every existing institution,
habit or belief. He was called an anarchist, but he was not an
anarchist. He was just a fanatic who was dissatisfied with life. At
night he was given to fearfully morbid thoughts that caused him to
lock and bar himself in his room and sleep with the blankets right
over his head. He was even supposed to put cotton-wool into his ears
at night lest he might hear a sound. And once the policeman on duty
found him wandering around the street in which he lived, at three
o’clock in the morning, dressed in a torn nightshirt, trembling and
gnashing his teeth with terror. He had jumped up horrified by a
nightmare and rushed out in that state.

“Listen,” he cried. “I don’t agree with the Revolutionary
Organization, but the man that killed McPhillip . . . no . . . no,
no . . . I mean the man . . . can’t ye let me speak? . . . I mean the
farmer that McPhillip killed, he was an agent of the capitalist class.
Then it follows logically that he was an enemy of the working class.
McPhillip was an agent of the working class. He was justified in
killing the man. That’s the matter treated logically and brought to a
logical conclusion. Everything must be approached logically. Listen.
Taking the question from a wider standpoint we can get a broader
judgment that will fit all cases of the kind that may arise”—he raised
his voice to a scream to drown the noise of a scuffle at the door—“in
the near future. We are at the base of a world revolutionary wave.
According as that wave advances and gathers strength the whole process
of capitalist society will crumble up. Then there will be a gradual
increase in the number of these skirmishes, as it were on the . . .”

His voice was drowned suddenly by a big man who began to swing his
arms about his head uttering a fearful torrent of oaths. He was drunk.
Then Lydon shouted:

“Murder is murder, I say. Murder is always murder and the gospel of
Our Lord Jesus Christ says——”

“There must be no mercy,” yelled a little man with a black moustache,
who rushed into a corner where he had room to prance about. “There
must be no mercy. To hell with everybody. That right, boys? Wha’?”

“What are ye talkin’ about?” cried Gypo, suddenly turning about.

Silence fell immediately. Everybody looked at him. His face was
perspiring. He rubbed his hands on his chest. He curled up his lips.
He gave his little hat a slight push towards the back of his head.

Then he was seized by another fit of strange humour. He yelled once
more and staggered towards the crowd, with his arms hanging loose,
pretending to be dead drunk. They fell away from him in amazement. He
stood in the middle of the room and looked about him.

“What ye talkin’ about?” he drawled ponderously, swaying backwards and
forwards.

He glared from face to face, but each pair of eyes was turned away as
he sought them. He was delighted with the terror he caused. Behind the
counter the Italian, still smiling, had grasped a large knife and
stood perfectly still. The girl was crouching on the floor. Then Gypo
broke into a loud laugh, stuck his hands in his trousers pockets and
strolled towards the door.

He hesitated for a moment outside the door. Then he headed straight
across the road. They all ran to the door to look after him. His huge
long frame, clad in blue dungarees that clung to his thighs, shone in
the light of the lamps as he crossed the wide road, one foot advancing
past the other slowly, the trousers brushing with the sound of hay
being cut with a scythe. Then the figure left the area of light and
grew dim as he gained the pavement at the far side, and turned to the
left under the shadow of an abrupt tall house. Then he fell away into
the night.

Presently a lean slouching figure crept across the street in pursuit.
He also disappeared under the shadow of the abrupt house. Nobody
noticed him. It was Mulholland tracking Gypo.



CHAPTER IX

Around the corner Gypo halted. He put his hand against the wall behind
him and stood motionless, with his head turned back, listening. He had
heard a step following him. But the steps halted also. He listened for
several seconds breathlessly and heard nothing further. Then he
snorted and turned his head slowly to his front. He looked ahead into
the darkness, dreamily. He stood perfectly still.

Then his face broke slowly into a sort of smile and his eyes grew dim.
He trembled slightly. He glanced about him sharply and furtively
several times. There was a strange, almost mysterious “significance”
in his movements, slight, sudden, furtive movements.

Then he stared steadily down along the dark, narrow street that
stretched ahead of him, ending at the far end in a high wall, with a
dim lamp at one corner suggesting that another street branched off it
to the left. He winked his right eye at the lamp and a roguish
expression creased his face as he did so.

“Why not,” he muttered aloud. “Why shouldn’t I go an’ have a bit o’
fun? Wha’? A few bob on the women an’ a few drinks to keep me supper
warm.”

A wave of passion surged through his body. He was on the point of
opening his mouth to utter a yell, but instead he thrust his hand into
his trousers pocket anxiously and groped for his wad of money. He
found it. He sighed easily.

“They might have pinched it,” he muttered with a look of gravity in
his little eyes. “That mob around there are a lot o’ wasters. Ye
couldn’t trust yer shirt with ’em on a winter’s night. They’d take the
charley from under a pope’s bed. Terrible lot o’ criminals around
lately.”

Then his face lit up with eagerness as his mind swerved back again to
the contemplation of that lamp at the far end . . . and where that
street led. He swallowed his breath with a loud noise and set out
towards the lamp.

Almost immediately a head peered around the corner behind him. The
head watched until Gypo turned to the left at the far end past the
lamp. Then a man darted around the corner and raced down the street in
pursuit. It was Mulholland tracking Gypo.

When Gypo turned to the left past the lamp he came into a narrow
street in which there were no houses. On the right-hand side there was
a high wall, like a barrack wall. It enclosed a big goods yard
belonging to a manufactory, where mineral waters or something of that
kind were made. On the other side of the street there was no wall at
all. The foundations of houses still remained. Here and there, a
doorway, a chimney stack, or the brick framework of a window, stood up
in a ghastly fashion. Beyond that there was an open space full of
refuse, mounds of earth, bricks, pots, old clothes. The street itself
was a network of puddles. In order to avoid wetting himself to the
knees, Gypo had to walk along the sloping bank of clay where the
houses had crumbled.

It was a dreary sight. It almost shouted its experiences, and if it
had shouted, it would have talked in that endless, loud, babbling
scream in which maniacs and demented creatures utter their words. It
was alive in that peculiar way in which ruins are alive at night, when
the earth is covered with darkness and the living sleep.

But Gypo was not sensitive. For him, the street, with its dirt and its
squalor, was a savage sauce to whet his appetite for the riotous feast
of . . . He strode rapidly. He jumped from mound to mound, now
slipping with a curse, now catching a loose brick in some piece of
wall to steady himself. Now and again he heard a “hist” from the
opposite wall of the street, where some woman, old and decrepit,
sought the darkness so that her ravaged figure might escape the
drunken eyes of some passionate fellow seeking a fool’s pleasure.
These noises, croaks uttered by damned souls, sounds so tremendously
horrid to the innocent mind, made no impression on Gypo. To him they
were merely noises, expressions of everyday life.

Once he recognized one of the women who took a pace forward from her
position and put a wrinkled hand to her brow to look at him.

“Ho! Blast yer sowl, Maggie Casey,” he muttered, “aren’t ye dead yet?”

He chuckled with laughter as he heard her blasphemous rejoinder.

As he approached the far end of the street the silence lessened. He
heard whisperings and murmurs, snatches of distant song, sounds of
footfalls, strains of music. These sounds acted on him like
battle-cries. He almost broke into a run as he came gradually nearer
to the volume of sound. At last he dashed under an old archway and he
was in the next street. The medley of sound was all about him. On his
left-hand side stretched the long, low streets of brothels, entwined
like webwork among the ruins of what was once a resort of the nobility
of eighteenth-century Dublin.

He was in a narrow street of two-storied houses, low houses with green
venetian blinds on the windows of some of them, their street doors
opened wide, lights in all the front, ground-floor windows. But the
street itself was in darkness on account of the drizzling rain. An odd
woman flitted along. A few men walked about uncertainly. The street
had a gloomy deserted look. But from the houses a medley of joyous
sound issued.

Gypo looked on for a moment excitedly. Then he walked down the street
slowly, examining each house as he passed. He knew Katie Fox was by
now at Biddy Burke’s. He wanted to avoid Biddy Burke’s. Biddy Burke’s
house was over on the other side. He didn’t want to go there to-night.
It was only a poor place, used by revolutionaries and criminals of the
working-class type. The women there were an ugly, ill-dressed,
whisky-drinking lot. He was well known there. He knew all the women.
There was only Guinness’s stout on sale and even that was so diluted
and ghastly that it was like drinking castor oil. The more a man drank
of it the thirstier he became. A shilling a drink for poison like
that!

Yah! Away with Biddy Burke and Katie Fox and Sligo Cissie and the rest
of them! To-night he wanted to go somewhere where he was not known. He
wanted to go among beautiful women. Strange, beautiful women clothed
in silk! Mad women! Women with dark, flashing eyes and sharp, white
teeth! Huh! He wanted to go mad. It was a mad night. There was fire in
his blood. His hands wanted to rip mountains. He would swallow
tankards of drink. He would drain this vast reservoir of strength from
his body. He must or he would burst. Already he felt a desire to beat
his head against walls.

For six months he had been walking about a beggar, cut off from
pleasure, subject to Katie Fox’s charity. Phew! She was no longer
attractive to him, that bag of bones who thought of nothing but dope.

Suddenly, without thinking, breathing heavily, flushed, excited like a
man inhaling chloroform, he staggered through a doorway. He stood in a
long, dark hall. He could hear laughter and drunken singing coming
from his right, a few yards down the hall, from behind a door through
which a glint of light came. He strode to the door. He tried to lift
the latch and walk in, but the door was bolted. Almost instantly the
sounds ceased. He kicked at the bottom of the door with his boot
several times.

“Who’s that?” came a woman’s voice angrily.

“Open the door an’ find out,” answered Gypo in a shout.

“Wait a minute, Betty,” came a husky man’s voice; “lemme out.”

There was shuffling and whispering.

“Keep well behind it,” said somebody else.

Then the bolt was withdrawn. The latch was lifted carefully. The door
opened slowly about three inches. Gypo watched these proceedings
nervously and angrily.

“Come on, come on,” he cried at last, “what’s all this monkey trickin’
about? Why don’t ye open the door wide and take yer mug outa the way?”

The man suddenly slipped outside the door like a cat. With his back to
the door and his right hand bulging in his coat pocket he faced Gypo.
He was a stocky, bulgy fellow, with a criminal face. He had rushed out
with the intention of giving Gypo a thrashing with the “blackjack”
that was concealed on his person, but when he saw the kind of customer
with whom he had to deal his jaw dropped. Gypo gazed at the fellow
angrily.

“So you’re the pimp,” he gurgled ferociously.

He took a little hurried breath, shot out his right hand and seized
the pimp by the throat. The pimp gasped. His right hand dropped the
“blackjack.” He reached up with his two hands to grip the giant hand
that held his throat.

“Lemme go,” he screamed.

But Gypo contemptuously hurled him away from the door and sent him
sprawling along the hall into the darkness. Then he sent the door
flying open with a push of his shoulder and strode blinking into the
room.

The room was crowded with people. It was very large. It had a stone
floor and a wide, open hearth where an immense turf fire was blazing
in a huge grate, with steaming kettles on either side, on the hobs.
There was a dresser loaded with shining Delftware of all colours. The
ceiling was high and white-washed. The walls were covered with
pictures of women, in amorous postures and in the varying degrees of
nakedness that might be expected to arouse libidinous desires in the
minds of all types of men. Everything in the room was spotlessly
clean, but the air was warm and heavy, due to the rather intense heat
of the fire and the combined odour of perfume and of alcohol.

This heavy, languorous odour exalted Gypo. He rolled his eyes round
the room, drawing in a deep breath through his expanded nostrils.
Everybody was looking at him. There were eight men present, three
students from the University, an artist, a doctor and three young
gentleman farmers, up from the country “on a tear.” They had hired the
brothel for the night and ordered the proprietress to admit nobody;
but they did not take umbrage at Gypo’s appearance. They were just at
that moment in the delicious stage of intoxication when the most
strange incidents become normal and welcome, to minds that are cloyed
with alcohol fumes and the contemplation of bodily pleasures. The
scuffle outside the door and the manner of Gypo’s entrance made no
impression on them. His appearance, huge, towering, in a suit of
dungarees, with his little round hat perched on his massive skull,
intrigued them with a feeling that this was some new kind of pleasure
provided for their entertainment. They looked at him, half laughing,
half serious, with that dim and distant look in their eyes that comes
with the initial stages of drunkenness.

The women, on the other hand, looked at Gypo with disfavour. There
were ten of them present. Some of them were almost nude and in various
stages of intoxication, sitting on the men’s knees, with glasses in
their hands and cigarettes in their mouths. Others sat solemnly on
their chairs dressed for the street, as if they had just dropped in on
their way somewhere. Their hard faces set in a scowl when they saw
Gypo. He was dressed like a workman. Therefore he had no money.
Therefore they scowled at him. This was an “upper-class” brothel. All
the women here were “ladies.” Their “class” instincts were aroused by
his wretched clothes and his uncouth features.

One woman alone took no notice of him whatsoever. She sat in a corner,
reading a newspaper, with her legs crossed, a cigarette between her
lips, a fashionable short fur coat wrapped around her. Gypo’s eyes
wandered around the room until they rested on her. There they
remained.

“What d’ye want?” cried a harsh voice behind him.

Gypo turned. The proprietress of the brothel was standing beside the
door. Her left hand was on her breast fingering a little silver
crucifix that was suspended from her neck by a black velvet cord. Her
right hand rested on the door, a short, white, fat hand, as if she
were waiting until Gypo went out so as to shut the door again. She was
a small, fat woman of middle age, with a huge head of devilishly black
hair, arranged in towering fashion, with a glittering black comb stuck
in the rear of the pile. Her hair was the last remains of her beauty.
The remainder of her head had been coarsened by the odious nature of
her pursuits. Her face was blotched, wrinkled and pale. Her eyes were
yellow, hard, sunken and bloodshot. Her mouth was drawn together as if
some clumsy fellow had tried to stitch the lips and made a bad job of
it. She was dressed in a blue skirt and a white blouse. The blouse
sleeves were rolled almost up to her shoulders showing a tremendously
fat pair of arms. They called her Aunt Betty and she was known all
over the district for her cunning, her meanness and the peculiar habit
she had, perhaps in the middle of a conversation, of suddenly uttering
a coarse expression, grasping her breasts and staring about her
wild-eyed, as if she were afraid of some dread spectre being in
pursuit of her.

Gypo did not know her, because her place was fashionable, frequented
only by well-to-do people, business men, army officers and students
who had money to spend. Gypo only knew the cheaper brothels, places
that were used as “friendly houses” by revolutionaries, criminals and
working men. On any other night he would never think of entering the
place, no more than a man in overalls would think of taking a seat in
the stalls of a London theatre. But to-night he had transcended
himself. He looked at Aunt Betty arrogantly with his lower lip
hanging.

“I want a drink,” he replied gruffly, in a low voice. Then he added
after a pause with a sudden hoarse chuckle, “an’ anythin’ else that’s
goin’.”

“Ye can’t get a drink here,” said Aunt Betty. “You better be going
somewhere else. You’re wasting your time here, my good man.”

Aunt Betty spoke in a state of great excitement. This was habitual
with her, owing to the terrific strain it caused her to try to effect
the correct pronunciation of her words and “the educated accent of a
woman of good family.” For she always tried to speak like a lady.

Gypo took no notice of her, or of the pimp who had again entered the
room and now stood against the wall, with his terror-stricken eyes
gleaming and his face livid with malice.

“Here,” he cried, “give everybody a drink. I’m callin’ a drink for the
house.”

He thrust his hand into his pocket, pulled out the roll of notes and
separated one, which he held out to Aunt Betty. It was like the
performance of a miracle. Aunt Betty’s eyes sparkled. She advanced
almost unconsciously, laughing with her thin, hard lips, while her
eyes gleamed with avarice. Her fingers almost trembled as she took the
note slowly. Feverishly, she examined it under the light. Gypo laughed
as she did so and gave her a loud, hearty smack on the back, with
horrid familiarity. She merely nudged him playfully in response. The
note was genuine and had passed her scrutiny. She sighed and cracked
her fingers towards the pimp.

“Glasses all round,” she said.

There was a little thrill of applause from the throats of the women as
soon as they saw that his money was genuine. Some of those who were
sitting alone, dressed for the street, got up and approached him,
uttering laughing endearments. Even the women who were already
engaged, sitting on the knees of the men, slightly tipsy, sobered up
and became contemplative and sulkily jealous of those women who were
free to capture Gypo and his wad of Treasury notes.

The men, on the other hand, now regarded him with hostility, jealous
of the attraction he held for the women.

Only one person in the room took absolutely no notice of the whole
proceedings. That was the woman in the fur coat, who sat in the corner
to the right of the fire, reading the newspaper.

And Gypo, disregarding the soft, naked arms that attempted to embrace
him and the amorous, sensuous faces, that were turned up to his on all
sides and the soft, seductive, sibilant whispers that were uttered at
him, kept his eyes towards the indifferent woman in the corner
fixedly.

“Keep out of me way,” he muttered.

He pushed the girls away from him, strode over to the corner and stood
beside the mysterious one. He stood over her, breathing heavily,
looking down at her. She glanced at his knees from under her eyelids.
Then she puffed at her cigarette, flicked something off her sleeve
with her thumb and forefinger and went on reading her newspaper. The
other women looked on silently with narrowed eyes. The men began to
smile. Everybody was interested in what the fur-coated woman would do.

Gypo sat down beside her. He sat on the floor with his back to the
wall.

“Aren’t ye hot wearin’ that fur coat?” he said.

She did not reply. There was a titter from the women.

“What’s all the news in the paper about?” continued Gypo.

The woman did not reply. One of the men burst into laughter, making a
sound like an explosion, as if his mouth had been full of laughter a
long time and it suddenly burst out.

“Horrid man! Go ’way,” said somebody else, mimicking the voice of a
timid and refined woman.

Gypo’s face darkened and his throat veins swelled ominously. But just
then the drinks arrived. He jumped to his feet and rushed over to the
pimp who was carrying them. He drained one glass of whisky, then
another, then another. An outcry arose.

“Hey, don’t drink the lot.”

“Savage.”

“What d’ye mean by callin’ a drink for us an’ then swallowin’ ’em all
yoursel’?”

“Hey! Stop him, Johnny. Take the tray away from him.”

“You all go to the divil,” gasped Gypo. The whisky rushing down his
throat had taken his breath away. “Wait there. There’s lots more.”

He pulled out another pound note and tossed it to Aunt Betty
carelessly.

“There ye are,” he cried, “go an’ get more drinks.”

Then amid the delighted yells of the girls he drained three more
glasses one after the other, each one at a gulp, while the women
danced around him.

Suddenly the whole company went into a state of mad excitement. Human
beings always respond in that way to the mysterious influence of a
fresh and dominant personality, who, with a word, a gesture, a shout,
turns a solemn and bored gathering into an almost Bacchanalian party.
It seemed that all the people in the room had only awaited the arrival
of Gypo to abandon themselves completely to an orgy of mad behaviour.
Shouts, shrieks, smacking kisses, laughter, mingled chaotically in the
warm air of the room. Each of the men vied with his neighbours in an
exaggerated attempt to make a fool of himself. A young man with an
innocent, red face and beautiful grey eyes, a student, stood up
precariously in front of the fire, laughing incontinently and began to
strip himself naked. Another man, a big fellow, seized a girl in his
arms, tumbled with her to the floor and lay there shouting and trying
to kiss her, while she struggled to free her loosened hair from
beneath his shoulder. Gypo picked up two women and perched them one on
each shoulder. Then he seized two others round the waist, raised them
from the ground under his arms and began to jump into the air, yelling
like a bull with each jump, while his fluttering, half-naked cargo of
women laughed hysterically as they dangled about him.

This amazing scene lasted fully a quarter of an hour and then ended
suddenly. Everybody seemed to be exhausted. It was only then that Aunt
Betty’s voice was heard above the uproar.

“Do ye want to get me run in be the police?” she cried.

“It’s all right, mother,” said Gypo, going up to her and putting his
arm around her waist. “Yer a nice girl. I’ll keep order here for ye.
Now who is kickin’ up a row? The next fellah that speaks above a
whisper I’ll open his skull for him.”

“Would you, though?” cried the young man who was stripping himself
naked. He stood in front of the fire in his trousers and underwear
with his shirt in his hand. “I’ll teach you manners, my good fellow,”
he continued, pulling up his trousers and brandishing his shirt. “Come
on. I’ll teach you how to behave yourself in the presence of
gentlemen.”

But somebody pulled him on to a settee before he could do anything.
Gypo looked at him for a moment and then he laughed. His eyes were
gleaming. The quantity of whisky he had drunk was coursing through his
head and his limbs as if it were being pumped methodically by a
machine. He released Aunt Betty and took a pace towards the centre of
the floor. Then he shivered all over and gasped for breath. He broke
into a laugh. He walked over to the fur-coated woman without looking
in her direction. He stooped down, put his arms about her, lifted her
up until her face was level with his and he kissed her. His clumsy
lips met her right cheek. They groped about for her mouth, but they
could not reach it on account of her frantic efforts to free herself.
He lost his balance and let her down to the floor. He regained his
balance, laughing heavily and wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

There was an intense silence. The woman stood in front of him erect
and trembling. She held her hands rigid by her sides, with the long,
slender fingers bent backwards. She was dressed in excellent taste,
black shoes, navy-blue skirt, short fur coat, small, black hat, from
under whose brim brown curls protruded. She was a handsome woman, a
beautiful woman, but for her face. The left side of her face was
disfigured in a ghastly way from the temple to the jaw. So that one
cheek was white and the other almost black. The left eye was darkened
and almost sightless, while the right eye was blue, clear and gleaming
with anger. The disfigurement touched the corner of her mouth. The
remainder of the mouth was red-lipped, arched and beautiful.

Suddenly, she bared her white teeth and spat at Gypo with the ferocity
of a wild animal.

He shivered. His hands clawed up. His face contorted and he swivelled
his head on his neck from left to right and back again, like a ram
that is going to charge an enemy. A woman near the fire gasped with
horror. But Gypo did not attack. Instead of advancing on the woman he
took a pace to his rear and let his breath out through his nostrils
with a great noise. Then he stood motionless, with his eyes distended,
staring at the infuriated woman in awe and wonder. She was staring at
him with her eyes almost closed.

“You pig,” she gasped.

There was a painful silence. Each person in the room felt sure that a
catastrophe was imminent. The fact that the room, a few minutes
before, had been full of the sound of libidinous revelry made the
silence all the more terrible. Everybody watched Gypo. His huge body,
monstrous with strange movement, stood under the glare of the lamp
that hung from the ceiling. His face, staring steadily at the woman,
changed again and again, in response to the dark and mysterious
suggestions that chased one another through his mind. At one moment
his chest would heave and his limbs would stiffen. Then his breath
would come out with a snap. His jaws would set. His eyes would expand.
A movement would begin in his throat. Then a sound like a curtailed
snort would come from his nostrils.

At last, after waiting for twenty seconds, the spectators were
startled by the unexpected outcome of these movements. Gypo broke into
a roar of laughter. He raised his head and laughed at the ceiling.
Everybody gaped at him in fright. All gaped at him, terrified, except
the woman. As if in response to his laughter, laughter broke from her
lips too, but it was the shrill, thin laughter of hysteria, that made
her eyes glitter coldly.

