Captain Clayton was thoroughly enjoying life, now perhaps, for the first time since he had had a bullet driven through his body. It had come to pass that everything, almost everything, was done for him by the hands of Edith. And yet Ada was willing to do everything that was required; but she declared always that what she did was of no avail. "Unless you take it to him, you know he won\'t eat it," she would still say. No doubt this was absurd, because the sick man\'s appetite was very good, considering that a hole had been made from his front to his back within the last month. It was still September, the weather was as warm as summer, and he insisted on lying out in the garden with his rugs around him, and enjoying the service of all his slaves. But among his slaves Edith was the one whom the other slaves found it most difficult to understand.

"I will go on," she said to her father, "and do everything for him while he is an invalid. But, when he is well enough to be moved, either he or I must go out of this."

Her father simply said that he did not understand it; but then he was one of the other slaves.

"Edith," said the Captain, one day, speaking from his rugs on the bank upon the lawn, "just say that one word, \'I yield.\' It will have to be said sooner or later."

"I will not say it, Captain Clayton," said Edith with a firm voice.

"So you have gone back to the Captain," said he.

"I will go back further than that, if you continue to annoy me. It shall be nothing but plain \'sir,\' as hard as you please. You might as well let go my hand; you know that I do not take it away violently, because of your wound."

"I know—I know—I know that a girl\'s hand is the sweetest thing in all creation if she likes you, and leaves it with you willingly." Then there was a little pull, but it was only very little.

"Of course, I don\'t want to hurt you," said Edith.

"And, therefore, it feels as though you loved me. Of course it does. Your hand says one thing and your voice another. Which way does your heart go?"

"Right against you," said Edith. But she could not help blushing at the lie as she told it. "My conscience is altogether against you, and I advise you to attend more to that than to anything else." But still he held her hand, and still she let him hold it.

At that moment Hunter appeared upon the scene, and Edith regained her hand. But had the Captain held the hand, Hunter would not have seen it. Hunter was full of his own news; and, as he told it, very dreadful the story was. "There has been a murder worse than any that have happened yet, just the other side of the lake," and he pointed away to the mountains, and to that part of Lough Corrib which is just above Cong.

"Another murder?" said Edith.

"Oh, miss, no other murder ever told of had any horror in it equal to this! I don\'t know how the governor will keep himself quiet there, with such an affair as this to be looked after. There are six of them down,—or at any rate five."

"When a doubt creeps in, one can always disbelieve as much as one pleases."

"You can hardly disbelieve this, sir, as I have just heard the story from Sergeant Malcolm. There were six in the house, and five have been carried out dead. One has been taken to Cong, and he is as good as dead. Their names are Kelly. An old man and an old woman, and another woman and three children. The old woman was very old, and the man appears to have been her son."

"Have they got nobody?" asked Clayton.

"It appears not, sir. But there is a rumour about the place that there were many of them in it."

"Looking after one another," said Clayton, "so that none should escape his share of the guilt."

"It may be so. But there were many in it, sir. I can\'t tell much of the circumstances, except the fact that there are the five bodies lying dead." And Hunter, with some touch of dramatic effect and true pathos, pointed again to the mountains which he had indicated as the spot where this last murder was committed.

It was soon settled among them that Hunter should go off to the scene of action, Cong, or wherever else his services might be required, and that he should take special care to keep his master acquainted with all details as they came to light. For us, we may give here the details as they did reach the Captain\'s ears in the course of the next few days.

Hunter\'s story had only been too true. The six persons had been murdered, barring one child, who had been taken into Cong in a state which was supposed hardly to admit of his prolonged life. The others