Breaking off in the middle of his laugh, Gypo strode over to Aunt
Betty. He took her by the arm, pointed his finger at the woman in the
fur coat and whispered hoarsely:

“I want her. Get me a room. I want to take her upstairs. Ye can have
whatever money ye ask.”

“Never,” shrieked the woman in the fur coat.

She put her hands to her face. Then she took a tiny step forward with
her right foot and stood leaning on the foot, trembling as if she had
planted it on ice.

“None of this nonsense, Phyllis,” said Aunt Betty, coming forward to
the centre of the room. She faced the fur-coated woman with her arms
akimbo and her jaws squared. “I’m fed up with your swagger. You’re no
better than yer board and lodging, an’ as long as I keep you, you’re
no better than any other woman that takes bite and sup in my house.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it. One man is as good as another.
You’re going with him.”

“That’s true, Aunt Betty,” cried several women, looking with hatred at
the fur-coated woman.

“Rabble,” shrieked the fur-coated woman, stamping her feet and shaking
her fists all round her at the women. “What filthy souls you have to
be reduced to this level. I’m not a prostitute like you and that’s why
you hate me. You hate me because I’m an educated woman and——”

“It’s nothin’ o’ the kind,” cried a big, large-boned, red-faced,
strong, handsome woman, called Connemara Maggie. “We hate ye because
yer a stuck-up, ignorant thing, that thinks she’s better than what God
turned her into; an’ God forgive me for sayin’ so——”

“More power to ye, Maggie,” interrupted several, “tell her yer mind.”

“I don’t mind what you say, Connemara Maggie,” gasped the fur-coated
one. “You’re not the worst of them and——”

“Good God,” shouted Aunt Betty, suddenly putting her hands to her
breasts.

She backed to the wall, staring furtively at the fur-coated woman. She
was in the power of one of her “visions.” Gypo stared at the woman in
the fur coat with his arms hanging loosely by his sides.

“Listen,” continued the woman, “I don’t bear any of you any malice.
You can’t help it, any of you. I don’t bear even you any malice, Aunt
Betty. I know very well that were it not for you I would starve
or . . . or be in a worse place. I have been in your house a month now
and you’ve been kind to me. I know very well nobody can help anything.
I’m English, an army officer’s wife, so it’s only natural that you
girls would be prejudiced against me——”

“It’s nothing o’ the kind,” cried Connemara Maggie; “it’s yer stuck-up
ways that——”

“Let her have her say, Maggie,” cried another.

“I had no right to come in here,” cried the woman, bursting into
tears. “I should have gone to the police and got them——”

“The police!” yelled Gypo suddenly, starting as if he had been
awakened from his sleep. “None o’ that talk. Keep away from the
police. What d’ye want the police for?”

“I want to get back home,” sobbed the woman.

“Where’s yer home?”

“It’s . . . it’s near London.”

“Well, what are ye doin’ over here then?”

“I got this,” cried the woman, becoming hysterical again. She put a
trembling hand to her disfigured cheek. “I got this a year ago. It’s
driven me mad. My husband took another woman. I sold everything I had
and came over to Dublin. I wanted to go to work. Honest to God, I did.
But I could get nothing. Then a man brought me down here. Good God,
the shame of telling you all this in a place like this . . .
the . . .”

“D’ye want to go home now?” cried Gypo angrily.

She did not reply, but looked at him with large eyes, as if in
amazement.

“What’ll bring ye home?” he continued. “How much will it cost?”

“A little over two pounds,” she replied in a low voice.

“Here,” he cried, taking out his money, “here’s yer fare. One, two,
three,” he paused and was going to add a fourth, but he put it back.
He handed her the three notes. She shrank backwards, looking at the
money with large eyes.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said in a strange, dreamy voice. “Take the money
an’ get outa here. That’s enough to take ye home. Go back home. Yer
not wanted here. You an’ yer husband and the police. Ye better keep
away from the police, I’m tellin’ ye. Go on. Beat it. Get outa here.”

Staring him in the face, trembling, with her mouth open, she seized
the notes suddenly. Then uttering an exclamation, she looked about her
once and rushed to the door.

“Go off now,” cried Gypo after her. “Go off now.”

Everybody stared at the door through which she disappeared, banging it
after her. There was silence. Then Aunt Betty spoke:

“That’s all very well,” she sniggered; “but she owes me two pound ten.
Who’s goin’ to pay me that? It’s all very well doin’ the——”

“Shut up yer gob,” cried Gypo, “here’s two pound for ye. That’s
enough. Not another word outa ye.” He threw two pound notes at her.
Then he threw out his arms. “Who’s comin’ to bed with me,” he cried,
“before the bank is broke?”

“I am, me bould son o’ gosha,” cried Connemara Maggie, rushing to him,
with her yellow curly hair streaming about her face and her blue eyes
dancing.

She enveloped his neck with her brawny arms.



CHAPTER X

At fifteen minutes to one, Bartly Mulholland entered Biddy Burke’s
kitchen and sat by the fire. Nobody addressed him. He saluted nobody.
Biddy Burke was sitting on the other side of the fire, on a stool,
smoking a cigarette.

Biddy Burke was a middle-aged woman with a lowering expression in her
black eyes, with puffed-out, sallow cheeks and a swollen throat. She
was of the type of Irishwoman that is prone to sudden passions, due to
the habit of eating enormous meals and then suffering from digestive
disorders. They are tender-hearted people, utterly lacking in an
æsthetic sense, violent, quarrelsome, savage, generous, inconsistent.
Biddy was dressed in a white blouse and a blue skirt. She wore her
greyish hair drawn back to her poll tightly and parted in the middle
according to the peasant fashion.

There were other people in the room, two young women who sat on chairs
and Jimmy “the fancy man,” who lay on his right side, on the settle
opposite the fire.

Mulholland looked around the room slowly. Then he spoke.

“Was Gypo Nolan here this evenin’, Mrs. Burke?” he said.

Biddy Burke slowly shook her head, carefully examining Mulholland’s
face as she did so. Then, as if she suddenly remembered something
important, she leaned forward and bunched her lips together.

“There hasn’t a man stood within me door this blessed night,” she said
in her rough, croaky voice. “No, nor damn the bottle o’ stout did I
sell. That’s the God’s truth. Some people find Biddy Burke all right
when they’re in trouble an’ they got nothin’, but when their tune
changes they give her a wide berth. I’ll soon be in the workhouse at
the rate things are goin’. I never saw anythin’ like it. The country
is goin’ to the wall. That’s all there’s to it. I knew they’d make a
mess of it with their revolutions an’ their shootin’ the peelers. Not
that I didn’t do me bit to help the boys, God bless ’em, but ’tisn’t
the boys that done the fightin’ that get the jobs. So it isn’t. It
never is, if ye ask Biddy Burke. It’s them publicans an’ bishops that
were always top dog in this country. ’Twas that way before an’ ’tis
that way now an’ ’twill be that way when Biddy Burke is goin’ to meet
her God on the day of judgment. They were talkin’ about English
tyrants, but sure nobody ever saw the likes o’ these tyrants with
their searches an’ their raids, an’ every divil’s wart of a farmer’s
son that can pull on his breeches without his mother’s help, runnin’
around an’ callin’ himself a gineral. Aw! Gypo Nolan! He’s like the
rest o’ them, Bartly Mulholland. You take it from Biddy. Indeed then,
he hasn’t set a foot within me door. It’s not that I haven’t heard of
his goin’s on though. Huh!”

“What did ye hear about him?” asked Mulholland, peering at her.

“What did I hear about him?” cried Biddy Burke. “What d’ye take me
for, Bartly Mulholland? An information bureau or what? Don’t be
botherin’ me.”

Mulholland sighed. Then he took out his pipe and lit it. He put his
back against the wall and began to smoke in apparent comfort. There
was silence. Through the open street door sounds of footsteps and of
voices came in through the rain now and again. They were subdued
sounds. It seemed that everything was waiting for something monstrous
to happen.

The two young women began in their gruff, cracked voices to discuss
the death of Francis Joseph McPhillip. They talked casually, in
whispers, indifferently.

Mulholland peered at them for a moment. Then he sank back into his
thoughts. His thoughts just then were not at all comfortable. He had
lost track of Gypo. He had been wandering about trying to find his
quarry again, absolutely without success. Gypo had been swallowed up.
A more nervous man than Mulholland would have not taken the matter so
philosophically, so coolly. Because if Gypo could not be found again,
Mulholland’s own life would be in serious danger. But Mulholland was
not considering that aspect of the affair. Mulholland was a sincere
revolutionist. It was the danger to the “cause” that worried him. The
“cause” was his whole existence. He did not understand any other
purpose in life except the achievement of an Irish Workers’ Republic.

Still . . . as he sat on the stool, stoically smoking his pipe, other
worries came into his mind. If he could not find Gypo and anything
serious happened to himself as a result, what would become of his wife
and his six young children? He hardly ever thought of them seriously,
in this way, with a view to the future. The future held a workers’
republic, somewhere in the distance, when there would be no slums, no
hunger, no sick wives, no children that got the mumps and the rickets
and the German measles and the whooping-cough with devilish
regularity. It never worried him to think that his wife and his six
children were for the moment living in a miserable slum shanty, with
his wife going rapidly into a decline through hard work. That had to
be. The “cause” was above all these things. Why! It was his wife who
often urged him on to give all his time to the “cause” whenever he
became slightly despondent or disheartened, timorous or apathetic.

Ever struggling without reward!

So he thought suddenly. But almost as soon as the thought entered his
brain another thought came in mad, bloodshot pursuit. He pulled
savagely at his pipe and ejected the first thought in terror.

Even “mentally” it was dangerous to think of leaving the Organization
without being expelled. After all . . . terror was the foundation of
his zeal.

He forced himself into his habitual calm. His face assumed the
impenetrable aspect which he had developed during five years of
constant practice. He turned to Biddy Burke again.

“Where did ye say ye saw Gypo carrying on?” he said casually.

Biddy Burke looked at him ferociously, emitting two columns of
cigarette smoke through her fat nostrils.

“I didn’t say I saw him carryin’ on anywhere, Bartly Mulholland,” she
said angrily. “Be the holy! These late years every one o’ ye is as
smart as a corporation lawyer. Now look here, Bartly. I don’t want to
have any truck atall with ye or yer crowd. Ye know that too. I know
ye, me fine bucko, an’ I don’t think . . . eh . . . well o’ course,
Bartly . . . ye know what I mane. . . . It’s not . . . uh . . . that I
mane any harm . . . but a poor woman like mesel’ . . . o’ course I’m
ready as I said before to do me duty for me fellow-men . . . but it’s
like this . . . what does a woman like me gain be gettin’ mixed up in
politics . . . that is o’ course . . . look here,” she continued in a
lower voice, “I heard he was up in Aunt Betty’s, raisin’ hell up
there. He was one o’ your crowd, wasn’t he?”

Mulholland looked at her sombrely. She drew back immediately.

“Well, ye know me well, Bartly,” she muttered apologetically and
nervously. “I’m not sayin’ anythin’ out o’ place. Am I, girls? Sure——”

Just then an interruption came from outside. Footsteps came rushing to
the door. Then gasps were heard. Then a panting sound became audible.
Then Katie Fox burst into the room, with her right hand on her hip,
her eyes glittering, looking about her wildly. She rushed up to Biddy
Burke. She bent down from the hips towards her and began to speak
immediately, gasping after each word.

“What d’ye think of it, Biddy?” she cried. “D’ye know where I found
him? D’ye know where I found him? The big hulkin’ waster! An’ she
that’s not fit to walk the same street as me with her big, ugly arms
around his neck! She laughed in me face. She laughed”—screaming—“in me
face! I wish to God I had hit her with the bottle I threw. That ud
spoil her mug. Though it was spoiled enough the day she was born. Who
was she, may I ask? Who was she, Biddy Burke? I’m askin’ ye. Ye don’t
know an’ ye’d never guess in a thousand years. Who would she be but me
bould Connemara Maggie! That imperent trapster that came up here last
year as a skivvy in a Gaelic Leaguer’s house, one o’ them crazy
fellahs that goes around in kilts. She came up here an’ before she was
three months in town she was put in the family way be a soldier. Then
she comes down here, with her curly locks an’ her big face like a
heifer, savin’ the comparison. I pushed up past Aunt Betty in the hall
an’ she shoutin’ after me. I bust into the room an’ there he was,
sittin’ on the floor, with his legs spread out, drinkin’ outa the neck
of a bottle, laughin’ like a fool, with her sittin’ beside him.
‘Hello, Katie,’ says he, ‘d’ye want a drink?’ ‘’Twill do ye good,’
says she with a giggle. Me curse on her! I gave him a bit o’ me mind
an’ . . . Biddy, for God’s sake, gimme a drink o’ water. Biddy,
listen.”

She threw herself suddenly at Biddy’s feet and began to moan. But
almost immediately she jumped to her feet again and cried out:

“An’ what’s more he gave three quid to that swank of an Englishwoman.
He gave her three quid and he paid two quid more to Aunt Betty, money
that was owin’ to her for board, an’ he never gave me a penny. Me that
kept him for the last six months when I hadn’t a bite mesel’. But I’ll
tell everybody. I’ll tell.”

She looked around her wildly. She saw Mulholland. She came up to him
and bent down close to his face. Her hat trailed off. Her hair fell
down over her eyes. She swayed. She pointed her right forefinger
menacingly at Mulholland’s forehead.

“Listen to me, Bartly,” she said. “You remember me when I was a good
girl an’ when I was a member o’ . . . ye know yersel’ . . . Well, so
was he, wasn’t he? Well, can ye tell me how did Frankie McPhillip get
plugged? Who got the twenty quid that the Farmers’ Union gave out?
Where did he get the money? I’m not shoutin’ any names. No names, no
pack drills. But ye can guess for yersel’. Where did he get his money
from? Was it be robbin’ a sailor at the back o’ Cassidy’s same as he
told me in the pub? Was it?” She suddenly threw her hands over her
head and clawed the air, shrieking. They jumped up and caught her.

Mulholland got to his feet quietly. He stole out into the street,
avoiding the people who came rushing up to Biddy Burke’s door,
attracted by the screaming.

Mulholland chuckled as he crossed the street. He would have plenty of
news for Gallagher. After this there would be little difficulty in his
getting McPhillip’s job on the Head-quarters Staff. He stole quietly
into the hallway of Aunt Betty’s house. He went noiselessly up the
stairs without attracting the attention of the revellers who were
still “on the tear.” He reached the landing. There were three doors,
with light streaming through each of them. He listened at each door.
The third was the right one. He stood straight. He lifted the latch
suddenly and strode into the room. He called out as he did so
dramatically:

“Come on, Gypo, it’s time for ye to be comin’ with me.”

For a moment he could see nobody, owing to his excitement and the
thick mist of smoke and unescaped vapours which filled the room. He
stood within the door with his feet spread out wide on the bare
moth-eaten boards of the floor, with his right hand in his pocket
fingering his revolver. His heart was beating wildly. Then he became
aware of Gypo’s presence. He felt that peculiar movement in his head
that the realization of Gypo’s presence always caused, a little
snapping movement of unreasoning terror. Then he heard Gypo’s voice,
heavy and hoarse with drunkenness, but cordial and friendly and
distinctly patronizing.

“Hello, Bartly. Sit down an’ have a drink. Plenty time yet.”

Then he turned his head towards the fireplace and saw Gypo.

Gypo was sitting on the floor to the right of the fire, in a corner,
in half-darkness, bare to the waist, with his trousered legs stretched
out at a wide angle, sitting bolt upright, a bottle gripped in his
right hand between his knees, his feet bare.

Connemara Maggie was standing by the fire drying Gypo’s shirt, his
jacket and his socks. The big boots were resting on a fender before
the fire, steaming. She took no notice of Mulholland’s entrance. With
her golden hair hanging in disorder over her face, with her blouse
undone, with her strong, heavy-boned face covered with perspiration,
with her great, soft eyes swollen and gentle like the eyes of a
heifer, she busied herself tending her man, just as if she had never
left the purity of her Connemara hills and she were tending her
peasant spouse after a hard day’s work in the fields; instead of
tending a casual lover in the sordid environment of a brothel. There
was no hint of vice or of libidinous pleasure in her face or in her
movements. She seemed to be, like Gypo himself, a child of the earth,
unconscious of the artificial sins that are the handiwork of the city.
In her two brawny arms she held the steaming shirt to the blaze. She
stood silent and immovable.

There was little else in the small, whitewashed, low-ceilinged room. A
bed with the clothes tousled on it, a quilt that lay on the floor by
the bed, a chair on three legs and a weatherbeaten washstand,
containing a basin and a broken jug, comprised the furniture.

Mulholland looked around at all this before he spoke. It was as well
to get the correct details in case identification were necessary. Gypo
might deny it. Then he spoke. He had recovered his nerve.

“No,” he said. “I don’t want a drink. It’s time for ye to be comin’.”

“Be off with ye, ye little divil,” yelled Gypo, suddenly jumping to
his feet, with a great scraping and slapping noise. “Who are ye givin’
orders to?”

He took a pace forward and reached out his right hand, but Mulholland
had drawn his revolver and taken a pace to his rear. At the same time
he called out in a hissing whisper:

“It’s not me orders. It’s the Commandant’s orders, an’ ye better be
careful about disobeyin’ them.”

Immediately Gypo drew himself up and let his hands drop to his sides.
His face, which had lit up with anger, dropped into that peculiar
wondering expression, which he wore when he was musing on the river
bank before he went into the police-station. He looked at Mulholland
in amazement. His forehead wrinkled. His nostrils expanded and
contracted. His thick lips moved backwards and forwards, up and down.
His face and his cropped skull shone in the light of the paraffin lamp
that rested on the mantelpiece over the fire. The light also shone
across his body, over a bulging bare shoulder that stood out white and
massive and round below his brown neck. The shoulder muscles were
immense. His body was white and hairless. His skin was perfectly
smooth. But everywhere the muscles strained against the skin, in
irregular, moving mounds. They swelled out on his breasts, at his
biceps, above his hips, on his shoulders, just as if his head and neck
were a massive tree growth and the body muscles were its roots, sunk
into the body promiscuously and afar, during centuries of life.

He looked at Mulholland for some seconds. Then he turned to Maggie.

“Gimme me clothes, Maggie,” he said quietly.

She handed them to him in silence. He dressed. He put on his little
tattered round hat. Then he put his hand in his trousers pocket. He
took out all the money he had left. Two pounds four and sixpence. He
put the four and sixpence back into his pocket. He handed the two
pound notes to Maggie.

“Keep one an’ give the other to Katie Fox,” he said. “Ye’ll find her
down at Biddy Burke’s.”

She nodded and put the notes within her blouse.

“So long, Maggie. See you again,” he said, going to the door.

“So long,” she called after him quietly.

Gypo stalked out unsteadily, followed by Mulholland.

After a little while Connemara Maggie also left the room. She went
down to Biddy Burke’s.

Biddy Burke’s was now thronged with people. They were mostly women of
the district and their men. They had been talking at a terrific rate
when Maggie came in, but a strange silence fell upon them when she
appeared. She did not take any notice of them. Going up to Katie Fox,
who sat by the hearth, on the seat occupied recently by Mulholland,
she took out the pound note and offered it to her.

“Gypo Nolan gave me this for ye,” she said quietly.

Katie Fox looked at the note. Then she looked at Maggie. Her under lip
was quivering. Her eyes opened and narrowed spasmodically. She was
moved by some complex emotion that she could not master for the
moment. She did not speak. Others began to whisper. Some spoke out
loud and sharply:

“Don’t take it, Katie. It’s blood money,” said one.

“Take it,” said Biddy Burke indignantly. “A pound note doesn’t smell
when it’s changed.”

“Money is the common whore of all humanity,” stuttered a tall, lean,
drunken gentleman, who dozed by the window with his head dangling.

“I bet she got more than that to give ye,” said another woman.

“Yes, I bet she has,” cried Katie Fox, suddenly settling the matter
that was agitating her mind, whatever it was. “I know her. Out with
it, Connemara Maggie,” she screamed, jumping to her feet and squaring
herself. “Out with it an’ don’t stand there tryin’ to melt butter in
me mouth with yer soft looks. How much did he give ye for me? Don’t
tell me he only gave me one quid. Yer a liar before ye open yer mouth
to say so. Ye——”

“Well of all the stories—” cried Connemara Maggie in amazement.

“Don’t put on airs, Maggie,” said a woman beside her. “Don’t put on
airs.”

“Out with the rest o’ the money,” cried Katie Fox.

“Yer a pack o’ dogs,” cried Connemara Maggie furiously. “Yer a pack
o’——”

She gasped and could say no more, astounded and hurt bitterly by the
slanderous attack from Katie Fox, to whom she had never spoken in her
life before, except to say good morning. She fumbled at her blouse and
took out the other pound note that Gypo had given her for herself.
Then she took a purse from a hiding-place on her left thigh. She
abstracted another note from that. She put back the purse again. She
threw the three notes at Katie Fox.

“There ye . . .” she hissed. “That’s all his money. Take it. Maybe
it’s dirty like yersel’. I am well rid of ye. If he’s yer man, keep
him.”

She spat and strode out of the room, swinging her arms and knocking
out of her way all who came in front of her.

Some stared after her and swore. Others looked at Katie Fox. Katie had
the three pound notes in her hands and her lips were moving. Then
Biddy Burke whispered something to her. Immediately Katie sighed and
clutched the three notes in her hand, desperately, staring at the
floor. Then she held them out to Biddy Burke rapidly, without looking
in their direction. They lay crumpled in a ball on her quivering thin
palm.

“Take them, Biddy,” she whispered. Then she suddenly raised her voice
to an hysterical shriek. “Take them, but for God’s sake hurry and give
me something at once. Quick, quick. Give it to me, Biddy. Give it to
me.”



CHAPTER XI

In the Bogey Hole rats scurried about, careless of the sentry who
tramped up and down, from end to end of the long stone passage, with
his rubber-heeled boots sounding loudly in the cavernous silence.
Drops of water gathered slowly on the stone ceilings and then fell
with soft, empty splashes to the stone floors. Except for the
scurrying of the rats, the falling of the water and the footfalls of
the sentry, there was silence.

The Bogey Hole, in which the Revolutionary Organization were about to
hold their inquiry into the cause of the death of Francis Joseph
McPhillip, had once been the wine cellars of a nobleman. Above it the
ruins of the house still remained. But everybody had long since
forgotten the name of the owner in the district. The hallway of the
house was choked with rubbish. The two top stories had fallen in. Only
a few rooms remained in a crumbling state. Children played in them and
parties of men played cards for money there on Sundays. That’s all.
But the wine cellars underneath were often used by the Revolutionary
Organization as a meeting-place and for other purposes.

A wide stone stairway led down into the cellars from the rear of the
hallway. There was a wide passage running straight through the cellars
and rooms opened off the passage on either side. In the first room to
the left of the stairway six men stood about. They were the guard,
seven men including the man who was on sentry. They stood about the
room, or sat on the floor by the wall, with their revolvers strapped
outside their raincoats. A lighted lantern was placed on the floor in
the centre of the room. The faces that were touched by the lantern
light were haggard and pale. Farther down on the same side of the
passage, a larger room was prepared for the inquiry. A small table had
been placed in it. A horse blanket covered the table. There were
several small forms there and a little “bedside table” to the right of
the main table, with a deck chair behind it. A big lamp, turned on
full, hung from the ceiling. It lit up the room so that the dampness
on the walls glittered. Two, tall, lean men stood by the entrance to
the room, one on either side of it.

Across the passage, still farther away from the stairway, the Rat
Mulligan was sitting on a form in another room. His three guards sat
opposite him on a form. They had their revolvers in their hands.

All along the passage the light of the big lamp penetrated. It reached
up three of the steps of the stairway. Beyond that and about the roof
of the passage, there was pitch darkness.

At the far end of the passage the outlines of a door could be seen. It
was a heavy oaken door, very old. Formerly it was the door of an
airtight room where special wines were kept. These wines were let down
into the room from the garden. A trap-door opened off the garden into
the room. The barrels were let down through this trap-door. Now,
however, the room was used by the Revolutionary Organization for
prisoners. A square hole had been made in the upper part of the door
to let in air, so that the prisoners would not suffocate.

It was three minutes past one. Three men, dressed in long raincoats
and soft hats, with masks over their eyes, came down the stone
stairway. They were immediately challenged by the sentry. One of them
mumbled a word casually. The sentry saluted. They walked quickly down
the passage and entered the inquiry room. The sentries at the door
stood to attention as they entered. They sat down. One of them, he who
sat in the middle, threw an attaché case on the table and yawned. They
all lit cigarettes and began to talk in whispers, with bored, sleepy
voices, hardly opening their lips. They were the three members of the
Central Executive Committee who had been appointed as judges for the
inquiry.

At twenty minutes past one Commandant Dan Gallagher came down the
stairs with Mary McPhillip. She wore a dark woolen overcoat buttoned
to the throat and belted at the waist. Gallagher was dressed as
before. She looked around her in a frightened manner. Gallagher had to
urge her along with his right hand that held her arm. When the sentry
uttered his challenge she stopped dead, gasped, and put her hands to
her lips. Gallagher began to whisper to reassure her. Trembling and
clutching at his arm, she was led by him into the inquiry room. He put
her sitting on a form and went over to talk to the members of the
Executive Committee, who had not got to their feet or taken any notice
whatsoever.

At twenty-five minutes past one, a hoarse voice was heard at the top
of the stairs, yelling the words of a ribald song, while another
voice, a hushed one, angrily expostulated. Then there was a savage
grunt, an oath, the sound of a heavy body crashing into something that
broke with a brittle crack and then Gypo came down the stairs. He came
down, slipping on his back, with his arms and legs stretched out,
groping at the air. He landed at the bottom with a thud. He sat up
stiffly. Then he broke out into an amazing peal of laughter.

Men rushed at him from all directions with their revolvers drawn, as
quickly as if they had been waiting a long time anxiously for his
appearance in that strange manner. But when they saw him sitting there
laughing, with his little tattered round hat fallen forward over his
forehead, they halted and put their revolvers back into their
holsters.

“Hello, boys,” cried Gypo. “Here I am. What are ye lookin’ at? I’ll
fight any six men that ever walked this earth. Who’s first?”

He jerked himself to his feet with one sudden forward movement, by
drawing up one heel under him. He stood up, towering suddenly over
those about him. They drew back. Mulholland, who at that moment was
limping down the stairs with his hand to his right eye, sidestepped
quickly with fright as Gypo stood up. He fell headlong past Gypo’s
right shoulder into the arms of two men who reached out to receive
him. Then Gallagher pushed his way to the front.

“What’s the matter here?” he cried sharply. “To your posts, men,
quickly. Well, Gypo? What’s troubling you now?”

Gypo clicked his heels with a loud noise and saluted. He staggered
slightly as he saluted. His face, wild with drunkenness, moved
spasmodically, but he remained silent. He had not put on his muffler
on leaving the brothel. His brown neck was bare, the muscles standing
out like ridges on a mountainside. Then he jerked his hat back into
its correct position and shuffled his feet. He broke into a low, thick
laugh. He spoke.

“You an’ me, Commandant,” he said with a foolish grin. “What ho! We’ll
put ’em all on the run. What d’ye say?”

Gallagher had been looking steadily at Gypo all the time without a
single movement in his face. He turned away in silence and addressed
Mulholland.

“What’s the matter with your eye, Bartly?” he said.

“Oh! he just came in me way,” interrupted Gypo taking a pace forward
and patting Gallagher familiarly on the shoulder. “He came in me
way—uh—an’ I hit him with the back o’ me hand. That’s all, upon me
soul. He’ll be all right again with a bit o’ beefsteak. Don’t worry
yersel’ about him, Commandant.”

Gallagher drew away with an irritated gesture and walked back to the
inquiry room. Mulholland looked at Gypo with savage hatred in his
eyes. Gypo looked around him arrogantly with his chest swelled out.

“Nolan,” called out Gallagher from the doorway of the inquiry room,
“get into that room there across the passage. Third on your right.
That’s it. Wait there until you are wanted. See?”

“All right, Commandant. I see it. I—uh—damn that wall. Stand outa me
way, will ye?”

Gypo stalked down the passage, slightly unsteady on his feet and
breathing heavily. He brought up suddenly against the wall again and
laughed in his throat with his mouth shut. Then he headed straight for
the room where the Rat Mulligan was sitting with his guard. When he
had entered that room Gallagher beckoned to Mulholland. Mulholland
came up. They both disappeared into the inquiry room. The sentries
came to the doorway. They stood at ease across the doorway, facing the
passage, with their drawn revolvers in their hands. “The preliminary
investigation” had begun:

Gypo subsided on to a chair beside the Rat Mulligan. He sat for
several moments with a hand on each knee, staring intently at the
ground in front of him, breathing through his nose and twitching his
eyebrows that were like snouts. Then he raised his head and looked
about him. He examined each of the armed men and nodded to each as he
recognized him. They all nodded in return, but in a sour manner. Then
he looked towards the huddled form of the Rat Mulligan and he screwed
up his face in perplexity. He scratched his skull. He took off his hat
and beat it, in a confused way, against his trousers leg, as if he
were dusting it. Then he put it on his head again. He reached out his
right hand as if to touch Mulligan’s shoulder, but when the hand was
within an inch of Mulligan’s shoulder, he jerked it back suddenly.
Then he jumped to his feet with an oath and stood facing Mulligan with
his chest heaving.

“Mulligan,” he whispered thickly, but with great force. “Hey, Rat!
What ye doin’ here? Hey, Mulligan!”

Mulligan never moved for two seconds. He sat on his chair, with his
flat feet wide apart and his knees together, with his upturned palms
resting on his knees and his head resting on his palms. His little
emaciated body was covered with a heavy black overcoat, that hung
about him unbuttoned, with its ends trailing on the floor. His hat lay
on the ground beside him where it had fallen unheeded from his skull.
His shaggy black hair was tousled and damp. Then he slowly raised his
head to look at Gypo. His face was yellow and hollow cheeked, with
great sorrowful dark eyes and a large mouth filled with two perfect
rows of yellow teeth. His mouth was wide open. His eyes were staring
and bloodshot. His whole body, ravaged by consumption, was terrible to
behold. Gypo gasped, looking at it. A look of terror came into his
little eyes.

“Rat,” he whispered, “what brings ye here? Man alive, why aren’t ye in
yer bed? This is no hour for a sick man to be out.”

The Rat stared at Gypo aimlessly as if he had not heard him and could
not see him. Then, slowly, his head subsided once more on to his
palms. He shivered and sat still.

Gypo came up to him softly. He stooped down and touched him on the
shoulder, as if to console him or to sympathize with him. But as soon
as his hand touched Mulligan he drew back with an oath. Through his
drunken brain the whole memory of the evening’s proceedings rushed
back under the influence of that touch. He remembered distinctly
himself in the public-house, denouncing the Rat Mulligan to Gallagher,
as the man who had informed against McPhillip.

He looked about him suspiciously at the armed men. Their eyes were
cast about the room indiscriminately, with the habitual bored look of
men under discipline. They were taking absolutely no interest in Gypo
or in the Rat Mulligan. Gypo sat down again. He took his head between
his hands. He crushed his skull with all his might in a great effort
to regain control of his faculties.

For three minutes he sat that way, with all his strength concentrated
in the effort to conquer his drunkenness. He was barely conscious of
the effort he was making. It was instinct that warned him of the
dangers that lay ahead of him, instinct aroused by the contact with
Mulligan’s body. His drunkenness resisted fiercely. Continual waves of
reckless delirium surged through his body, rising up from his chest to
his head, with the spontaneous action of sea waves swelling up the
side of an abrupt precipice. His head hummed and swayed. His eyes
blinked. His tongue wagged loose and wanted to talk and sing and
laugh. An unaccountable joy permeated him, a joy that did not
originate in his actual self but in some strange being that had come
to lodge in him temporarily. He could contemplate that new strange
being with savage hatred as he pressed his hands against his skull.
That being was an enemy of his. He must conquer him.

At last he felt his drunkenness weakening, gradually, like the
lessening of a pain at night. It did not disappear but its effects
changed. Instead of feeling reckless and hilarious, he began to feel
cunning, careful, gloomy, defiant, recklessly strong. His head cooled
and steadied. It seemed to have become suddenly walled with steel, so
that he almost experienced a physical pain from the pressure of his
skull against the skin on his forehead. But he took away his hands
from his forehead and he found that the pain vanished. His teeth set.
His face assumed a look of stony apathy, the lips hanging flabbily,
the cheeks loose, the eyes vacant. All the muscles of his body went
loose, with the looseness of the athlete, who is standing at ease, but
ready to plunge off somewhere like an arrow.

In response to this change, as it were in his personality, he got to
his feet in a dignified, calculated, imperious manner. He cleared his
throat. He held out his right hand. He spoke.

“Listen, men,” he said. “I had a drop taken when I came in here. I
didn’t know what I was doin’. I just remembered now who I was talkin’
to an’ it nearly knocked me dead. Look at him.” He pointed a thick,
short, hairy forefinger at Mulligan. “He wouldn’t speak to me. He’s
afraid to look at me. I know why. It’s him that informed on Frankie
McPhillip an’ he knows that I saw him.”

“It’s a lie,” screamed Mulligan, suddenly starting up and spreading
out his hands and feet, downwards and outwards, as if he were resting
exhausted after a race. His face was distorted with fear, amazement
and rage. “It’s a lie, boys. It’s a lie I tell yez. Before the Blessed
Mother of the Infant Jesus I swear on me knees that I never left the
house to-day except to go to the chapel to say me prayers.”

“Ha! Me fine boyo!” cried Gypo excitedly. “Will ye listen to his
oaths? It’s easy work for an informer swearin’ oaths.”

“Never—” began Mulligan again. But he was cut short by two of the
armed men seizing him by the arms, forcing him back to his seat and
putting a handkerchief over his mouth.

At the same time Gallagher rushed out of the inquiry room and across
the passage with his pistol in his hand. His sallow, lean face was
aflame with anger. His eyes sparkled like points of fire. He looked at
Gypo for a fleeting moment. It was no longer the cold, contemptuous,
patronizing look with which he had regarded him in the public-house.
It was a look of fierce, relentless hatred. “The preliminary
investigation” had convinced him of something.

Gypo, on the other hand, looked at Gallagher in a friendly, intimate,
confident manner.

“Here he is,” he said, pointing at the convulsing body of Mulligan.
“He knows it’s all up with him already. He went into fits when I taxed
him with it. So he did.”

Then he opened his mouth and gave voice to a hoarse laugh.

Gallagher smiled faintly into Gypo’s eyes. There was something
diabolic in the smile. It was so inhuman.

“Come on, you two witnesses,” he said icily. “You, Nolan, and you,
Mulligan. You are wanted at the inquiry now. Lead them in, two of
you.”

Gypo walked across the passage jauntily, swinging his shoulders, with
his chest thrown out with his head in the air. Mulligan had to be
carried across. He sobbed all the way fitfully. The two sentries with
drawn revolvers again took up their position in the doorway. Now,
however, they had their backs to the passage. They faced the two
witnesses. The two witnesses were seated on a small form in front of
the larger table. They sat side by side. The two armed men who had
conducted them into the room stood close behind them. The three judges
sat in front of Gypo and of Mulligan at the large table. Gallagher sat
at the little table to the right, with Mulholland standing a little to
his rear, peering over his shoulder at what he was reading. To the
right of the judges Mary McPhillip sat on a form alone.

There was a deadly silence for several moments. Drops of water, one
after another, in irregular succession, could be heard falling from
the stone roof to the stone floor, near the walls. Then the centre
judge spoke in a bored, drawling voice.

“Take Peter Mulligan’s statement, comrade Gallagher,” he said.

As soon as Mulligan heard his name mentioned he tried to jump to his
feet, but the man standing behind him held him down. At the same time
Gypo put his hand on Mulligan’s thigh and made a threatening gesture
with his head.

“Keep quiet, will ye? Ye rat!” he growled.

“Peter Mulligan,” said Gallagher, “give an account of your whereabouts
from noon to-day until midnight when you were brought in here.”

Mulligan looked at Gallagher for some time before replying. He was
obviously trying to speak. His lips moved. But terror held the tip of
his tongue against his upper teeth. He could only jabber inaudibly.
Then at last the tongue sprang loose and the words rushed out in a
flood, incoherent, almost inarticulate, like the barking of a dog.
Then he gasped. He paused. When he continued, his speech was regular
and almost calm. He had become possessed of that meaningless courage
that comes to nervous and timorous people, when they find themselves
in a position where it is useless to be careful, or to exercise any
control over themselves.

“What’s the meaning of this treatment of a working-man?” he cried. “By
you men that are supposed to be out for the freedom of the working
class. Can ye find no better man to arrest an’ carry off in the middle
o’ the night than me, that’s dyin’ on me feet o’ consumption? An’
havin’, still an’ all, to work me hands off at me trade, tailorin’ an’
stitchin’ in a basement, that’s more like the cave of a wild animal
than a room. Me that’s——”

“Mulligan,” interrupted Gallagher impassively but sharply, “I asked
you for a statement of your whereabouts, between noon to-day and
midnight to-night. You better be quick about your statement. We have
no time to waste.”

Suddenly Mulligan’s short-lived arrogance vanished. He looked around
him on all sides pathetically. He saw only stern, unsympathetic faces.
He sighed and dug his hands deep into his overcoat pockets. Then he
drew the pockets closely about his body and crouched low on his seat.
He began to speak in a meek, timorous voice.

“Lemme see,” he said, looking at the ground. “At noon to-day, or let
us say dinner time, if it’s the same to you, I was lyin’ in me bed. I
had a bad pain in me right side from bronchitis all the mornin’ an’ I
had to stay in bed with it. At one o’clock about, the old woman gev me
a cup o’ tay an’ an egg. I remember I couldn’t ate the egg. Well,
that’s no matter. I had to get up then, on account of a suit that has
to be made for Mick Foley the carter. It’s got to be finished be
Friday. His daughter is gettin’ married next Monday to——”

“Don’t mind Foley’s daughter,” snapped Gallagher. “What had she got to
do with your movements? Tell us about yourself.”

Mulligan began to cough furiously. His body shook and he almost fell
off the form. Then the fit subsided. He sat shivering and unable to
speak.

“Come on, Rat,” growled Gypo, nudging him with his elbow in the ribs.
“Ye might as well come out with it now as another time. Go ahead an’
tell ’em all about it.”

Mulligan looked at Gypo. His lips trembled. His great dark eyes filled
with tears. The terrific, massive countenance of Gypo, cunning with
drunkenness, did not inspire him at that moment with fear. For some
peculiar reason, his poor, shattered soul had gathered to itself just
then a great courage. His withered face shone with a spiritual power.
He spoke softly, tenderly, with pity.

“It’s not for me to condemn ye,” he said; “maybe yer not responsible.”

“Blast ye,” yelled Gypo, jumping to his feet. “What does he mean,
Commandant Gallagher, about me not bein’ res-re-prosible? What does he
mean by it? I want to know what he’s drivin’ at.”

“Sit down, Nolan,” cried Gallagher. “Sit down immediately and keep
quiet. Sit down, I say.”

Gypo sat down with a clutter. He stared at Gallagher, with the
strange, bewildered look of a dog that has been reprimanded by his
master and is wondering why he has been reprimanded. For the first
time he realized that there was a cold, dangerous ring in Gallagher’s
voice. He sat immovable for two moments, without drawing breath,
meditating on this hostile ring which he had heard in Gallagher’s
voice.

Unconsciously he took off his little, tattered, round, slouch hat. He
pushed it, without looking at it, into his right-hand trousers pocket.

Mulligan began again to talk.

“Lemme see,” he said, “where was I? Oh, yes. I worked on till about
half-past three or maybe a quarter to four, when Charlie Corrigan came
in an’ said that his brother Dave had just come outa jail, after bein’
on hunger strike for eighteen days. Ye remember he was thrown in on
account of the Slum Rents Agitation. ‘He’s upstairs,’ says Charlie.
Well, I went up an’ we talked over a cup o’ tay until about six
o’clock. It was just six when I left, because I heard the angelus
beginnin’ to strike an’ I on me way down the stairs, because I stopped
to cross mesel’. Then I ran down home an’ put on me overcoat and went
out to the chapel. I’m makin’ the Stations o’ the Cross for . . .” He
stopped and flushed. . . . “Well, it’s no matter to no man why I’m
makin’ em.”

“All right, then,” snapped Gallagher. “We don’t want to know why you
are making them. We merely want facts, not superstitions. You went
into the chapel at six o’clock, or a few minutes afterwards to be
precise. How far is the chapel from your house?”

“Maybe it’s a hundred yards, maybe it’s more. If ye go around the
corner be Kane’s it’s less, but be goin’ the other road around——”

“Oh, damn the other road. Pardon me, Miss McPhillip. Let us say it’s
one hundred yards. You arrived at the chapel then at about three
minutes past six. That correct?”

“Uh . . . that ud be right . . . about that.”

“Well? How long did you stay there?”

“I stayed there until about half-past six. An’ then I stayed talkin’
outside the door to Fr. Conroy for maybe ten minutes. He wanted to
know——”

“Did you talk to anybody other than the priest you mention?”

“I’m comin’ to that. After I left Fr. Conroy I met Barney Kerrigan.”

“Where? Near the chapel?”

“Yes. It must have been within fifty yards of it, as yer goin’ be
measurements, although we never——”

“Just a moment. Were you ever a member of the Revolutionary
Organization?”

“What makes ye ask that? Does any man know better than yersel’ whether
I was or not?”

“_Were you a member?_”

“Sure I was.”

“That’s better. Why did you leave it?”

“I left it, Commandant Gallagher, for reasons that are known to
yersel’ as well as they are to me.” His voice became passionate and
shrill. “I left it because the only one I cared for in this world,
outside me old woman, that’s me sister, came to her doom through it.
But it’s not for me to judge. It’s not for me . . .”

“Very well,” interrupted Gallagher. “You left the Organization owing
to a personal grievance. Was that grievance against any particular
member of the Organization?”

“I bear no fellow-man a grudge,” cried Mulligan solemnly.

“You had no grievance against Francis Joseph McPhillip?”

“Lord have mercy on his soul,” cried Mulligan, crossing himself with
his eyes on the ceiling. “I hope his sorrows are over him.” He turned
to Miss McPhillip. “I swear on me immortal soul, Miss McPhillip, that
I bore no grudge agin yer brother.”

“All right,” said Gallagher. “Well. Tell us what you did after leaving
Barney Kerrigan.”

“I went back to the house after that. I did another bit o’ work until
about eight o’clock. I didn’t do much because fellahs kept comin’ in
an’ out an’ me eyes are not as good as they used to be an’ the gas now
is a disgrace to the city. But anyhow, I finished the waistcoat. Then
I went upstairs to Jim Daly’s room on the third floor. Poor man, he’s
sick this three years with bad kidneys. Only for a pension he has outa
the British Navy, there’s no knowin’ what ud happen to him, an’ he
havin’ no one to look after him but himself, an’ he that delicate. We
had a smoke an’ a talk until about ten o’clock. Then I came down
again. The old woman had just come in, so we had another cup o’ tay
an’ a herring. Then I sat be the fire readin’ a newspaper until about
half-past eleven. Then I began to pouch about makin’ ready to go to
bed, when three men under Tommy Connor came in an’ put a mask over me
face an’ bundled me into a car, without by yer leave, as if I was a
criminal. That’s all.”

There was a slight pause. Everybody sighed for some reason.

“Very good, Mulligan,” said Gallagher. “That will do.”

He got up and went over to the judges’ table. The four of them talked
for about two minutes. The centre judge read from a paper in a
mumbling voice. Another judge took notes, scratching loudly with his
pen. There was a pause. Then another discussion in whispers began.
Then Gallagher came back to his seat.

“Nolan,” he said, quite suddenly, “repeat the statement concerning
Peter Mulligan that you made to me in Ryan’s public-house in Titt
Street at ten-forty-five this night.”

“Yes, Commandant,” said Gypo immediately.

He cleared his throat aggressively and rattled off the story about his
having seen Mulligan track Francis Joseph McPhillip out of the Dunboy
Lodging House. He spoke in a clear, loud and distinct voice, making
arrogant gestures and looking straight into Gallagher’s eyes as he
spoke.

Mulligan kept trembling while Gypo spoke. He seemed all the time
trying to interrupt, but although his lips twitched and his hands
trembled he neither moved nor spoke.

Gypo finished speaking. His loud, strong voice died out, leaving a
sudden silence behind it. There was another slight pause.

“What time exactly did you see Mulligan leave the lodging-house?” said
Gallagher.

“Just half-past six,” replied Gypo immediately. “I know because I
looked at the clock in the hall.”

“Very well,” said Gallagher. “That will do you, Nolan. Miss McPhillip,
what time did your brother arrive at your father’s house?”

“He arrived at ten minutes to seven,” said Mary, after a little pause,
during which she blushed slightly, glanced at Gallagher and then
looked at the ground. “It might be a little earlier than that, but not
more than a minute or so. I had just come in from business.”

“Did he say anything about being followed when he came?”

“No. On the contrary, he said that he was certain that he was not
noticed since he came into town at half-past five. Mother was very
worried about his being in town, and she wanted to get him away
immediately, but he was so confident about being safe that she thought
it was all right his staying for the night. He said he met Nolan at
the lodging-house. That was the only person he spoke to, he said. He
came by back streets after leaving the lodging-house. He never stopped
anywhere and he spoke to nobody. He crossed the river at the Metal
Bridge. It was pitch-black at that time on account of the rain and the
fog. Anybody that knew Frankie’s way of going along, listening to
every sound, with ears as sharp as a fox, could hardly believe that he
was followed without his knowing it. He came in suddenly by the back
entrance through the yard. We thought it was his ghost,” she said with
a little shiver of remembrance. She stopped and put her handkerchief
to her face.

“Thank you, Miss McPhillip,” said Gallagher. “Barney Kerrigan out
there?”

“Kerrigan there?”

“Kerrigan?”

“Yes. I’m coming,” came a voice from along the passage somewhere.

A tall man, wearing a black slouch hat and a new, though shabby, grey
overcoat with a velvet collar, came into the room. He had a revolver
strapped over his overcoat at the waist. He saluted and stood to
attention.

“Did you meet Peter Mulligan at six-thirty this evening?” said
Gallagher.

“Yes, Commandant,” replied Kerrigan. “I saw him just about that time
comin’ down the street. He stopped me to know did I know anythin’ for
the Grand National.”

“Very well. You are quite sure about the time?”

“Well, I couldn’t give ye the exact second, but it couldn’t be more
than a minute one way or the other. I knocked off work at six an’ it
takes me always just about twenty minutes to walk from the quays as
far as Farelly’s. Well, I had a pint in Farelly’s an’ I stopped for a
few minutes to talk to the boys, an’ then when I came out I met Peter
Mulligan. Just about half-past six I’d say it was.”

“Very well,” said Gallagher, “return to your post. Peter Mulligan, you
can go now. You will be taken home in the car that brought you here
and we’ll see you right for any inconvenience that was caused to you.”
He walked over to the judges and whispered something hurriedly. They
all nodded and put their hands in their pockets. “One moment,
Mulligan,” he called. They all gave him money. He added some from his
own pocket. He came over to Mulligan and handed him a fistful of
silver. “For the present this might help you. I’ll see what can be
done for you later on. I’ll bring your case up before the Relief
Committee. Good-night, Comrade.”

Mulligan took the money with bowed head. He got up and moved to the
door hurriedly without saying a word, with his hat crushed in his two
hands and his overcoat flapping behind him. He disappeared out the
door, head first, stooping, hauling his two flat feet after him as if
he were dragging them against their will. Then, with a hard, biting
cough he disappeared.

The sentries stood again across the door. Gallagher walked slowly back
to his table. He sat down. There was a deadly silence.

The silence lasted only about twelve seconds. During this pause
Gallagher took out a notebook and turned over the pages, while
Mulholland bent over his shoulder whispering something, and the three
judges murmured with their heads close together. But to Gypo these
twelve seconds were as long as twelve years to a man stricken with a
painful and incurable disease. A succession of terrors flitted through
his mind. They were not ideas or thoughts, but almost tangible terrors
that seemed to materialize in his brain as the result of the reasoning
of some foreign being. His cunning and his assurance were gripped
suddenly by that amazing foreigner and hurled out of him, clean out of
him into oblivion, like two bullets fired through the air.

Ha! They were hurled out of him by the amazing fact of Mulligan’s
disappearance, free, with money in his pocket given to him by
Gallagher. They had given him money. They had called him comrade. They
had promised to bring his case up before the Relief Committee. They
sent him away free. He had gone. . . . Jesus, Mary and Joseph! What
was the meaning of it?

Then suddenly, as he sat there, bolt upright on his seat, massive,
those unspeakable terrors crowded into his mind. They came ready-made,
fully matured, nauseating like bilious attacks, sharp and biting like
bayonet wounds, heavy and ponderous like palpitations of the heart.
They came, one, two, three, four . . . scores of them, lining up in
his brain, shoulder to shoulder, in a mass, standing there solidly and
then immediately disappearing like ghosts without a sound and giving
place to others. There was a mass of them but each one was distinct.
Each had its own peculiar silent screech. Each had its own peculiar
demoniac grin. Each had its own peculiar . . . damn them all! The
curse of them was that he did not know what they were. It seemed that
his personality was bound in chains and he was unable to grapple with
the cursed things. He must sit still, bolt upright on his wooden form,
and permit them to stand there unchallenged in his brain. He was
helpless. A cold sweat came out through every pore of his body.

Four seconds passed. Then his mind began to grope about among the
terrors, timorously, like a snail that has been touched and has gone
into his shell feigning death and has come out again touching blades
of grass suspiciously and wriggling its horns. Gypo opened his
nostrils and his mouth. He drew in a deep breath through both organs
simultaneously. The cold sweat suddenly became warm. His blood flooded
his head with a surging movement. He became ferocious. At first his
eyes narrowed and his eyebrows that were like snouts bent down. Then
his eyes opened wide and his eyebrows lifted, like guns that are
elevated in order to train them on a target. His lower lip dropped.
His mind began to work methodically. The terrors vanished out of it
and gave place to an iron determination to fight to the bitter end.

With his blood maddened by alcohol, he became conscious of the vast
strength in his body. He almost experienced a feeling of happiness at
this opportunity for using it. It was that savage joy that is always
present in the Irish soul in time of danger, the great fighting spirit
of our race, born of the mists and the mountains and the gurgling
torrents and the endless clamour of the sea.

He looked around him measuring those against whom he had to fight. To
his left he saw Mary McPhillip sitting. She had her hands in her lap.
She was leaning forward slightly, with a nervous expectant look in her
eyes, looking at Gallagher. She cast a terrified glance, occasionally,
towards Gypo, but her eyes always came back to Gallagher’s face as if
they were fascinated by it. It was obvious that she was terrified and
that her mind was trying to keep itself fixed on the object of the
prayers which her moving lips were uttering. Gypo saw the terror in
her quivering face and knew that he had nothing to fear from her. Then
he looked at the three judges. He knew those masked men. They were
merely puppets, politicians, figure-heads who would do Gallagher’s
bidding, afraid to contradict him. Ha! Gallagher was the man he had to
fight. Gallagher and that rat Mulholland. He saw them over by the
little table with their heads together. He fixed his eyes on them.

Feverishly he set himself to form a plan, not that he hoped anything
at this hour from the formation of a plan, but merely because making a
plan was an end in itself to his peculiar reason. But he could not
even think of a plan. All his energies were concentrated on
maintaining his anger at fever heat. He struggled feebly with threads
of ideas and then dropped them hopelessly. He doubled up his fists and
held them, knuckles downwards, one on each hip. The two armed men who
stood behind him, saw his back muscles rise and strain against his
dungaree jacket.

Then the silence broke. Gallagher got up with his open notebook in his
hand. He walked over to the judges’ table. He placed the notebook in
front of the judges, pointing out something with his finger. The
centre judge nodded. Gallagher walked back again to his table and sat
down. Gypo followed every movement with frenzied excitement. He seemed
to be on the point of jumping to his feet and rushing at Gallagher.
The two sentries in the doorway and the two armed men standing behind
Gypo’s back slipped their fingers over their revolver triggers. They
leaned forward slightly. There was a tense moment. Then Gallagher
looked at Gypo and began to speak sharply, in a low, restrained voice.

“Now Gypo,” he began, “tell us how you spent your time from six
o’clock this evening until you came in here at half-past one. Hurry
up. Don’t waste any time. We are in a hurry.”

Gypo’s eyes almost shut. Then his face seemed to swell. His mouth
contorted.

“What’s it got to do with you where I ben?” he thundered in a queer,
hollow voice. It seemed his mouth had gone dry.

“You never know,” said Gallagher carelessly. “It might be interesting
for us to know. Don’t you feel like telling us how you’ve been amusing
yourself from the time you met Francis Joseph McPhillip at six o’clock
in the Dunboy Lodging House until you came in here?”

“An’ supposin’ I don’t tell ye, what are ye goin’ to do? Wha’?”

“Well, I’m not going to tell you that. But we can do a lot. You know
that yourself, don’t you? You have your choice in the matter. You
either tell me or I’ll go to the trouble of telling you and the court
myself.” He paused for an instant and then added: “with the help of
Bartly Mulholland here.”

Then he stared at Gypo dispassionately, with the cold and indifferent
look of a man examining a statue. Gypo’s chest heaved in and out. He
had not been prepared for this point-blank attack from Gallagher. He
had expected that Gallagher would adopt his usual tactics of
friendliness and cajolery, trusting to madden his prey into letting
some choice important word slip unawares from his lips. Gypo felt
himself actually cheated out of his rights by this insultingly crude
and insolent attack. Gallagher was not even doing him the honour of
playing with him. Then he must know everything already. Did he?

The last trace of his self-control left Gypo. He abandoned himself to
a frenzy of passion. A delirious wave of ferocity mastered him. He
clenched his fists so that the bones cracked. His right leg went so
rigid that the boot rushed along the stone floor with a harsh scraping
sound, until it brought up with a bang against the leg of the form.
There it stayed. His knee was pointed and shivering. He opened his
mouth and yelled, almost incoherently, a torrent of blasphemous and
obscene oaths at Gallagher. He yelled them in an endless sentence,
without a verb or pronoun or conjunction. He kept yelling until he had
to stop for breath.

When Gypo stopped, Mary McPhillip’s sobs became audible. She was
trembling violently and sobbing. Gallagher got up, walked past Gypo
without taking the slightest notice of him and took Mary by the arm.
He led her up to the judge’s table.

“I have no further need of this witness,” he said, “so I suppose I may
take her into another room.”

The judges nodded. He led Mary out of the room. Gypo’s eyes followed
him everywhere. He was staring wildly and he seemed to have lost all
power of directing his bodily activities. He was shivering
spasmodically in his legs. Gallagher came back into the room and sat
down at his table.

Still Gypo’s eyes were concentrated on Gallagher’s face. His outburst
had left him completely empty, like a shaken sack. There was a pain at
the pit of the stomach. Mob orators know that pain, when they have
spoken for over an hour under a perfect hail of frenzied
interruptions. His eyes were dazed. Some machinal force kept his eyes
concentrated on Gallagher’s face. He responded to every movement of
Gallagher’s face in a half-conscious way. Every time Gallagher moved a
limb he felt a sharp stab in the pit of the stomach. He was conscious
of even the most minute movements. A thing that terrified him
especially was Gallagher’s chronic habit of twitching his cheeks by
grinding his back teeth at intervals.

As before, this agony lasted during a few moments only, during the
time that Gallagher was looking at some notes on his table, with
furrowed forehead. But the moments seemed years, the agony was so
concentrated. Gallagher spoke again.

Then again a strange change came over Gypo. For as soon as Gallagher
spoke he felt an instantaneous relief. He breathed deeply. He sighed.
A delicious tremor swept over his body like a cool breeze sweeping the
back of a sultry sea in summer. His jaws set again. Gallagher’s voice
had a different ring in it. It was softer. It was friendly. It
was . . . honour bright . . . it was argumentative. Then there was a
chance. . . . There must be a chance yet. . . .

“What did you mean, Gypo?” cried Gallagher. “What did you mean by
telling us all those lies about the Rat Mulligan? You should be
ashamed of yourself. Even if you got a grudge against a man, that’s no
reason why you should try to get a thing like that slung on to him.
Good Lord! You’re a funny man, Gypo. What put it into your head to
tell me that you saw him this evening at the Dunboy Lodging House,
when we know very well that he was within one hundred yards of his own
home at that very minute, three miles away or more? Were you drunk or
what?”

“I know I was drunk,” cried Gypo, responding joyfully to this friendly
overture from Gallagher. His anger vanished. His whole soul leaned out
eagerly towards Gallagher, craving support. He paused momentarily
after uttering the first sentence. He remained silent, leaning
forward, looking at Gallagher, intently, as if he expected Gallagher
to finish the statement for him. But when Gallagher’s thin lips
remained sealed, he hurtled on excitedly, as if he were stumbling
recklessly through dangerous obstacles. His voice was uneven and
flurried. “But I’d swear be Almighty God that it was him I saw goin’
out the door and runnin’ up the lane after Frankie. An’ if it wasn’t
him it must have been somebody else like him, for I’d know the cut of
his shoulders anywhere. I would if ye put my head in a bag.”

“You told me,” continued Gallagher in the same friendly scolding tone,
“that you followed the Rat across town until you came to . . . Where
was that you said you lost sight of him? I forgot now.”

Gypo started and stuttered. Good Lord, what had he said? He must say
the same thing he had said before. But he could not remember saying
that he followed the Rat across town. Did he say it in the
public-house or did he not. His forehead was burning. The hammering at
the top of his skull was blinding his eyes with pain. Almost
unconsciously he put his hand to his forehead and blurted out,
pathetically, on a peculiar high note, an amazingly childish and
hysterical sentence.

“Commandant, I’m all mixed up an’ I can remember nothin’.”

It was horrid, that pitiful, forlorn cry of pain and of absolute
despair coming from such a giant.

“All right then,” said Gallagher, “don’t worry yourself. We have to
get to the bottom of this business, so we’ll just set to work, the two
of us, and maybe we can piece the whole thing together. Now the best
thing we can do is to begin at the end and go backwards. We’ll work
backwards until we come to the point where you lost that man you saw
tracking Frankie McPhillip out of the Dunboy Lodging House. In that
case we’ll begin with where you were before you came in here. Bartly
Mulholland tells us that you were at Aunt Betty’s, with a woman called
Connemara Maggie. You must have been with her, because Bartly saw you
with his own eyes giving her two pound notes. There were three empty
whisky bottles in the room. They had been bought by you, I suppose.
Well? A man is entitled to drink his own whisky that he has bought
with his _own_ money, I suppose. That has got nothing to do with our
business, has it Gypo? None whatsoever. We merely want to trace that
man that tracked Francis Joseph McPhillip out of the Dunboy Lodging
House. Well! What do we find next? A friend of yours called Katie Fox,
once upon a time a comrade of ours, they are all to the front in this
business, all those people that were once comrades of ours, she told
Bartly Mulholland that you gave three pounds to an English woman at
Aunt Betty’s and two pounds to Aunt Betty to pay a debt for this
woman. You wanted to send her back to London. A kind of Barnardo’s
Home or something, this Aunt Betty’s, for stray women. Well, of
course, that again has nothing to do with us. A man is entitled to do
what he likes with his _own_ money. But. . . . Good Lord, Gypo,” he
cried, striking the table and bursting out into a strange hilarious
laugh, “you were having a time of it. Where did you get all the money?
Ha! Now don’t get excited. I know it’s no business of mine. But
if you’re going to be taken back into the Organization . . . Well!
There are ugly rumours flying about. . . . You know the way silly
rumours fly around Dublin. It’s awful. But the fact is, that people
are talking about sailors, American sailors, being robbed at the
back of Cassidy’s public-house. It’s only a rumour, of course, and
again, that friend of yours, Katie Fox—shall we call her one of our
ex-comrades?—she is responsible for the rumour, according to Bartly
Mulholland. Of course, it’s obviously originated with her. She has
very probably invented that story out of spite, simply because you
went with the other girl. Or . . . Tell me, is there any truth in it,
Gypo? I mean in the rumour of your having robbed a sailor?”

Gypo started, as if out of a heavy sleep. His brain went “thud, thud,
thud,” trying to think whether he should say “yes,” or “no.” If he
said “yes,” would he be caught in the act of telling a lie? If he said
“no,” would he be able to find any other means of explaining how he
got the money? Several other questions and problems also crowded into
his mind simultaneously, in confusion. There were doubts,
uncertainties and suspicions. He was completely in a mesh. His mind
was like a refuse heap. There was no beginning or end to any chain of
reasoning. He gave it up in despair.

“Commandant,” he said, again touching his forehead, “I can make out
nothin’. My head is sore. I must be drunk.”

Again it was the same bewildered, agonizing cry of a lost human soul.
A weak, thin, childish voice, coming from a giant.

“Well, never mind,” said Gallagher cheerfully, “we’ll leave it at
that. We’ll carry on. Before you went down to Aunt Betty’s, Mulholland
saw you in a fish-and-chip shop, treating a crowd of people to a free
meal. He said you spent about a pound there. Two pounds, three pounds,
two pounds, one pound. . . . Well! You certainly were in a generous
mood. American sailors are paid well of course. Throwing money about
in all directions, eh? Like a millionaire! But of course that’s your
own business. We are simply trying to get at the bottom of the
business we have in hand. That business is simply this: _who informed
on your pal Francis Joseph McPhillip?_”

Gallagher uttered the sentence slowly and in a loud voice, looking
closely at Gypo as he did so. Gypo started. His lips opened wide. But
he remained silent. His lips moved, forming the words Gallagher had
uttered, silently.

Gallagher watched the movement of Gypo’s lips with curious detachment.
Then he smiled slightly before continuing.

“Before that of course,” he continued, “I met you myself in the
public-house, in—er—Ryan’s public-house in Titt Street. There was
where you told me that funny story about the Rat Mulligan. Ha, ha, ha!
Ha, ha, ha! . . .”

Gallagher suddenly roared with laughter, holding his sides, with his
head in the air. Gypo almost leaped from his form. He trembled.

“Well, of all the stories!” continued Gallagher, pretending to gasp
with laughter. “I can’t make out why you told me that story, Gypo. I
can’t make it out. Well, there’s no knowing. . . . But we must get on
with our own work. Time’s running short and we have some stiff work to
do before the night’s over. Some stiff work, Gypo. Well? Before you
came into the public-house you were in Francis McPhillip’s house in 44
Titt Street. There again, you seemed to be acting in a very funny way,
according to Bartly Mulholland. Of course, I can understand your being
stirred up and excited on account of the death of your pal. But
still. . . . Do you remember giving Mrs. McPhillip the money that fell
out of your pocket on to the kitchen floor? What did you do that for?
Eh? Good Lord! You have left a trail of gold after you all the
evening. I wish it were as easy to track the man you saw coming out of
the Dunboy Lodging House after Frankie. But why did you give that few
shillings to Mrs. McPhillip and say it was all the money you had when
you knew very well you had a lot more in your pocket at that very
moment?”

“I don’t know,” growled Gypo.

His voice was no longer weak and childish. He was stiffening again.

“Maybe you were drunk even then,” suggested Gallagher, almost
excitedly, as if he were deliberately trying to apologize for Gypo’s
absurdities. “Maybe you were drunk. What?”

“Didn’t I tell ye before I was drunk,” grunted Gypo.

“Ha! I knew ye were drunk. Where had you been drinking?”

“Couldn’t tell ye where, but I know I was drinkin’ with Katie Fox.”

“Ha! Now we have it,” cried Gallagher, striking the table.

“Now you got what?” yelled Gypo, panting and leaning forward savagely.
He opened his fists out like claws. He spread his feet out ready to
spring. “What have ye got, Commandant?” he yelled hoarsely.

Gallagher took his pistol by the butt and tapped the muzzle slightly
on the table three times. The two armed men pointed their revolvers at
Gypo’s back. The three judges who had been calmly smoking cigarettes
started. Mulholland made a slight movement towards the door.

Then Gypo subsided into his seat loosely. The dreadful fascination of
Gallagher’s cold eyes sucked his passion clean out of him. Breathing
in a tired way, he sat still. The tension relaxed again. Gallagher
laid his pistol on the table and smiled.

“No need to have got excited, Gypo,” he said. “I was just saying that
it was when you were drinking with Katie Fox you said you robbed a
sailor at the back of Cassidy’s public-house. Maybe she asked you
where you got the money out of pure idle curiosity and you told her
that as a joke. We all know what curious creatures women are. That
doesn’t matter, though. What does matter is this. Could you remember
what time that was? When you were drinking with Katie Fox? What time
was it?”

“I can’t say,” mumbled Gypo stolidly. “I’m drunk. I can’t remember.”

“Well, now that’s a pity,” said Gallagher. “For it’s very important
for us to find out what that time was. If we were able to find out
what time that was, then we would surely be able to find out lots
more. Let us say it was nine o’clock at that time. Let us say nine.
That wouldn’t be far out? Would it be far out, Gypo?”

“How do I know what time it was?” roared Gypo. “Amn’t I tellin’ ye
that I was drunk?”

“Well, now,” continued Gallagher, getting a little more excited, “we
have got as far as nine o’clock. We are as far back as nine o’clock.”

He paused. His face began to light up and his forehead began to
wrinkle. His eyes were no longer steely and cold. They became restless
points, fiery and full of turbulent activity. They kept roaming over
Gypo’s face. His lips, on the contrary, were creased at the corners in
a strange, dry smile. His voice was laughing and at a slightly higher
and sweeter pitch.

“Now we have arrived at nine o’clock,” he continued, “travelling
backwards. Great way this for travelling, Gypo. You never know what
you are going to bump against without knowing. Any minute now we are
liable to find something, Gypo. We might in a few moments, even jump
on the man that informed on Frankie McPhillip. _We might jump on him._
Now! Easy there, Gypo. I mean the man you saw tracking Frankie
McPhillip out of the Dunboy Lodging House. Could you give the court
any idea of the description of that man you saw? You say he was like
Mulligan? Do you say he was like Mulligan? Speak, man. _Speak, I
say_,” he roared.

But Gypo was no longer able to speak.

A sudden transformation had come over him. As a thunder-storm bursts
over a calm sea on a sultry day, rending the oily ocean back and
covering it with cavorting, black ridges and white, churning froth, so
his body and soul responded to the sudden lightning in Gallagher’s
eyes and the ominous crackle of his voice, uttering sugared threats,
gambolling devilishly with words. He crumbled away into an immense,
flabby, supine mass, that writhed on the wooden form, a tangled heap
of limbs lying piled helplessly. His head dropped forward on his
chest, swaying from side to side on the pivot of his chin. His eyes
sank into their sockets. His face went ashen and still. His legs
became lax. His stomach wrinkled up like an unpropped wall collapsing
on its own foundations. His whole body shivered and started into
awe-inspiring movement, monstrous and inhuman, revolting as a
spectacle of degrading vice and yet pitiful in its helplessness.

All the countless centuries of human development that had left their
impression on that body, to make it into the glorious image of a
God-like human being, withered away during that time of agony, leaving
only a chaotic collection of limbs writhing and strange visions racing
over his convulsing features.

The sight was fearsome even to the callous men that surrounded him.
Even _their_ hardened souls saw a vision of a strange life just then,
an unknown and unexpected phantom that comes to some once in their
lives and that never comes to many, the phantom of a human soul
stripped naked of the covering of civilization, lying naked and
horror-stricken, without help, without hope of mercy. They forgot for
the moment their hatred of him. They forgot that this helpless,
shapeless mass of humanity was a menace to their lives. They forgot
that he was a viper they must crush. They only knew at that moment,
that he was a poor, weak human being like themselves, a human soul,
weak and helpless in suffering, shivering in the toils of the eternal
struggle of the human soul with pain.

Their mouths opened wide. Their eyes grew soft. Some made unconscious
movements with their hands, others with their feet, unconscious
movements of which their minds were not aware. For their minds,
disciplined by the corroding influence of hatred, sat still and
indifferent.

One man alone revelled in Gypo’s agony. He revelled in it
unconsciously. He was no longer conscious of his emotions. He had
become demented, drunk with the fury of his hatred. That man was
Gallagher.

He rose lightly from the table, without a word, pawing the table
softly with his hands for support, like a panther finding foothold for
a spring. His lean, glossy, sallow face was lit with a glow of
passionate eagerness, like a lover approaching his beloved. But it was
not the pure, resplendent eagerness of love. It was the eagerness of
the preying beast about to spring. The lips laughed, thin, wrinkled,
red lips drawn upwards and downwards from the set, white teeth. The
eyes glittered. The forehead twitched. The hands trembled. The whole
body shivered slightly, with those minute shivers that pass down the
side of a setter when he stands poised over his prey. He rose
gradually from the table. He stepped over his chair with his right
foot, to avoid moving the chair. He released his body from contact
with the table and the chair. His eyes were fixed on Gypo’s face. He
stood crouching. His head was swung forward, almost on a level with
his stooping shoulders. He groped with his right hand on the table for
his pistol. His fingers found the butt. Slowly they embraced it. The
forefinger sought the trigger and found it. He lifted the pistol from
the table. He brought it with a sharp movement to his hip. Its muzzle
pointed at Gypo’s chest. He took one short pace forward.

Gypo uttered a sharp yell and put his two hands to his face, shielding
his eyes. But he took them away again almost immediately. They dropped
to his sides. He must look at Gallagher’s eyes. He could not remain
hidden from those eyes. They burned into his flesh unless he looked at
them with his own.

Gallagher spoke. His voice was almost inaudible. It was soft and sweet
like a girl’s voice.

“As you seem to have lost your voice,” he whispered, “I had better
tell you myself who that man was. There’s no need to describe him for
the court. The court can see the man for themselves. I’m going to tell
the court the very name of the informer that betrayed his comrade,
Francis Joseph McPhillip, I’m going to point out the informer with my
own hand. That is the man,” he cried suddenly, with terrific force,
turning to the judges and pointing his pistol at Gypo. “Comrades, the
informer is Gypo Nolan, who is sitting there on that form.”

He had scarcely finished when Gypo uttered a muffled scream like a
dumb animal in mortal agony. He tumbled forward to the stone floor. He
frothed at the mouth. He reached out his trembling hands towards
Gallagher.

“Commandant,” he cried, “I didn’t know what I was doin’. I declare to
God I didn’t know what I was doin’. Can’t ye see what I mane?” He
raised his voice to a scream and he kept dragging himself forward over
the floor towards Gallagher’s feet. Then he struggled to his hands and
knees. He stretched out his hands on either side, panting: “Is there
no man here to tell him why I did it? I can’t tell him. My head is
sore. I can’t tell him. Commandant, Commandant, you an’ me,
Commandant. We’ll make a plan, the two of us . . . uh-r-r-r. . . .”

His voice sank into an inarticulate jabber as his hands clutched
Gallagher’s boots and he sank again prone to the ground. His thick
lips that tried to kiss Gallagher’s boots were imprinting kisses on
the stone flags. Gallagher kicked away the clutching hands and called
out sharply:

“Take him to the cell and place him under close guard.”

Immediately the four armed men rushed forward and bent down to seize
Gypo. But as soon as they touched him, he stiffened. He immediately
rose with them to his feet, with an accession of unaccountable
strength. He shook the four men off with a shrug of his whole body.
Then he was about to crouch to rush at Gallagher, when the four of
them flung themselves upon him again with a simultaneous cry. He
swayed for a moment on bent thighs, reeling under the impact of the
four bodies, two of them on his back, two gripping him about the
waist. Then he took a fierce, taut step forward with his right foot,
gasping as he did so. He planted the boot on the floor with a ringing
sound and then jerked himself backwards. The two men who had landed on
his back, flung their arms around his neck and swayed, banging their
heads together, their legs flying adrift. A cry arose: “Overpower him.
Help! Help!”

The three judges moved back from the table and stood against the wall,
undecided whether to run for safety, or to rush to the attack.

Mulholland pulled at Gallagher’s arm excitedly.

“Will I fire, Commandant?” he whispered.

“Don’t shoot,” murmured Gallagher in a dazed, sleepy voice. He was
staring at the struggling men with a sad smile on his face, as if he
were dreaming. “Don’t shoot. He’s not sentenced yet. Don’t fire, I
tell you.”

Then Mulholland ran crouching and threw himself at Gypo’s legs, trying
to encompass them with his arms. There were now five men hanging on to
Gypo. He was like Laocoön, entwined with snakes. He stood bolt
upright, with every muscle on his body knotted.

Then he lurched away to the right towards the door, with that human
cargo, unmoored and swinging by the sudden lurch, clashing with soft
thuds, in a panting mass. He was brought within three paces of the
door by the lurch. He saw the door. With an immense wrench that made
his biceps crack, he shook the men from off his back and neck. They
slithered downwards with a scratching sound of their nails clawing his
clothes. They clung round his hips. Then he growled and stooped down
to manhandle the men that clung to his legs. His groping hands
clutched Mulholland’s hair. His fingers groped downwards, seeking the
throat to garrotte him, when a mad rush of feet startled him. He
looked up.

They were rushing at him through the doorway. He saw them for a
moment, a number of flashing eyes, and set lips and clawing hands,
rushing at him. Then he dived headlong at his new enemies. He forced
them backwards in a mass into the doorway. There they all fell, amid
yells and hissing curses and shrieks of pain. Then Gypo’s great boots
stuck out of the pile in the centre, while Mulholland’s grinning,
sallow face peered up between them.

When they cleared away the jam of human bodies from him he was
exhausted. Four men pinioned his arms behind his back. Then he was
dragged along the passage into the prison cell. They loosed him and
threw him in. They bolted the door.



CHAPTER XII

At eleven minutes past three Gypo was condemned to death. The three
judges went away, leaving Gallagher in charge of the execution of the
sentence.

At eighteen minutes past three Mulholland entered the inquiry room,
with the three men who had been detailed to carry out the sentence
passed on the prisoner. They stood to attention in front of the table
at which Gallagher was sitting. Gallagher read to them the decision of
the court. Then he gave them their orders.

“Comrade Mulholland,” he said, “will be in charge. When I leave this
room you will cast lots in the usual manner. You will then take the
prisoner in the motor-van to any part of the mountain road, about
half-way between Killakee and Glencree. There is bog on either side of
the road. At any spot in that locality, you will be at least two miles
from the nearest house. Execute the sentence there. Bury the body some
distance from the road. Just drop it into a pool of bog water. When
you have finished the job go straight ahead across the mountain to
Enniskerry and come back to the city by another route. There are
several. You can choose the most convenient. Report to me at
head-quarters as soon as you come back, Bartly. I will wait for you
there. Carry on, comrades. Get the prisoner away as quickly as
possible. Use force if necessary to prevent him from creating a
disturbance, but you must on no account execute the sentence until you
get to the mountains.”

Gallagher left the room. He went across the passage to the room where
Mary McPhillip was sitting alone. All the armed men were gathered in
the guardroom at the foot of the stairs. Tommy Connor had come in now.
He was explaining something to them in a hoarse voice. Two men were
stationed outside the door of the cell. The sentry paced up and down
the passage again.

Gallagher sat down on the wooden form beside Mary McPhillip. He did
not look at her. He stared at the floor. His forehead twitched. His
face was very drawn.

“We have discovered the informer, Mary,” he said in a low voice. “Your
brother will be shortly avenged. It was Gypo Nolan who betrayed him.”

There was silence. Gallagher had uttered the last sentence
dramatically, like a tremendous revelation. But Mary did not speak. He
looked at her.

“Mary,” he said again, a little louder. “It was Gypo Nolan who
informed on your brother.”

She shuddered and looked at him sadly in the gloom.

“I knew that,” she said, “all along. Poor fellow.”

“What?” he gasped, staring at her.

“What are you going to do with him, Dan?” she asked, almost inaudibly.
“I hope you’re not . . .” She stopped.

Gallagher looked at her sharply, in wonder, suspiciously, as if he had
suddenly proved to himself that all his calculations had been wrong
about something.

“Surely what, Mary?” he said at length, almost timorously.

“You’re not going to kill him,” she said. “That would only be another
murder, added to . . . to the other. It wouldn’t help the dead. Lord
have mercy on him.”

“Murder!” ejaculated Gallagher dreamily, as if he had heard the word
for the first time in his life and he were reflecting on its
significance, incredulously like a philosopher confronted unexpectedly
by a stupendous superstition. Then his nostrils expanded and his face
hardened into anger, as he realized her meaning and her attitude
towards the sentence that was about to be passed on Gypo. “Murder, did
you say? Great Scott! Do you call it murder to wipe out a serpent that
has betrayed your brother? Where is your . . . ? Do you call yourself
an Irishwoman? What? Good Lord! I don’t know what to make of it.
What . . . ? Good Heavens!”

“Listen to me, Dan,” she said, sobbing; “for God’s sake, listen to me
before you do this. Listen. I didn’t know until now how awful it is. I
was foolish the way I talked at home this evening when all the people
were there. I was so mad the way father was talking that I thought I
could shoot the man that informed on Frankie myself. But it would be
murder, Dan, just the same as any other murder. And——”

“Oh, hang it!” snapped Gallagher.

“Dan,” she whispered, “don’t do it, for my sake. I love you. Don’t do
it, for my sake and I’ll do anything you want me. I feel I’m the cause
of this.”

“Mary, do you love me?” whispered Gallagher excitedly, panting as he
seized her right hand in both of his. He bent towards her. “Say it
again. Say you love me.”

But he drew back immediately, with a strange and unnatural presence of
mind. He was afraid that the passing sentry might see him.

Tears were rolling down Mary’s cheeks. She looked away towards the
doorway. She kept silent. Gallagher leaned back from her, watching her
face intently. He looked at her from under his bunched eyebrows. His
lips were set firmly. His forehead convulsed. He appeared to be
struggling with a savage passion and at the same time struggling to
think coherently on the intellectual plane. He was trying to probe the
movements of her mind so that he might conquer it with his mind. He
wanted to conquer her mind and make her subject to him, to make her
his mate on his own terms. He told himself that he was doing this, so
that she might help him for the conquest of power. He refused to admit
to himself that he was inspired by passion. He despised passion.

The silence was very peculiar and tense. Mary was conscious of it. But
Gallagher was not conscious of it. Then Mary spoke. She talked rapidly
without looking at him. She talked in an irritated tone.

“Take me out of this place immediately, Dan,” she said. “I was mad to
come here with you. I had no business to come here atall. Also, if you
were a gentleman you wouldn’t ask me to come. What I said just now
about loving you was not true. I only said it trying to persuade you
not to murder that man. Before, when I used to read in the papers
about a man being shot, I used to think it was right, but it’s a
different thing when a man you know does a thing like that. Frankie
killed a man too, Lord have mercy on him. Oh, God, have pity on us
all.” She became slightly hysterical. “Why can’t we have peace? Why
must we be killing one another? Why——”

“Hush! Keep quiet. Keep quiet.”

“Isn’t it cruel, Dan?”

She let her head fall on her hands. Her body shook with silent sobs.

Gallagher stared at her dreamily.

“I will let her alone now,” he thought. “The logical sequence of this
outburst will be this. Her mind will wheel around to the other extreme
if I keep quiet and don’t irritate her by attempting to convince her
that I am right. Her terror and her moral excitement will exhaust
themselves and go to sleep. Then she will become aware of her strange
surroundings, mentally, in a different way. When her mind becomes
awake and normally acute again, she will see me, this place and what’s
going to be done with Gypo, in an opposite light. When her mind is
groping about in this new attitude it will be easy for me to influence
her. I think I’m right. At least it always held good, that rule. I
remember the struggle I had with Sean Conroy. But women are supposed
to be different from men a lot psychologically. But I have to chance
that. It would be suicidal to interfere with her now. That’s certain.
Still . . . I’m not sure of myself with her somehow. . . . It’s not
like the others. And . . .”

Again his passion surged upwards. He sat without thought, fighting it,
squeezing his palms together, with his eyes on her bent neck.



CHAPTER XIII

When Gallagher left the inquiry room, Mulholland went silently to a
form and sat down. The three men stood nervously in front of the table
watching him. They watched him intently, in silence, as if each
movement he made was fraught with grave consequences to themselves.

He took three matches from a box and placed them beside him on the
form. He handled them slowly and deliberately, with a serious
contemplative expression on his face, like an old fisherman baiting
his hooks under the admiring glances of a party of tourists. Then he
took out a clasp knife and opened it. He cut a piece off one match. He
put the knife back into his pocket.

Then, suddenly, he cleared his throat with a noise that sounded
enormous in the silence. The three men started. They looked at one
another fearfully, as if each had been caught by the others in the
commission of an indecency.

Mulholland rose calmly and approached them, holding the three matches
on his open palm. Without speaking he pointed to them. Two long and
one short. They all examined them. Right. Each nodded his head
solemnly. Not a word. Mulholland nodded and marched away to the far
end of the room. They did not follow him now with their eyes. They
stared painfully at the floor.

The tallest of them was a docker called Peter Hackett. He was a
fair-haired young giant, slim and lean faced, with sleepy blue eyes
and a gentle mouth. His great bony hands were thickly covered with
long white hairs. He stood with his arms folded on his chest, one leg
thrust forward, his eyes wide open and strained, his forehead
wrinkled. He was only twenty-two. This was the first time he had been
chosen for an affair of this sort. It was particularly strange and
odious to him, because he was a good-natured soul, loved by all on the
quays where he worked. He had no conception of politics or of any
problem other than hurling, football, horse racing and pitch and toss,
which he played all Sunday afternoon on the Canal bank with his
cronies. He often lost his whole week’s wages playing pitch and toss.
On these occasions, when he went home to his young wife penniless, he
would first of all dance around the kitchen in a fit of rage and
perhaps break a thing or two, threatening to blow Kitty’s brains out
if she said a word. Then his anger would suddenly evaporate, to be
followed by a fit of sobbing. During this fit he sat by the fire with
his head in his hands, moaning and begging Kitty to forgive him. His
wife always felt exalted when these outbursts occurred, because the
excitement of the quarrel and Peter’s kisses, which lasted far into
the night afterwards, were a welcome break in the dreary monotony of
everyday life as a docker’s wife, scouring, cooking, washing, with two
children to look after on a docker’s wages.

Peter had no imagination. He lacked the refined conscience and sense
of injustice that attracts most gentle natures like his towards a
revolutionary movement. He was not the stuff of which the other sort
of revolutionary is made either. He belonged to the Organization
simply because the rest of “the boys” belonged to it, and out of
fanatical hero-worship for Commandant Dan Gallagher.

Dart Flynn, on the other hand, was designed by nature as a
revolutionary, a man to stalk ahead of the bulk of humanity, grimly
destroying obstacles, disturbing the sluggish existence of the herd,
terrifying the contented ones into activity, born with a curse upon
his brow, anathema to the mass of beings who always seek tranquillity
and peace at any price. He was dour, dark visaged, built like the base
of an oak tree, almost square. His body and face were fleshy and
jealous of movement. His eyes were small. They moved horizontally. He
was clean shaven, with a pink and white complexion, in spite of the
fact that he was thirty-five and lived a hard life as a carter. In
company, he hardly ever expressed an opinion on politics, religion, or
on any other of the fundamental things that are discussed with avidity
by revolutionaries who carry their lives in their hands. But in the
secrecy of his own soul he thought deeply on these matters. In his
little bare room in a lodging-house in Capel Street, he had several
works on philosophy and economics. He had also worked out an amazing
system of philosophy, based on the premise that each human being
shares his soul with several different animals. The man who could
discover and have constant intercourse with these animals would be
supremely happy and immortal.

Flynn had no moral sense. He hated all human beings who were not
Communists. He loved all children and animals. He gave most of his
wages to the hungry little ruffians in the street. He had no relatives
or dependents. He was an old member of the Organization, highly
respected for his courage, his fidelity and his taciturn habits.

The third man, Laurence Curley, was of a totally different type from
both his companions. He was also the most nervous and timorous. He was
twenty-eight, pale faced, red haired, with a tall, thin frame,
slightly consumptive-looking, on account of his hollow chest and
stooping shoulders. His father had been a doctor in a country
dispensary district. He had received a good education, but he early
grew dissatisfied with life and refused to study for the Bar as his
father wished. Instead he took a job in Dublin as a clerk, in order
that he might plunge into the revolutionary movement.

The theory of Revolutionary Communism interested him far more than
working for a revolution. He gradually became a crank, hated by
everybody. He was always finding fault and reading or discussing dull
works on Socialism. His views were always the most extreme and
blood-thirsty. He used to whisper excitedly, whenever he met a
stranger who did not know him yet, or when the least industrial
disturbance occurred:

“The red flag will be hoisted any minute. Wait till you see. Then
blood will spill. Wait till you see. Justice and liberty are bourgeois
watchwords. The proletarian watchwords are revenge and bread. The
proletariat knows how to deal out their deserts to the oppressors.”

He had always this sort of patter.

Now, however, the three of them, so different in essential
characteristics, had reached a common level of emotion. The silence of
the night, the phantom-filled cellars, the illegality and danger of
the contemplated act, the torturing uncertainty of the choice, filled
them with such delirious emotions that they were beside themselves.
They were not afraid. They were beyond fear, on to a distant level of
emotion, where the common impulses, that agitate the hearts of men,
are unknown.

Then Mulholland approached with the matches arranged in his hand, so
that their red heads alone were visible.

“Who’ll draw first?” he said carelessly, standing in front of the
group.

After a moment’s pause Flynn came forward hurriedly. He stretched out
a fleshy hand, fumbled awkwardly with the matches and then pulled one.

They all strained eagerly to look. It was a long match. Everybody
sighed.

“Next,” said Mulholland.

Curley and Hackett looked at one another excitedly. Then each spoke.

“You go first.”

“No, you go first.”

“Go ahead. I don’t mind drawing the last.”

“What’s the difference? You’re nearest. Draw.”

“Why should I? It’s your turn. You draw.”

“Come on,” snarled Mulholland, “one of you draw. We have no time.”

They both made a movement towards the matches. Then each stopped to
let the other advance. Their hands and legs were jerky. They stared at
one another with hatred.

“Come on,” hissed Mulholland again. “Didn’t ye hear the Commandant’s
orders, that we were to get outa the place as soon as possible? Are ye
afraid or what?”

“Oh no,” cried both men together in an off-hand tone.

They both rushed at the matches. They tussled for them.

“Keep back now. It’s my turn.”

“Keep back, you. You weren’t so quick before. Let me draw.”

“No, I won’t. I was here first.”

“For goodness’ sake,” cried Mulholland, “ye pair o’ babies. Will I
have to pull me gat on ye?”

The two of them stood still, looking at Mulholland dazedly.

“It’s against the rules,” continued Mulholland with a great sense of
importance, “but I’m goin’ to call ye in the order o’ yer rank. You
draw first, Comrade Curley.”

Curley’s thin fingers shot out instantly. He drew the match. It was a
long one. He gasped. Then he burst into a thin laugh.

“Comrade Hackett.”

Hackett stumbled forward. He reached for the short match that
Mulholland held out to him with a strange smile.

“It’s your shot, comrade,” whispered Mulholland.

Hackett grasped the match and crushed it into fragments immediately.
He threw the little bundle away in terror. He rubbed his palms slowly.
Then he struck his right coat pocket suddenly with his hand. He
laughed.

“Good Lord!” he blubbered, “I thought I’d lost me penknife.”



CHAPTER XIV

For ten minutes Gypo lay perfectly still in the cell, after the door
was bolted. He lay on his back. His head and neck were buttressed into
an upright position by a square block of stone that jutted from the
floor, by the wall farthest from the door. His feet were stretched
out, wide apart. One hand lay on his right hip, palm upwards, with the
fingers bent inwards, as if he had fallen asleep clawing something.
The other hand lay across his eyes. He drew very deep breaths at long
intervals. His face was perfectly at peace. It was bruised slightly
around the mouth and on the cheek-bones. Each feature was impassive,
like the features of a carved image. The glossy skin, the humps, the
eyebrows that were like snouts, the thick Ethiopian lips, attained a
majesty during that ten minutes of abnormal rest, a majesty that was
not so apparent while they were in movement, responding to the strange
impulses of his mind.

Gypo rested, exhausted, while he was being condemned to death. It was
a dead rest, like the rest of a child in the womb before birth,
sucking strength all round for the savage struggle with life that will
soon commence. Every organ and tissue and muscle was straining for a
renewal of strength.

When blundering reason flees, instinct, that is fundamental and
unerring, rushes to the defence of life.

At twelve minutes past three, one minute after he had been condemned
to death, Gypo moved. He opened his eyes and closed the right hand
that lay palm upwards on the ground. He clenched the hand rigidly
until the wrist joint snapped with the tension. Then he took the other
hand away from his eyes and dropped it to his bosom. He moved his eyes
around from side to side, slowly, suspiciously, blinking and listening
intently.

The cell was pitch black. Only at one point was there a speck of
light. There was a dim, oblong patch of light hanging slantwise in the
darkness some distance to his left front. That was the aperture near
the top of the door. It did not penetrate the darkness of the cell. It
merely hung there, obscurely and uselessly, like a foolish suggestion.
All round was pitch dark. Gypo shivered.

He was not afraid. No. He did not feel at all in the ordinary sense of
the word. But he was immediately fully conscious, as soon as he moved,
of all that had happened before he had been thrown into the cell.
Still more peculiar, he was quite calm and collected about everything.
The darkness consoled him. He felt at home in it. It concealed him. He
felt immensely big and strong in the darkness. There was nothing in
his immediate neighbourhood but a darksome void that his personality
overpowered. He could bellow and his voice would resound through that
darkness indefinitely. There would be no resistance. There was no
limit to the darkness, no wall, no horizon, no end. He was encompassed
by it, sheathed in it. It wound round and round him. It was an
impenetrable coat of mail, without weight, without thickness,
intangible.

Beyond it somewhere were his enemies. It came between him and them.
Ha!

He gathered himself up with a sudden spring. He got to his hands and
knees. Several joints snapped as he did so. His bruised body had grown
stiff, lying motionless on the stone floor. Just as he lay that way on
his hands and knees, he heard a rattle at the door. Immediately he
threw himself down again and pretended to be asleep. But he fell so
that his eyes were toward the oblong patch of light. He knew what had
rattled. It was the sentry having a look at him. An electric torch was
thrust through the aperture. It rested on him for a moment or two.
Then it was withdrawn.

During the couple of moments that the torch-light had flooded the cell
Gypo’s eyes were busy. They had darted around. Yes. The walls were
hopeless. He knew that of course. He had himself guarded a prisoner in
this same cell, a condemned prisoner whom he and McPhillip and Jem
Linnet, the bookmaker’s clerk, had afterwards brought out in a car. He
knew the whole routine. Perhaps that knowledge was responsible for his
calm, partly responsible. Nothing was uncertain in the near future. In
a few minutes they would come for him. Once in the car it would be
impossible to escape.

All right. His only chance was in the cell. Ha! That was why he was
calm and collected. After all, it was neither the darkness nor his
knowledge of what was destined to happen that made him calm. McPhillip
had at last made a plan. The door . . . the door . . . the door!

“Gypo,” he had said one night in Cassidy’s when he was drunk, “if we
ever get . . . ye know what I mean, Gyp . . . click . . . you
know . . . ye needn’t worry. I can manage that cell easy. Only I’d
need you. I’m too small. Listen.”

“I’ll do it, Frankie,” mumbled Gypo to himself excitedly, as he
crawled along the floor towards the door.

He moved like a bear on his hands and knees, with his head down and
his haunches high in the air. He moved noiselessly until he reached
the door. He felt along the edge of the wall and then drew himself
gradually to his feet. For a moment he toyed with the idea of taking
off his boots, but he could not remember that Frankie had said
anything about that. He decided to leave them on. He reached up with
his hands. He strained them to their full length before he reached the
top of the stone ledge over the door.

Drawing a deep breath he hoisted up his body, using his biceps as
levers. . . . His biceps swelled and knotted and snapped. . . . His
body rose smartly and without apparent effort. In an amazing way he
swung around his legs from the hips and landed his body gently on the
ledge, resting on the right side of his chest and stomach. The stone
ledge was no more than six inches wide. More than half his body rested
on the empty air, as it lay along the ledge. But he was as cool as if
he were standing loosely on the broad, firm earth. He was acting on
the plan he and McPhillip had rehearsed. His body performed the
movements without his mind exercising any control, either of guidance
or of warning, warning against danger that is called fear.

After a slight pause, he leaned his weight on his hands and rolled his
body around in a reckless movement. His legs shot into the air about
two feet. He stood poised on his hands for two seconds, as if he were
going to stand on his head. Then he lowered his right leg. He brought
it up to his hands. Slowly, with snapping gasps, he balanced himself
on the right leg and stood up straight.

He stood straight in the solid darkness for a moment. He breathed
twice rapidly. Then he groped upwards for the roof. He found it about
three inches above his head. He pawed the stones hurriedly, searching.
He couldn’t find what he wanted. It should be there. Mother of Mercy!
He pawed out farther. Nothing yet. Sweat stood out on his forehead,
suddenly, as if his body had been wrung. Savage anger gained control
of him. He bared his lips and distended his eyes. His last hope gone?
Had they taken it away during the last six months? He reached out one
inch farther. Too far.

With a muffled gasp, he hurtled forward from the ledge. His hands
scraped along the roof with a rasping sound. Then, just as they fell
in pursuit of the falling body, the fingers of the right hand closed
on an iron ring. They closed on it like a vice. The shoulder muscles
snapped. Gypo swung across the floor, brought up with a grunt, jerked
and swung back again, suspended from the iron ring by his right hand.

When he steadied himself, he changed hands on the ring and groped
about with his right hand, until he found a hole in the roof about
three inches away from the ring. That was the hole of the trap-door,
through which the wine had been let down into the cellar from the
garden. He gripped the ring with both hands and swung up with his
legs, until they found the far side of the hole. He jammed both feet
against the side of the hole and rested for four seconds, breathing
deeply. His knees were bent upwards.

He reached up into the hole with his right foot. The foot reached the
oaken door that lay across the mouth. It had been fastened with
leather hinges, but these had worn away and they had not been renewed
since the house became deserted. Several inches of earth had collected
on it. Gypo pushed against it and made no impression on this mass of
earth and rubbish that covered it. He took another rest and then
pushed with all his might. He raised it suddenly, with a sucking
sound, about three inches. A mass of dirt and earth fell down with a
swish. It landed on the floor beneath with a showery thud. The noise
terrified Gypo. The sentries outside the door would hear it.

In a furious rage, he kicked with all his might and sent the door
flying away from the hole. A whole load of earth fell with a rush and
a gust of cold night air came with it, with equal rapidity,
ferociously, as if it had been waiting a long time to attack.

In spite of the blinding dirt and the freezing air, Gypo stuck his
legs through the hole immediately and clutched the garden surface with
his heels. Then he let go one hand off the ring and gripped the side
of the hole. He hurt his collar-bone badly as he did so. Now his body
was secure in the hole. He let go the other hand, supporting himself
on the thigh muscles that gripped the sides of the hole until the
second hand and his head came into the hole. Then he scrambled through
on to the garden. He bounded to his feet and hurtled forward on his
face.

Two shots had thundered through the hole as he cleared it. They were
after him. He snorted with fright. For a moment he stood still,
confused by the din of voices and the rushing feet. Then he darted
away headlong through the rubbish towards the house, ten yards away.
His only escape lay that way. He entered the house at a bound, through
a hole in the kitchen wall. He cleared the kitchen in two strides. He
was in the hallway. Flash, flash, bang, bang. Two more shots. His fist
floored a tall man. He rammed a second with his head. He floundered
through the hall. Bang, bang. They whizzed closely past his right
side. He slipped on the flags of the hall as he tried to wheel towards
the right wall. He came to his hands and knees. As he rose again a man
threw himself upon him, firing as he did so, so closely that Gypo
smelt the explosion that flashed blindingly by his ear. Missed again.
They closed, grappling one another’s bodies, with groping, shifting
paws. They tumbled in the doorway. They both rose. Gypo loosed one arm
and struck. The other man collapsed without a sound. Gypo dropped him.
He fell on his back. It was the Dart Flynn.

Gypo grunted, bounded to his feet and wheeled to the right, into the
open air. With a gurgling laugh, he bounded away into the darkness. He
was away, swallowed by the night.



CHAPTER XV

When Gallagher heard the first shot, he started to his feet angrily.
He thought that his orders had been disobeyed and that they had shot
the prisoner before taking him to the mountains. But even as he stood
up, his anger changed to terror. He heard the rushing of feet and the
babble of shouting voices, calling excitedly, in a panic:

“He’s escaped. He’s escaped.”

“The stairs. The stairs. Up the stairs, quick.”

Mary McPhillip screamed. Gallagher did not heed her. For three seconds
his body was numbed with fear. He could not move a muscle. His lips
blubbered. He was like an exhausted man about to have a heart attack.
He stood unstably, like an uprooted tree, balancing for its fall. Mary
jumped up and clung to him. He did not look at her. Then Mulholland
rushed in. He was livid with fear.

“He’s escaped, Commandant,” he gasped; “he’s gone.”

Then Gallagher shook himself violently, thrusting Mary from him
rudely. Uttering a volley of almost inarticulate oaths, he drew his
pistol and grasped Mulholland by the throat. Mulholland yelled and
struggled downwards to his knees.

“Don’t shoot me, Commandant,” he whined. “It wasn’t my fault. That man
is a devil out of hell. There’s a spell on him. Don’t fire for the
love of God.”

“Damn you and God,” snarled Gallagher, hurling him away.

He rushed out into the hall.

“After him,” he yelled. “After him. After him.”

There was nobody to take any notice of him. Everybody was on the
street in pursuit of Gypo, except the sentry, who stood uncertainly in
the doorway of the empty cell, with his pistol in his hand and his cap
turned backwards, terrified, gaping at Gallagher.

Then a rush of feet came on the stairs. Four men were coming down
carrying Flynn between them.

“Who is that?” cried Gallagher.

“It’s Flynn, Commandant,” whispered one.

“His jaw is broken in a jelly,” whispered another.

They arrived at the bottom of the stairs. Gallagher glanced at the
prostrate, sagging body of Flynn. “Throw him in there on a form at
once,” he said. “Mulholland. Come here. Where are those others?”

“Here they come, Commandant.”

“There’s no sight of him, Commandant,” gasped Tommy Connor, leaping
down the stairs. “We thought we had better come back.”

“All right,” said Gallagher. “Are you all here now?”

He spoke in a terribly calm voice now. It was terrifying. Nobody
answered for a moment.

“Hurry on, Peter,” said Connor to somebody that appeared at the top of
the stairs.

It was Hackett. He rushed down, panting, with wild eyes. They were all
back again.

“Who’s responsible for this?” cried Gallagher.

Nobody answered. He swore and strode away down the passage to the
cell. Connor and Mulholland followed him. The others stood spellbound.
Gallagher pushed the sentry out of the way with a curse and entered
the cell. He flashed his torch. He saw everything. A cold perspiration
started gently around his temples. He shivered. He left the cell
followed by the two men. Nobody spoke. They returned to the men at the
foot of the stairway. As Connor passed the room where Mary McPhillip
was, he ran in, picked her up from the floor and put her sitting on
the form. Then he rushed away to Gallagher.

Gallagher stood looking at the ground for a few moments, with the men
standing around him in silence. Then he looked around fiercely at
every one. He spoke gently and in a friendly tone.

“Comrades,” he said, “our lives are at stake. What’s more,
the Organization is in danger. The cause is in danger.
Comrades,—that—man—must—be—found. That man must be found if it costs a
hundred men. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Commandant,” cried they all eagerly.

“Finnigan and Murphy stay here on guard. Do you hear?”

They clicked their heels in silence.

“Mulholland, you take the rest with you in the van and try and cut him
off from the bridges. He will try and cross the river to the south to
get away to the mountains. Get away immediately. Place your men and
take up position yourself at the Butt Bridge. I’ll send reinforcements
to you there and another officer. Slattery, you get reinforcements.
Mobilize ten men from this district. Take them off your own list. Beat
it. Quick. Off you go, Bartly. Remember the Cause is at stake. We are
lost if that man gets away. He may be making for the police already.
Run for your lives.”

They went up the stairs, rushing with fanatical enthusiasm. In three
seconds Gallagher was alone at the foot of the stairs. One sentry took
up position at the top of the stairway. The other man went into the
guardroom with Flynn. Mary McPhillip was standing in the doorway of
the witnesses’ room, shivering, almost hysterical with fright.

Gallagher stood for almost a minute, motionless, looking at the
stairs, with his eyes almost shut. Then he shuddered and went into the
guardroom. The sentry, a red-faced, young grocer’s assistant, was
tying a red silk handkerchief around Flynn’s jaws. The only part of
Flynn’s face that was visible was his eyes. Gallagher watched the
sentry tying the knot at the back of Flynn’s skull. Then he looked
into Flynn’s eyes.

Flynn stared back coldly. Although he was suffering agonies of pain
from his broken jaw, his eyes betrayed no sign of pain.

“Did you fire at him, Dart?” cried Gallagher in a whisper.

Flynn made a slight nodding movement.

“Did you hit him?”

Flynn raised his right hand and waved it from side to side, like a
marker giving the signal for a washout. Gallagher sighed.

“Stick it out,” he said coldly. “We’ll get a doctor as soon as the
reinforcements come. Can you swallow a drop of brandy?”

Flynn nodded.

“Here’s my flask. Use it.”

He put the flask into Flynn’s hand. He pressed the hand as he did so.
Then he left the guardroom and walked over to Mary McPhillip.

She left the doorway when she saw him coming. He found her sitting on
the form. He stood beside her, looking at the ground, wrapt in
thought, gripping her shoulder with his right hand. She became
terrified at his attitude, at his silence and the look on his face,
which she could see dimly in the gloom. His face had become ashen
pale. His eyes had sunk and grown glassy. The blood had left his lips.
He was continually grinding his back teeth, slowly.

“Dan,” she whispered at length, “what’s the matter with you?”

He did not answer for several seconds. Then he started, gasped, and
let go her shoulder. He took two paces rapidly towards the door. He
halted and put his hand to his forehead. He wheeled about and looked
at her curiously.

“Oh yes,” he said calmly. “I forgot. Excuse me. I was thinking of
something and I didn’t hear what you said. Let me see. Yes.”

He sat down beside her. He took her right hand gently into both his
own and began to fondle it, with the soft gentle movements of a cat.
He began to speak gently, in a soft, sad voice, looking at the floor
in front of him.

“You’ll have to stay here with me now, Mary,” he said, “until I’m
leaving here. Maybe we’ll have to stay here two hours, maybe more.
Gypo has escaped. I can’t move until I get news of him. The prisoner
has escaped,” he repeated almost inaudibly. “If he can’t be found it
will be the end of me, Mary. He knows so much.”

Mary turned towards him eagerly and swallowed her breath. Her eyes
grew moist and her lips quivered. The gentle tone of his voice went
straight to her heart. It drew her towards him, not with the dreadful
fascination with which she was drawn towards him before, but with a
soft, gentle attraction, like what she had imagined love would be. Not
the calm, calculating, respectable affection she experienced for the
man she intended to marry, Joseph Augustine Short, but that
tumultuous, devouring passion which she had expected real love to be,
the love that was written of in books and poems. Ah! How she could
love him like this! Soft and gentle like this! She could approach him
and touch him, touch something in him that was soft and gentle and
sympathetic and human. He was in danger. Good God! It was good that he
was in danger, if it helped to disclose to her his real self. It had
made him weak, this danger, ridding him of the horrid, impenetrable
strength, that kept him cruel and cold. If she could have him to
herself like this, she would sacrifice even her religion for his love.
Aye! She would even forsake God for him like this.

So she thought, looking at him with tears in her eyes.

She smoothed his shoulder gently with her hand and whispered to him:

“Dan,” she said, “you are in danger. Can I help you, Dan? Dan, you
know I’d give my life for you.”

Gallagher turned towards her slowly.

“You would, Mary,” he said softly.

She nodded. He took her suddenly in his arms.

“You love me, Mary. Say you love me, Mary.”

“I love you, Dan,” she breathed on his lips.

They kissed passionately, with strange abandonment. Then they sat for
a minute, with their cheeks together, hardly conscious of anything but
of a strange exaltation that was undefinable. A hot feeling of joyous
exaltation pervaded their bodies. But it was not the exaltation of
love. It was an abandoned sadness born of grief. The grief of two
human souls clinging together for solace. It was beautiful and pure
like love, that exaltation, born of fear, and of the eternal
melancholy of the entramelled Irish soul, struggling in bondage.

For Mary perhaps, it was almost pure mating love. For she loved that
gentle voice, the last remnant of the gentle nature, that had been
devoured in the struggle of life and replaced by a cold, callous,
ambitious nature. She loved, but she only loved a phantom, a shy ghost
come for an hour of the night, to fly from the dawn.

But for Gallagher, his caresses were a mask. He had hidden behind his
gentle nature for the moment, as behind a mask, to rest and plot. Men
like him always lean on women for support in moments of extreme
danger.

Even as he sat with her arms about him, with her breathing words of
love on his lips, he was thinking, not of her, but of the great danger
that confronted him. Would Gypo inform again before he was caught?

At length, with a low exclamation he got to his feet, releasing
himself hurriedly from her embrace. He clenched his fists.

“Mary,” he said without looking at her, “you see how I need you. I
need somebody to talk to, somebody to trust. There is nobody else but
you I can trust, Mary. And I don’t know why I trust you.”

He paused. She was not listening. She was suffering a reaction from
her exaltation. Why was he talking like this? A lover did not talk
like this. He was only thinking of himself.

“But since the first time I saw you, standing in the crowd with
another girl, while I was addressing a strike meeting, I knew I could
trust you. I remember thinking as I saw your face, that you were the
woman for me. It was queer and I can’t explain it. Something in your
face told me that you were my woman. It’s very queer, that. You see
thousands of faces every day. There is something queer and mysterious
in them all, something suspicious and hostile. Then you see one face
that you have been looking for all your life as it were. There is
nothing hidden or mysterious in that face. It can hold nothing hidden
from you. It’s queer. I haven’t worked it out yet. It’s in the eyes, I
think. The eyes are the doors of the mind. But I haven’t worked it out
yet. But what am I talking about? It’s a sure sign that I’m worried
when I ramble off like this. I talk to myself in my room, for want of
a listener, when I’m up against it. I talk all night, sitting up in
bed, with a pistol in my hand.” He lowered his voice and smiled with
his lips, while his eyes glittered. He looked at her for a moment. “If
the boys knew that I get the wind up now and again, they wouldn’t be
afraid of me. And then. . . .” He drew his hand across his windpipe.
“Sure. That’s what keeps me safe. They are afraid of me. That’s all it
is. It’s not love. Oh no. I wouldn’t have it, anyway. There’s nothing
like fear. Nobody loves me. Not even that slobber of a fellow Hackett,
who stooped down one day on the quays to tie my shoelace. He’d die for
me, but only because he believes I’m cold and hard and callous and
that I could shoot him dead without a quiver of an eyelid. You
see . . . he’s the opposite from . . . There you are, Mary. Good God!
I must be very bad to-night. I’m wandering. Mary, does your right knee
tremble and you can’t stop it?”

“Dan, Dan,” cried Mary, seizing his right knee in both her hands,
“don’t worry. Don’t worry, Dan.” She began to rub the knee. “That’s
nothing. My father often gets it. It’s only nerve tension. A nurse out
of the Mater Hospital told me all about it. You can live to be a
hundred with it. She says it’s due to tea drinking. But . . . Dan, why
are you so hard and cynical all of a sudden about everything? Can’t
you give it all up and settle down? You said you——”

“Settle down?” cried Gallagher, jumping to his feet and looking at her
fiercely, as if she had suggested a heinous crime. “Give it up! How do
you mean? Pooh! Women, women, women! You don’t understand that it’s my
life. It’s my life, I say. You might as well tell me stop breathing
and . . . After all . . .” He seemed to think of something startlingly
unexpected, for he looked at her with open lips. He continued, shyly
almost, in a scarcely audible voice, as if he were soliloquizing.
“After all, you weren’t affected the way I expected you would be. You
would never understand. You would never join me in the way . . . Hm! I
see.”

“Now what have I said, Dan?” she whispered nervously, biting her
fingers.

She was terrified that she had lost him . . . yes, in a way, strangely
enough, she was terrified at losing his love, as if she had him
securely in her possession, as a loving husband for a long time . . .
that she had lost him by some foolish phrase.

“Nothing,” he muttered solidly.

He crossed his hands on his chest and began to pace up and down once
more. It was a long time until he spoke. She tried to get enraged with
him and could not do so. She began to pity herself.

“It’s waiting like this that’s hard,” he said suddenly in a whisper.
“I don’t mind dying. It’s not that I mind. It’s waiting without a
chance of knowing what’s going to happen. They talk of the bravery of
those louts that get the V.C. What are they but stupid carrot heads?
Theirs is the bravery of the dull-witted ox. A man must be intelligent
to be brave. It’s only the intelligent man that can visualize danger.
If he is brave he never seeks danger, but he seeks dangerous methods
of life. You see the difference? Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. I had
this all worked out a long time ago so I don’t need to discuss it very
much. But this is the point I have to explain now. There is no danger
in open warfare. There’s merely death, and death is not dangerous. The
Russians proved that. Not recently, but in Bielinsky’s time. That is,
of course, they proved it in relation to their own needs. But
according to my own calculations and discoveries, death brings us back
into the great consciousness of the Universe, which is eternal.
Therefore death, properly speaking, is not death. It is a second stage
of birth. No, that’s quite wrong. I can see where that would lead me.
There is neither birth nor death. But . . . All that’s out of the
count. We have to tackle a minor question. Obviously it’s a minor
question. Now that’s better. Now we see death is not a danger. But
defeat is a danger. Defeat by one’s enemies. Not defeat by one’s
friends. But of course there are no friends. Friends is a bourgeois
word. It has no longer any meaning. So defeat in the true sense means
defeat by one’s enemies. It’s synonymous. Well, I face defeat.
Therefore. . . .” Suddenly he waved his right hand in a circular
fashion above his head and then pointed it fiercely at the wall to his
left. “It’s waiting like this that’s hard,” he cried fiercely. “I’ve
been out with a gun many a time. I’ve been shot at. I have two holes
in me. That’s nothing. You don’t know what’s happening because you
become an animal. But waiting is different. You are in command. That’s
different. A brain, a mind, a great eye, probing the unknown.
But . . .” He stopped suddenly and tittered audibly in his throat.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph protect me,” Mary began to murmur rapidly to
herself. She shut her eyes and tried to think of Heaven. Her mind had
suddenly become void of all sense of knowledge and emotion. She felt
an intense cold in every pore of her flesh. As she rambled through the
prayer over and over again with her lips, a ridiculous rigmarole of a
song went through her mind with a tintillating sound, about, “Piping
Tim of Galway.”

He sat down beside her on the form, bent towards her and kissed her
coldly on the forehead. His cold lips remained on her forehead for
three seconds. Then he sighed and got to his feet again. He must keep
in movement. He must keep talking. He could not stop his brain from
thinking at an enormous rate and the only way to relieve the
congestion was by talking aloud. The formation and enunciation of the
words deflected a fraction of the brain forces and liquidated them.
Faster, faster, wilder, wilder he must talk, to keep pace with the
tremendous speed of his heated brain.

“Where is he now?” he whispered with a kind of cackle in his throat
that was like a laugh. “Where is he now? Why can’t we see with the
mind, long distances? How very stupid I am after all in spite of my
philosophy. He might be in the police station at this very moment,
with a big, fat sergeant taking down his statement.” He shuddered and
bit his lip. “Good Lord Mary! If you only knew what a statement he
could make. Ha! ha! He and Francis are the only two men in the
Organization who could tell anything worth while. And Francis is
dead.”

He paused. Mary bit her teeth, dispelled the tintillating rigmarole of
a song and began another prayer, one to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour.

“Ye see, Gypo was so useful. There were things he could do that no
other man could do. Not so much by his immense strength, as on account
of his particular mental qualities. It’s easy to get as strong a man,
but a mind like that is hard to find. I doubt if there is another. He
was priceless. Damn him. He’s a superhuman monster. Why did I say
_was_ before? He is. _He is._ That’s the worst of it. I wish he . . .
The government would give a million pounds for that statement. Good
Lord! I never thought Gypo could turn informer. It must have been a
mistake. I couldn’t be wrong about him. Some mistake. Sure. He isn’t
the type. Sure. I swear he isn’t. How could he be? He responds to me
like, like a needle to a magnet. Then how did he inform? On his own
pal too! That’s the strange thing about it. I’ve been studying him for
eight years and he never showed any signs of personal initiative.
Never once. I shouldn’t have dropped him for six months. But of course
I had to keep up respect for the rules of the Organization. Good
Lord!” he cried pathetically, looking at the ceiling and wringing his
hands almost in despair, “I’m alone with nobody to help me. Mary,
there’s nobody to give me advice. Why did nobody warn me against
expelling Gypo? What?”

He paused. She did not reply. She shuddered and did not look. It was
difficult to pray. She was so tired. And it was terrifying not to
pray. Then she might have to listen to him.

Then suddenly she was startled into an upright position, with her eyes
staring and her mouth wide open. Gallagher had uttered a strange
sound. Then he ran crouching to the form. He hurled himself upon it.
He clutched at her knees. He was looking with wild, strained eyes at a
point on the wall. He jabbered in a dry parched voice.

“There he is, Mary. I see him. I see him. I see the sergeant writing
it down. They are giving him a drink. D’ye see him, Mary, with his
little hat perched at the back of his head, making the statement? D’ye
hear him say my name? D’ye hear him?”

She drew his head towards her with both hands, trying to make him look
at her face, trying to get his staring eyes away from the wall, but he
struggled against her. His eyes were fixed wildly on some point in the
wall. He writhed.

Then suddenly he sighed, turned towards her and smiled. It was a
natural, healthy smile. His eyes danced humorously as he smiled. His
terror had passed away, giving place to a momentary joy. He felt
hilarious, like a woman drunk with wine. He took Mary suddenly into
his arms and kissed her. He tickled her neck playfully with his
fingers, laughing all the time.

But she struggled to free herself, panting. He loosed her and stopped
laughing, looking at her in surprise.

“Did I frighten you, Mary?” he said casually. “That’s all right. I
often get a fit of the blues like that. Don’t worry. Did you think I
was mad?” he added with a little laugh.

“Oh, you’re all right now, Dan, ha, ha.”

She was trying to laugh to cheer herself, but she made a poor job of
it.

“Sure I am, Mary. As right as rain. Everything will be all right. Of
course it will. Don’t worry.”

There was a long silence. They sat close together, looking at the
ground.

“Tell me, Dan,” whispered Mary awkwardly, “did you see anything that
time? When you were looking at the wall? Did you see anything? Tell
me, quick. It’s such a queer place, this. I think there are devils in
it.”

“Damn it!” snapped Gallagher. “Why did you bring the subject up again,
when I want to forget it? Devils! Huh! Devils!”

He jumped to his feet and took two paces forward, stretching his hands
out over his head with peculiar intensity, like a man with a rheumatic
twinge in his shoulder blades. Then he shrugged himself and rattled
off with startling suddenness, in a quite calm voice, cheerful and
debonair.

“You are right,” he said, “after all, in asking the question. I should
have explained at the time,” he yawned, “what I meant by seeing him.
Of course I was speaking figuratively. There are no such things as
devils, at least not supernatural creations, as the current
superstition understands them to be. The only devils to be afraid of
are human devils. I know numbers of them. They are real enough. But
they wear sheep’s clothing. Respectable, law-abiding fellows. I’ll see
them again in a few hours, if Gypo gets to the police station with his
story. They’ll drawl out slowly their sentence on me. Ha! Pretty boys.
And here I am doing nothing while they are . . .”

He moved rapidly up and down again, clutching his hands behind his
back, jerking his body about and crunching his teeth.

“I am alone,” he continued. “Alone. I stand alone. They can easily buy
off the rest of the Executive Committee. They’ll be only too glad to
get away free, with their lives, at any cost, if it comes to a fight.
If evidence is found against me, sufficient to prove certain things,
they can strike at me with impunity. My own rank and file would be the
first to stone me to death. Their damn superstitions always stand in
the way of revolutionary beliefs. They talk at International
Head-quarters about romanticism and leftism and all sorts of freak
notions. What do they know about the peculiar type of hog mind that
constitutes an Irish peasant?”

“How dare you?” cried Mary indignantly.

He looked at her. Her eyes were flashing. She sat erect on the form.
He had never seen a woman wild and imperious like that. He smiled
weakly.

“Sorry to hurt your feelings,” he said cynically. “But I’m beyond
that. Pish! I’ve got the whole country in a fine net and I’m within
the law until they find something definite to go upon. I can snap my
fingers at the lot of you.” He grew fierce and arrogant. “You and your
patriotic ideas! I was wrong about you. I don’t want you. I never
wanted you. Do you hear? I snap my fingers at the whole world. That
hulking swine can do his best. I will drain his blood before dawn.
Mark my words. He’ll never reach the police station. My destiny stands
against him. And——”

Just then the sentry’s challenge rang out. Gallagher immediately stood
stock still and listened. Then he rushed into the passage, drawing his
pistol and muttering something. Two men were hurrying down the stairs.
The first of them came up smartly to Gallagher and clicked his heels.

He was a small, slight man, with hawk’s eyes and a long, pointed,
curved nose. He wore a loose raincoat and a check cap. He was Billy
Burton, an Insurance Agent, a captain in the Revolutionary
Organization. Gallagher shook hands with him eagerly.

“Glad they found you in, Billy,” he said. “You’re the very man I
want.”

He led Burton into the guardroom and rapidly explained the situation.
Then he detailed a plan. He detailed the plan coolly and minutely as
if he had spent weeks at it.

Burton listened, blinking his little eyes, sniffing, biting his nails,
fondling the butt of his automatic pistol in his breast pocket.

Over on the form, Flynn was sitting, with his broken jaw swathed in a
red silk handkerchief. He sat impassively, inscrutably communing with
himself. He seemed to be unconscious of his surroundings, with his
mind fixed immutably on some infinite problem.

The only sounds in the room were the drip, drip of the water from the
many roofs and the patter of Gallagher’s voice.

His voice was again cold, hard, dominating, vital.



CHAPTER XVI

At a quarter to four the drizzling rain ceased. A sharp bustling wind
arose. It came screaming down from the mountains upon Dublin. It was a
hard, mountainous wind, a lean, sulky, snowy wind, that rushed through
the sleeping city savagely, so that even the drops of rain on the
muddy sidewalks leaned over before it, with frills on them.

The clouds arose, their hanging rumps cut away by the newborn wind.
They hung high up in the heavens, gashed and torn, with a sour
expression on their grey, slattern bodies. Here and there a rent came
in the dishevelled panorama of cloud and the sky appeared, blue and
chaste and a long way off.

This change in the mood of nature occurred when Gypo was bounding away
from the Bogey Hole, trembling shakily with excess of energy. He ran
through a short, narrow lane, so narrow that his shoulders grazed
either side as he dashed through. He crossed a thoroughfare in four
strides, casting a look on either side as he leaped across. He saw a
sloppy roadway on one side, with a watchman’s glowing brazier at the
far end and on the other side a hill. Tall tenement houses lined the
thoroughfare, their battered old walls rambling up towards the sky,
their squalor hidden by the majesty of the night.

He fled across the road and entered a dark archway. Then he bumped
suddenly against an old cart and went head-over-heels with a smothered
exclamation. The concussion and weight of his body propelled the cart
a distance of three yards on its crazy wheels, with the shafts
scraping along the ground. He struggled to his feet and was about to
rush away again, when a human voice, coming from beneath him, made him
stand still. He looked down fiercely. It was only some homeless
derelict, who used the archway and the cart as a house and a bed.

“The curse of—” began a cracked, shivering voice.

Gypo was gone, with a clatter of boots, over the cobblestones of the
archway. He debouched into a wide street of new, red-brick houses. He
gripped a wall and peered around him, panting for breath, wild with
the excitement of his escape.

It was then that he noticed the wind, the lifting clouds, and the
far-away sky. He smelt the wind as he breathed in great gasps through
his nostrils, to ease the pressure on his heart and lungs. Then
suddenly, he longed for the mountains and the wide undulating plains
and the rocky passes and the swift-flowing rivers, away to the south
in his own country. Freedom and solitude and quiet, with only the wind
coming through the bog heather! Hiding in some rocky fastness of the
mountains, listening to the wind! Away, away, where nobody could catch
him! To the mountains! To the mountains! Dark blue mountains with
bulging sides and little sheep roaming over them, that he could catch
and kill!

A wild ferocity of joy overcame him. He stared with dilated nostrils
ahead into the rim of the sky above the houses, towards the south. He
gazed, as if he were measuring the distance between him and the
mountains, so as to take a giant leap, that would carry him at once
into the heart of their solitude.

Then he bent down, looking ahead intently. He spat on his hands. He
put his hand to his head to settle his hat. But his hat was not there.
His skull was bare and damp. He felt all over it and found a patch of
clotted blood at the rear base, where it had been kicked during the
struggle in the inquiry room. He took no notice of the blood, but kept
feeling all over the skull, with a dazed look in his eyes, muttering:

“What am I to do without a hat? I had it this two years.”

In the same dazed way he felt all over his body. He uttered a little
shout. He had found it in his trousers pocket, where he had stuffed
it, during the inquiry, when he heard that ominous ring in Gallagher’s
voice. He clapped it on to his skull, all wrinkled and tattered and
tiny. He beat it with his palms, as if it were a mattress. Then, with
a gentle sigh, he darted away, headed due south for the mountains.

He ran recklessly, without thinking of the way, or taking any
precautions. It was the slum district which he knew so well, the
district that enclosed Titt Street, the brothels, the Bogey Hole,
tenement houses, churches, pawnshops, public-houses, ruins, filth,
crime, beautiful women, resplendent idealism in damp cellars, saints
starving in garrets, the most lurid examples of debauchery and vice,
all living thigh to thigh, breast to breast, in that fœtid morass on
the north bank of the Liffey. He ran through narrow streets and great,
wide, yawning streets, lanes and archways, streets patched and
buttressed, with banks of earth from fallen houses almost damming them
in places, pavements strewn with offal, soddened by the rain.

He never made a mistake. He was headed for the mountains. The smell of
the mountains was in his nostrils, flooding his lungs, making his
heart pant with longing.

At last he entered Beresford Place and saw the river. Instinctively he
paused, leaning against a wall, to examine the Bridge. He gasped and
trembled.

Two men were standing at the near side of the Butt Bridge. They had
already forestalled him. He listened. He toyed with a last hope. He
moved cautiously across the open space, to reach the shelter of the
ruins of the Custom House. He reached it. He peered closer at the men.
They were still indistinct. After all, they might be robbers, workmen,
homeless fellows trying to pass the night, students coming from the
brothels and having a last drunken argument on their way home. He
crawled nearer. Then his little eyes blinked and narrowed.

One of the men crouched against the biting wind. Gypo recognized the
crouching figure silhouetted against the sky. It was Mulholland. And
the other man, standing stiff, with his hands in his pockets, was
Peter Hackett.

Gypo’s head became hot and stuffy. His eyes closed, as a sudden pain
struck him in the forehead. He had an impulse to rush forward at the
two men and strangle them. But he did not move. He was not afraid of
the two of them, in spite of their being armed. He did not fear their
guns. But they were part of the Organization. The Organization was at
the Bridge. It had got there before him. He could not pass.
Gallagher’s cold, glassy eyes were on the Bridge. He could not pass.

The smell of the mountains left his lungs and his nostrils. The wind
still blew about his crouching body. But it had lost its odour. Now it
was only sharp and biting, an enemy that drove him backwards, skulking
and dumbfounded. Where was it driving him? Where was it driving him?

He crouched away before it, without taking counsel with himself, with
his head hanging limply on his breast. He crouched across the open
space and entered a roadway that led northwards. There was nothing
within him with which he could take counsel. Within him he was blank
and dark, like a bottomless abyss filled with thick fog. His hulking
figure was driven by the wind to some boundless region where there was
no shelter. He was driven by the wind to some boundless region where
everything was coloured a dim grey, amorphous, terrible.

The vision of an abyss, grey, without shape, swayed before his eyes as
he strode northwards, moving uncertainly, staggering slightly, without
guidance. His footsteps became slower. He came to a halt and looked
about him curiously. He was under a railway bridge that crossed the
street sideways over his head, encased in a black covering. A little
dark laneway opened to his right. He walked three paces up the laneway
and leaned his shoulder against the damp wall.

There was shelter there. The wind did not come in. Only an odd gust
swivelled around the corner and stirred the damp, musty air for a
dying moment. It was quiet and dark, like the interior of a cave. He
sighed.

Gradually he grew composed. He grew calm and very weary. He wanted to
lie down and go to sleep for a long, long time. There was no use
struggling any farther. He was alone. The darkness of the night
enveloped him.

“There’s nobody here,” he murmured aloud.

The ground was a puddle. The walls were blank. He felt with his feet,
seeking a dry spot to lie down. Everywhere his boot sank into a
puddle. He cursed and moved on a pace. He felt again with his feet.
Still more puddles. He moved along still farther and tried again. No
use. Then he began to walk along mechanically, feeling the ground at
intervals. Then he kept walking slowly without feeling the ground. He
had forgotten about lying down.

He came to the end of the lane and saw a wide street in front of him.
He halted excitedly.

“Where am I going?” he cried aloud.

He started at the sound of his voice and peered suspiciously over his
shoulder. Of course there was nobody there. Then he steadied himself
and tried to think of where he was and what had happened. It was a
terrific struggle.

Slowly he began to remember recent events. Fact after fact came
prowling into his brain. Soon the whole series of events stood piled
there in a crazy heap. Everything rushed towards that heap with
increasing rapidity, but nothing could be abstracted from it. It was
just as if the facts were sinking in a puddle and disappearing. It was
utterly impossible for him to reason out a plan of action.

“I must make a plan,” he murmured aloud.

In answer to this exhortation came a vision of Gallagher’s glittering
eyes. They fascinated him. He forgot about a plan. A horde of things
crashed together in his brain making an infernal buzz. He lost control
of himself and ran about under the archway, striking out with his
hands and feet madly, trying to fight the cargo of things that were
jammed together in his brain. It was that insensate rage that
overcomes strong men at times, when they have nothing upon which to
vent their fury, no physical opponent.

He worked madly at this curious exercise for fully five minutes. Then
he stopped, with perspiration streaming from his forehead. He felt
better. His head was clear. He was again conscious of a grim
determination to escape, to outwit those fellows who were on the
Bridge. An idea that he thought amazingly cunning occurred to him, an
idea to escape towards the south, by making a wide detour towards the
north, up by the North Circular Road to Phœnix Park, then westwards
through the Park, then southwards again by Dolphin’s Barn. He was
toying with the route pleasantly when he was suddenly interrupted by a
sound of feet.

Trup, trap, trup, trap . . . came the sound of heavy feet coming down
the street in front of him. Two policemen on their beat were coming
along slowly, rattling door chains as they came. Gypo’s heart began to
beat with terror. He thought they were looking for him. In his
bewilderment he could not understand that he was now under police
protection, an informer. He forgot that he had only to rush up to them
and say that the Revolutionary Organization had condemned him to death
and were now tracking him, in order to be taken to a police barracks,
into safety. On the contrary, he still regarded them as his enemies.
His mentality had not yet accustomed itself to the change that his
going in the police-station that evening had wrought in his condition.
To his understanding he was still a revolutionary. He was not at all
conscious of being an informer, or a friend of law and order, a
protégé of the police.

He bolted headlong out of the laneway and clattered away across the
street. He wheeled to the right, ran ten yards and then dived into
another lane. He continued his flight without stopping. He ran without
purpose, without guidance, driven northwards by panic and the
impossibility of thought. He ran headlong in all directions, into a
street, down its course, then to the left, back again in a parallel
line, down once more the street he had left, passing several times the
same corner in his mad flight. He ran desperately, as if he were
chasing some elusive sprite that delighted in turning on its own
tracks. He floundered through pools. He struggled on his hands and
knees over waste plots. He crushed violently through holes in torn
walls. He climbed over piles of bricks, over walls, jumped into
backyards and then climbed back again into another street. He was
scratched, covered with mud, dripping wet. His eyes were bloodshot.

Then suddenly a clock struck the half-hour close by him. It was
half-past four. He stopped dead, attracted by the tolling of the
clock. It was not the sound but the remembrance it brought. He knew
that clock. It was near Katie Fox’s house where he used to sleep. He
stood in the middle of a narrow lane, with his legs wide apart and his
chest and shoulders thrust forward listening to it. His lips were
opened wide.

He stood, like an uncouth, half-formed thing, alone in the half-grey
shadows of the night, wondering at strange things.

“It’s two turns from here,” he murmured, “first to the left, then to
the right. She should be in be now. That must be three or four
o’clock.”

Now he moved carefully, listening for sounds and planting his feet
lightly, close to the side of the lane. He turned to the left, went
down fifty yards and then turned to the right. He entered a kind of
circular square, a crescent, with a church standing in the middle. He
moved around the crescent until he reached the other side of the
church. There, at the corner of a little cul-de-sac, was the house in
which Katie Fox had a room, about fifteen yards away from the church.

All the houses in the little square were tenement houses, old, dusty
and grey, tattered, sordid, with broken panes in their windows. Nearly
all the street doors were ajar. There was nothing to steal within.

Gypo deferentially tipped his hat to the church as he passed it. He
entered the doorway of Katie Fox’s house. The hallway was pitch black.
He stood for a few moments peering around in the darkness. Then he saw
a night-light on the first landing. He recognized it as the light
placed there every evening by Mrs. Delaney, who had become a religious
maniac since her son was killed in the revolution of 1916. He had been
killed while he was running along the streets, wounded, crying out for
shelter.

“If he ever comes home at night,” whispered Mrs. Delaney
confidentially to everybody, “he’ll see the light burnin’ an’ he’ll
know I’m in. God is good to His own people an’ He’ll look after me
Johnny.”

Gypo felt comforted at seeing the night-light. He moved noiselessly up
the stairs until he reached it. When he was passing it, rounding the
angle of the stairs, he paused, with his hand on the wooden banister
and looked at it. For some reason or other he tiptoed towards it,
leaned out when he was within two feet of it, and blew it out. Then he
started and looked about him wildly. It was pitch dark again.

“That’s better,” he said with a little sigh.

He mounted the stairs steadily. They remained good until he reached
the third floor. Then he had to move up a narrow, rickety, broken
stairs to the top floor, where Katie Fox had a room. He made an awful
noise, but it disturbed nobody. He heard a child crying when he got
near the top of the stairs. The child belonged to Tim Flanagan, an
unemployed man, who occupied the opposite room to Katie Fox on the top
landing. He lived there with his wife and three children. The baby had
the measles and the other two children were awake. One child was
laughing. Gypo could distinguish Flanagan’s weak, timorous voice,
trying to soothe the children.

Gypo stood outside the door to the left, Katie Fox’s door. He
listened. A shaft of light streamed through the keyhole and through a
large, round hole in the bottom of the door. A large piece of the door
had been gnawed away by a stray dog that Katie Fox brought home one
night. He bit his way out of the room as soon as he got a meal. Gypo
listened. Katie Fox was talking within. Gypo knocked.

“Who’s that?”

“It’s only me, Katie. Open the door.”

“Mother o’ Mercy,” she screeched, “it’s his ghost. It’s his ghost,
Louisa. Louisa, will ye hide me somewhere, for God’s sake!”

“Ghost yer gran’mother,” came a cracked, old voice. “Get up an’ open
the door will ye, till we see what he wants.”

“No, no—” began Katie’s voice again.

Gypo put his shoulder to the door, burst the piece of string that
fastened it on the inside to a nail in the wall, and flung the door
open wide. He stalked into the room.

At first the whole room appeared to be a blue bank of fog. Then the
blue mist dissipated gradually. The room assumed proportions. Things
swam out of the mist towards him gracefully, in the order of their
importance. First came the lamp. It was placed on the black, wooden
mantelpiece over the fireplace. It was an ordinary tin paraffin lamp,
painted red. The chimney was three-parts black. Next came the
fireplace. There was a huge, open grate, with a turf fire burning in
it. The fire was more like the remains of a funeral pyre, because the
ashes had accumulated for weeks. The flaming peat sods lay stretched
like fallen logs on the top of the great pile of yellow ashes. Next
came the bed, with Louisa Cummins lying in one corner of it.

The bed was so huge that it might be mistaken for anything were it not
supported by four thick wooden posts and had a canopy over it, at the
head, after the fashion of those beds that are called in Irish country
places “Archbishops’ Beds.” The bed-clothes were indescribable.
Everything was pitched on to the bed and everything stayed there.
Louisa Cummins lived in the bed most of the day. She had done so for
eight years, since she became “bedridden” as the result of “injuries”
received from the police, one night she was arrested on a charge of
trafficking in immorality. She was quite strong and healthy. She did
all her work in bed. The blankets were gathered about her bulky person
in the far corner, near the wall. In the other corner, Katie Fox’s
corner, there was a couple or so of tattered blankets. The foot of the
bed was heaped with junk of all sorts, from a notched mug, out of
which the old lady drank her tea, to a statue of Saint Joseph that
hung on the bed-post, suspended from a thick nail by a rough, knotted
cord. The cord was around the statue’s neck, in a noose. The statue
was not suspended there out of crude respect, as might be supposed. It
was hung there as a blasphemous protest against the incompetence of
the saint. Four years before she had made a Novena to Saint Joseph,
requesting a cure for muscular rheumatism, and because her request was
not granted she hung up the statue by the neck.

When Gypo’s eyes found her through the fog, she was hidden to the chin
beneath a pile of blankets and clothes of all sorts, up against the
wall. She lay on her side, with her white, shrivelled head ensconced
in a grey pillow, that had no case to cover it. The feathers protruded
from the pillow. The old woman’s white hair was strewn about the
pillow and the bed-clothes, like strands of seaweed floating on the
surface of a shallow sea at low tide. Her mouth was wide open, in an
ogreish fashion, displaying red gums and four yellow teeth, cropping
up at unequal distances along her jaws; four, crooked, yellow fangs.

Her eyes alone showed life and intelligence. They were small, fierce,
blue eyes, blazing with cunning and avarice.

Her body, hidden beneath the clothes, resembled a mountain that had
been reduced to a shapeless pulp by concussion.

Gypo surveyed her without any emotion. Then he looked around for
Katie. He saw her standing in the corner behind the door. She was
still dressed as he had met her in the public-house early in the
evening. But her dress had become dishevelled. Her face had changed.
It had changed in a strange manner. It had lost the careworn, pinched
expression. Her eyes were no longer tired. Her face was flushed and
full. The skin was loose. The mouth was firm, with a voluptuous
softness in the lips. Her eyes flashed bright. They had the calm
aggressiveness of healthy, energetic women, who are passing from one
success to another, the calm, aggressive flash of satisfied desire and
of vaulting ambition. While, in spite of all that, her hands,
clutching her throat, trembled in apparent terror, in contradiction to
the repose and vitality of her face. Her feet, too, danced
spasmodically.

“What’s the matter with ye, Katie?” said Gypo. “What’s that ye were
sayin’ about me ghost?”

He spoke in a hoarse, morose whisper.

“God!” exclaimed Katie.

She took her hands away from her throat and clasped them behind her
back, with the movement of one offered an objectionable thing. Then
she fled to the fire at great speed. She leaned her back against the
wall to the right of the fireplace and gaped at Gypo. She motioned to
him with her head.

“Shut that door,” she said in a whisper. “Shut the door and come in.”

Gypo turned to the door silently and began to tie the two pieces of
broken string to fasten it once more.

“Where have ye ben?” she whispered. “O, Lord! Ye put the heart
crosswise in me.”

Gypo tied the door and stalked slowly and quietly to the hearth. He
stood still, glanced towards the old woman and then looked with open
lips at Katie.

“They’re after me, Katie,” he muttered with a shudder.

There was a silence. Gypo shuddered again and sat down in front of the
fire. He sat on the floor, with his elbows resting on his knees,
stretching out his hands to the blaze.

Katie looked at him with glittering eyes. She stood against the wall,
motionless. Her face had very white beneath her crumpled red hat. Her
eyes glittered. Her upper lip was gathered together, frilled.

The old woman in the bed glanced from Gypo to Katie and from Katie to
Gypo. Her eyes danced with merriment. She kept cuddling herself, as if
in an ecstasy of enjoyment.

“What are ye talkin’ about?” said Katie at length.

“Th’ Organization is after me,” he muttered without looking at her.
“Commandant Gallagher is goin’ to plug me. I escaped outa the cell in
the Bogey Hole.”

“What are they goin’ to plug ye for? In the name o’ goodness, what are
they goin’ to plug ye for?”

Katie Fox’s voice was cold and passionless, but Gypo did not notice.
She had a queer, thin smile on her lips, but Gypo did not look at her
face. She had a flashing light in her eyes as she spoke, but Gypo had
not seen it. He was staring dreamily into the fire. He was tired out
and sleepy. There was no use keeping watch any longer. He was tired,
tired, tired. Tired and sleepy. What was the use of keeping watch any
longer? Sleep, sleep, sleep. Then he would go straight to the south.
He would rush to the south with the wind, through all obstacles.
Sleep, sleep, sleep.

“It doesn’t matter what they’re after me for,” he muttered.

There was another silence.

Sleep, sleep, sleep.

“They want to get me outa their way,” he mumbled again. “But they’re
not goin’ to get me. Katie, I’m goin’ to flop here for the night. I’ll
stay till to-morrow night. Then I’m going south. Here’s all the money
I have.”

He rummaged in his trousers pocket and brought out on his palm four
shillings and sixpence. He handed it to her. She approached and held
out her right hand for it, with a mincing movement.

“Gimme that money. Gimme that money,” screamed the old woman from the
bed. She struggled to sit up.

“You shut up, Louisa,” growled Gypo, half turning towards her across
his shoulder. “Shut up or I’ll flatten ye.”

The old woman collapsed, grinning. Then she caught up a stick that lay
beside her in the bed. She shook the stick at Katie Fox.

“She robs me, she robs me,” she wailed, in a thin, cracked voice.

“I’ll sleep here on the floor, Katie,” said Gypo. “Hey, Katie. I’ll
sleep here in front o’ the fire. Katie, what’s the matter with ye? Why
don’t ye talk to me?” Katie burst into laughter. She had sat down on a
low stool to the left of the fire on receiving the money. Now she
jumped to her feet and laughed. It was a queer, dry laugh. There was a
dreamy look in her eyes. She looked at the floor, wrapped in thought.

“Are ye drunk or what’s the matter with ye?” grumbled Gypo.

“There’s nothin’ at all the matter with me,” murmured Katie dreamily,
still looking at the floor.

Then she drew in a deep breath and shrugged herself. She became alive
and energetic again, wide awake, with piercing eyes. She began to talk
at an amazing speed, with her arms crossed on her breasts.

“Sure, Gypo,” she said in a loud, hilarious voice, “ye can sleep here
till the crack o’ doom if ye like. Sure enough, Connemara Maggie tole
me about Bartly Mulholland comin’ lookin’ for ye. She came into Biddy
Burke’s as drunk as a lord, an’ she outs with a yarn about Bartly
puttin’ a gun to ye’ head an’ drivin’ ye up the street in front o’
him.”

“Yer a liar, she didn’t,” growled Gypo, starting slightly.

“Maybe she didn’t say that exactly,” continued Katie, “but——”

“Did she give ye a quid I gave her to give ye?”

“A quid? Did ye give her a quid for me? Well, of all the liars! Well,
of all the robbers! Of all the dirty sons of pock-faced tailors! She
takes the cooked biscuit. Troth then, she only gev me ten bob an’ I
had to fight her for that. O’ course I’m sayin’ nothin’ about things I
might say a lot about, but——”

“Oh! less o’ yer gab,” growled Gypo, feeling behind him on the floor
with his hand. “I’m not in humour for yer gab, Katie.”

“Don’t lie on the floor,” she cried solicitously. “Get into the bed.
Lie in my corner. Don’t mind, Louisa. The corner is mine. I can let
who I like int’ it. Louisa, if ye don’t lie still I’ll lave ye for
dead as sure as Our Lord was crucified. So I will. Well what could ye
expect? An’ I’m sayin’ nothin’ now, Gypo, seein’ the position yer in,
but it’s the price o’ ye all the same. I hope ye don’t mind me
speakin’ me mind out. It’s the price o’ ye for lavin’ them that were
kind to ye, an’ throwin’ yer money away on a strap like that. But sure
me poor mother used to say, Lord have mercy on her——”

“Get outa here, get outa here,” screamed the old woman, waving her
stick.

Gypo had thrown himself on the bed on his back. The old lady began to
beat him feebly about the body with her stick. He took no notice of
her. He fumbled with the heap of tattered blankets, arranging them
about his legs.

Katie Fox caught up the tongs and approached the bed sideways, making
furtive signs to the old woman, urging her secretly to keep quiet.

The old woman subsided, muttering something. Katie went back to the
fire and put down the tongs. She continued to talk. She was rapidly
becoming more excited. Her eyes had now a look of insanity in them.
Her lips were constantly becoming wreathed with smiles, after the
manner of a lunatic who is thinking of some demoniac buffoonery in his
muddled brain.

“Though few people know it,” she cried arrogantly, looking at the
door, while she put a cigarette in her mouth, “me poor mother was a
born lady. Put that in yer pipe, Louisa Cummins, and try an’ smoke it.
Yev given me dog’s abuse since I came into yer rotten pigsty of a
room, but still an’ all ye know yer not fit to wipe me shoes. So I
don’t give a damn.”

“Yerra, d’ye hear her, d’ye hear her?” croaked Louisa Cummins.

She began to laugh, making a noise in her throat like a hen, that
quaint, cunning, querulous sound, that a hen makes at night, when
disturbed during her roosting hours.

Gypo had arranged the clothes to his satisfaction. The blankets
covered his body up to his chest. His eyes began to close. His little,
round hat still remained on his head, crushed down over his forehead.
There was a continual murmur in his brain. The sounds, the talk, the
smells about him no longer had any meaning.

Sleep, sleep, sleep.

Danger, fear, everything was forgotten, but his desire to sleep.

Sleep, sleep, sleep.

“Yerrah, is it an informer I’m lyin’ beside?” screamed the old woman
again, trying to rise with fury. “Get out, get out. There’s blood on
yer hands. There’s——”

“Lie down or I’ll brain ye,” hissed Katie, rushing once more to the
bed.

With a weary sigh Gypo stretched out his left hand and dropped it
across the body of the old woman. She subsided under the weight of the
massive hand. It lay across her, relaxed and tired. She peered at it
curiously, around the edge of her blankets. Maybe she peered at it in
terror. Who knows what emotions were concealed behind that hideous
skull?

Gypo did not look at her. His eyes were almost closed. His nostrils
were expanding and contracting noiselessly.

Sleep, sleep, sleep.

Then a mad rush to the mountains.

Sleep, sleep, sleep.

“Blast it for a story,” cried Katie Fox, stamping on the floor.

She walked to the middle of the floor. Then she folded her arms and
stood with her legs wide apart and her chest thrown out, gazing at the
dim wall with glittering eyes. She threw back her head and laughed.

“Amn’t I the fool?” she cried. “Oh! amn’t I the fool? Me that could
walk with the finest men in the land! Do ye know that me gran’father
was the Duke o’ Clonliffey? Do ye know that? An’ me mother was related
to royalty on her father’s side. Not to the King of England either,
but to me bould King o’ Spain, where they grow oranges an’ ye can
drink wine out of a well like water from the Shannon. Sure it’s there
where I was born an’ reared, in a palace as big as the County
Waterford, with archbishops waitin’ at table on me, with red napkins
on their arms, an’ a rale lady——”

“Yerrah, will ye hould yer whist,” piped the old woman.

She tried to brandish her stick and to disengage herself from the hand
that lay on top of her. But the hand stiffened for a moment. She was
pressed down beneath it. Then the hand relaxed again.

Sleep, sleep, sleep.

Gypo’s eyes opened wide for a moment. Then he closed them. Everything
in his mind became a blur. Nightmares stood massed in his brain ready
to rush in on the platform of his sleeping mind and carry on their mad
acting, as soon as his being soared off, bound in sleep. He had
already surrendered to these nightmares.

Sleep, sleep, sleep.

Katie Fox looked at him cunningly for a moment. Her face hardened and
her eyes narrowed to points. Then she glanced away again, towards the
wall. Her lower lip dropped. Her eyes distended. She puffed twice at
her cigarette. She began to talk again.

“I could tell ye stories about them all, Gypo,” she cried, waving her
arm wildly in Gypo’s direction. “I could tell ye, so I could, but
what’s the use of tellin’? Wha’? What’s the use of anythin’? An’ Fr.
Conroy refused to give me absolution. Well, he can go to hell. I can
get along without his absolution. I’m not afraid o’ hell. Oh, Mother
o’ Mercy!” she cried, suddenly crossing herself; “what have I said?
What——”

“Ha! Cross yersel’, cross yersel’,” croaked Louisa Cummins. “But it’s
no good to ye. Down ye’ll go. Down ye’ll go. Ha, ha, ha!”

“There’s a curse on me family, Louisa, since me second cousin the
Duchess of . . . of . . . of . . . where is that place she was Duchess
of? . . . I forget it, although I was there often with me mother. It’s
somewhere out be Killiney. Well, she put a curse on me family anyway.
She used to have thirteen monkeys sittin’ at the breakfast table with
her.”

“Yer a liar, yer a liar,” cried the old woman in a sudden fury. “She
couldn’t have thirteen monkeys. She couldn’t have thirteen. It’s them
drugs yer takin’ that’s gone to yer head. Thirteen! Foo!”

Gypo mumbled something in a tremendous whisper. Both women looked at
him. His lips were moving, but the words were unintelligible. His
massive chest heaved up to an enormous extent and collapsed again
slowly, with a great outrush of breath from the nostrils. His tawny
face stood out impassively in the glimmer of the firelight. It looked
sorrowful and oppressed.

Sleep, sleep, sleep.

He was wafted away by heavy gusts of sleep, to the thunderous music of
fantastic nightmares. Primeval memories assumed form in the clouds of
sleep that pressed down about him. They assumed form and shape, the
shape of the beings that pursued him.

Sleep, sleep, sleep.

His strength was becoming unbound, dissolved in sleep, loosened out
and swaying limply on vapours of sleep.

Sleep, sleep, sleep.

“D’ye know what I’m goin’ to tell ye, Louisa?” continued Katie in a
low, hushed voice. “When I’m dead they’re goin’ to canonize me. Then
I’ll have a holy well out on the Malahide Road, an’ I’ll put a spell
on everybody I don’t like, an’ make them get up in the middle o’ the
night, an’ walk out barefoot to the well, to drink three cupfuls o’
the holy water. An’ never knowin’ that I’ll have it poisoned. This is
a queer world, Louisa, an’ ye’ll soon be out of it, ’cos yer——”

“Sorra a fear o’ me,” croaked the old woman. “I’ll dance on yer grave.
Ye little rip o’ divilment. Yer not the first nor the fifth that has
come into me house this ten years an’ gone the same road. No yer not.
An’ ye won’t be the last. Oho! Ye all got pretty faces. Ye all get the
fine strong men to kiss ye. But old, dirty-faced Louisa Cummins ’ll
dance on yer graves. She dances on yer graves. So she does. Now what
are ye doin’ with him? Are ye puttin’ yer evil spell on him? Informer
an’ all that he is, I’ll not let ye put yer evil spell on him. I’ll
not let ye do that. Go away from the bed.”

Katie had come to the bed and had bent down with her left ear to
Gypo’s face, listening to his breathing. She raised her face to look
at the old woman.

“He’s dead asleep,” she whispered with a smile.

“Well? Is that queer?”

“Don’t wake him while I’m gone, Louisa.”

“Where are ye goin’?”

“Mind yer own business, Louisa. I’m givin’ ye warnin’.”

“Is it to the polis yer goin’?”

“Don’t talk so loud. It’s not to the polis I’m goin’. I’m just goin’
out.”

“Ha! Yer goin’ to inform on him ye rip o’ divilment. Yer goin’ to
inform on him.”

“It’s nothin’ o’ the kind. Isn’t he an informer? Don’t make a noise.
Don’t waken him or they’ll fill ye full o’ lead when they come. I’m
givin’ ye this warnin’. Shut up.”

She moved backwards to the door, with her hand held out threateningly
towards the old woman. The old woman looked after her. Her mouth was
wide open. Her eyes roamed about. Then Katie disappeared out the door.
Her shoes went tapping down the stairs. The banisters creaked. The
room was still, except for Gypo’s heavy breathing.

The old woman remained motionless for several seconds, looking towards
the door. Then she groped for her stick and tried to rouse Gypo with
it. But Gypo’s arm still lay across her body holding it down. In his
sleep it stiffened and held her down. She peered at it and frowned.
She dropped the stick and smiled.

“Ha!” she gurgled, “she’s gone to inform on ye, me fine boyo. They’ll
soon be here after ye. Trust a woman, trust a devil. She’ll be the
ruin o’ ye, me bould warrior. An’ many’s the fine strappin’ woman from
yer own country would give her two eyes for a night with ye. An’ here
ye lie, asleep an’ weak, with the weariness o’ death on ye. Ha! The
divil mend the lot o’ ye. Ha! There ye are now. Ha! There ye are now
an’ be damned to ye. Ha! Ha!”

Sleep, sleep, sleep.

Sleep and strange dreams.



CHAPTER XVII

At sixteen minutes to six, Mulholland rushed down the stairs into the
Bogey Hole, shouting in a hushed whisper all the way:

“Commandant, Commandant, we have him, we have him!”

Gallagher rushed to the stairway. He found Mulholland grasping the
wall with one hand, with his cap in the other hand, panting, with
perspiration rolling down his cheeks in drops.

“It was Katie Fox,” he gasped. “She came runnin’ down Mount William
Road: Charlie Carrol headed her off. She tole him Gypo was up in her
room, in bed. No. 61 Mount William Crescent. Captain Burton has got
the house surrounded. He sent me up for orders.”

“Katie Fox?” said Gallagher. “I thought she was——”

“She’s mad with dope.”

“I see. Double back and tell Burton I’ll be down immediately. Don’t
move till I arrive.”

“All right, Commandant.”

Mulholland raced up the stairs again. Gallagher rushed back to the
witnesses’ room. Mary McPhillip had fallen into a doze. He roused her.

“Come on, Mary,” he whispered. “We are going now. We found him.”

“Who? What? Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Who did you find?”

“The informer. Gypo Nolan. We found him at 61 Mount William Crescent.
I am going there now. Come along. Then I’ll leave you home.”

She was waking up gradually, frightened and rubbing her eyes.
Gallagher fidgeted excitedly, trying to get her to her feet.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“A quarter to six.”

“Heavens above! Mother will be gone to Mass before I get home.”

“What does it matter?”

“Of course it matters. I was to have gone with her this morning. For
Frankie.”

“Where does she go to Mass?”

“Mount William Crescent.”

“Well, we’re going there, too. You can go into the chapel and meet her
there.”

“Why? What’s at Mount William Crescent?”

She was fully awake now and had got to her feet, wild eyed.

Gallagher got angry and swore. He stamped his feet.

“Come on quickly. I have no time. I tell you the informer has been
found. He is at Mount William Crescent. I’m going down there. Come
along.”

“You’re going to murder him,” she gasped, with her bosom heaving.

“Murder be damned!” cried Gallagher. “We’re going to wipe him out.”

“You’re a beast. You’re not going to murder him, not while I can
prevent it.”

She rushed from the room. With a fierce oath he rushed after her. He
caught her at the foot of the stairs. The sentries rushed up. She kept
screaming and striking out with her clawing hands.

“Keep her here,” he hissed. “Don’t let her out on any account for an
hour. Then let her off and get home. Good-bye.” He looked fiercely
into Mary’s eyes. His face was ashen with rage. “We spare neither man
nor woman. Remember that.”

Then he rushed up the stairs.

“Murderer, murderer,” she cried after him, until they stuffed her
mouth.



CHAPTER XVIII

Shapeless figures dancing on tremendous stilts, on the brink of an
abyss, to the sound of rocks being tumbled about below, in the
darkness, everything immense and dark and resounding, everything
without shape or meaning, gloom and preponderance, yawning, yawning
abysses full of frozen fog, cliffs gliding away when touched, leaving
no foundation, an endless wandering through space, through screeching
winds and . . . crash.

Gypo awoke with a snort, perspiring with his nightmare, terrified.

The old woman had at last awakened him by squeezing his nostrils
between her fingers. He sat up, looked about him and saw her. He saw
her weird and pale, with her white hair streaming. He was going to
strike her in terror, thinking her an ogre from his dreams, when she
spoke.

“They’re after ye,” she hissed. “They’re after ye. They’re on the
stairs.”

He listened. There was nothing. Not a sound. What? Just a whistle of
the wind on the roof. Ha! Something creaked. Was it the bed? No. Trup,
trip, r-r-rip. Somebody had slipped on the roof.

Gypo bounded from the bed to the floor in one leap. He stood
motionless, crouching forward, panting, with dilated nostrils. A sound
came on the stairs outside the door. Somebody on the stairs said:
“Hist!” Then utter silence. Gypo stood transfixed, still wet with the
perspiration of his nightmare.

Then he moved noiselessly to the fireplace and picked up the tongs. It
slipped from his fingers as he rose and rattled to the stone hearth.
He whirled about to the door with an oath. Simultaneously the door was
flung wide with a bang. Three flashes of light came before his eyes
from the doorway. As he rushed headlong towards them there was a
deafening roar. Three men had fired together at him. Then there was
chaos.

As he dashed across the floor to the landing, he felt a sting like
frost-bite in his thigh. Then he saw their terror-stricken, mad faces.
He recognized two of them, Mulholland and Hackett. The third man was
Curley. When he closed with them and felt his giant hands on the soft
warm flesh of their bodies he breathed a sigh of satisfaction.

Somebody fired again, unintentionally, in the struggling mass on the
landing. It must have been Curley. For his thin voice screamed
querulously after the explosion, “God have mercy on my soul!” Gypo
smelt burning under his armpit as his head was bent down to mobilize
his spine strength.

Then the banister gave way with a crash of breaking wood. The four men
went down, without a cry. Their fists thudded with dull sounds as they
struck blindly at one another in the dark.

They fell on the next landing. Gypo and Mulholland were on top.
Mulholland had his right knee on Curley’s back. He was cool with the
mania of death-terror. He bared his teeth and raised his pistol to
fire into Gypo’s open mouth. But Gypo rammed him with his monstrous
head.

Mulholland was hurled backwards like a gymnast, head over heels, heels
over head. He brought up on a black sheepskin carpet outside a
tenement door in the far corner. He lay with his knees to his chin,
perfectly quiet. The pistol shot splashed through the whitewashed
woodwork of the ceiling. The pistol jingled to the floor.

Gypo scraped around on his hands and knees in the darkness. He groped
for the two men who lay beneath him. He felt their rumps, their backs,
their thighs, in a wide sweep of his hands. Their bodies were lax and
soft, like the carcasses of dead things. One of them sighed and turned
over. Gypo rose to his feet. Without looking anywhere he rushed for
the stairs and leaped down.

Half-way down the last flight he paused and tried to think. But he
drew his hand over his eyes and shook his head.

“It’s no use. It’s no use,” he said aloud.

There was a great din of disturbed people in the house above him.

He reached the hallway. Through the open door he could see the street
outside. The dawn had come. The air was grey, cold, empty and silent.
He marched steadily to the door. His body was very cold. And his mind
was dead. Cold and dead. Dead and cold.

A stream of red blood trickled down over his right boot from the wound
in his thigh. Another stream trickled along his right ribs. He did not
know. He was cold and dead. Dead and very cold.

He stopped in the doorway. His eyes expanded. A last passion made his
body rigid. He roared. He had seen Gallagher standing against the
church railings across the road, with his hands in his raincoat
pockets, smiling insolently.

Gypo descended the five steps to the street at one bound. Then as his
right foot landed on the pavement there was a rapid succession of
shots. They came from all sides. Three of them entered his body.
Without bringing his left foot to the pavement he jumped again into
the air, with his two hands reaching out and his face turned upwards,
in the earnest attitude of a symbolic dancer.

He hurtled out into the street, hopping on staggering feet, writhing
and contorting. Then he fell to his knees. He groaned and fell prone.

He struggled up again, looking wildly around him, holding his bowels
with his hands. Gallagher was there in front of him, smiling dreamily
now, with distant, melancholy eyes.

Gallagher shrugged himself and turned away sharply to the right.

Gypo wanted to go after him. But he no longer knew why he wanted to go
after him. His eyes were getting dim. His body was cold. Cold and
dead.

Grinding his teeth he got to his feet. He threw out his chest,
shrugged his shoulders and walked ahead like a drunken man. He walked
slowly straight ahead, straight, stiff, swinging his limp hands
slowly.

He walked through the iron gateway of the church, along the concrete
path to the door. He had to crawl up the steps on his knees. Blood was
coming up his throat.

Reverently he dipped his hand into the holy-water font. He wet his
hand to the wrist. He tried to take off his hat in order to cross
himself. His hand pawed about his skull, but his fingers were already
dead. They could not grip the tattered hat. He tried to cross himself.
Impossible. His hand could not reach his forehead. It went up half-way
and then fell lifelessly. It was a ton weight. He strode to the left.
He staggered through a narrow Roman door. He was in the church.

It was a great high room, curtained with silence. At the altar, away
in the lamp-lit dimness of the dawn, a priest was saying Mass. The
droning sound of the words came down the silent church, peaceful,
laden with the quaint odour of mystery, the mysterious calm of souls
groping after infinite things. All round the church the people knelt
with bent heads and faces wrapt in prayer for infinite things. Sad,
haggard, hungry faces wrapt in the contemplation of infinity, wafted
out of the sordidness of their lives by the contemplation of infinite
things.

Peace and silence and the quaint odour of mystery and of infinite
things.

Deep, long, soft words murmured endlessly in a silent place. Mystery
and the phantoms of death breathing faint breaths.

Mercy and pity. Pity and peace. Pity and mercy and peace, three
eternal gems in the tabernacle of life, burnished ceaselessly with
human dust.

From dust to dust.

Gypo’s eyes roamed around the church. His eyes were very dim. There
was a blur before them. He thought he saw somebody whom he knew. He
was not sure. Yes. They were looking at him. There, on the left, on
the other side of the aisle. It was a long way off. What? Frankie
McPhillip’s mother!

He set out, with a great sigh, towards her. He fell in a heap in front
of her seat. He raised his head to her face. He saw her face, a great,
white, sad face, with tears running down the fat cheeks. He struggled
to his knees in the aisle before her. People were rushing to him
talking. He waved his hands to keep them away. It was very dark. He
swallowed the blood in his mouth and he cried out in a thick whisper:

“Mrs. McPhillip, ’twas I informed on yer son Frankie. Forgive me. I’m
dyin’.”

“I forgive ye,” she sighed in a sad, soft whisper. “Ye didn’t know
what ye were doin’.”

He shivered from head to foot and bowed his head.

He felt a great mad rush of blood to his head. A great joy filled him.
He became conscious of infinite things.

Pity and mercy and peace and the phantoms of death breathing faint
breaths. Mercy and pity and peace.

“Lemme go!” he cried, struggling to his feet.

He stood up straight, in all the majesty of his giant stature,
towering over all, erect and majestic, with his limbs like pillars,
looking towards the altar.

He cried out in a loud voice:

“Frankie, yer mother has forgiven me.”

Then with a gurgling sound he fell forward on his face. His hat rolled
off. Blood gushed from his mouth. He stretched out his limbs in the
shape of a cross. He shivered and lay still.



TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

This transcription follows the text of the edition published by Alfred
A. Knopf in 1925. However, the following words have been changed from
the original text to correct what are believed to be unambiguous
printing errors.

 * “_recontre_” was changed to “_rencontre_” (Chapter I).
 * “Your as bad” was changed to “You’re as bad” (Chapter III).
 * “stood at east” was changed to “stood at ease” (Chapter III).
 * “awkard” was changed to “awkward” (Chapter IV).
 * “ridicul-ulous” was changed to “ridiculous” (Chapter VII).
 * “It it” was changed to “Is it” (Chapter VIII).
 * “its less” was changed to “it’s less” (Chapter XI).
 * “for out” was changed to “far out” (Chapter XI).
 * “sang into” was changed to “sank into” (Chapter XI).
 * “a think like” was changed to “a thing like” (Chapter XII).
 * “banis-ister” was changed to “banister” (Chapter XVI).
 * Five occurrences of mismatched quotation marks were repaired.





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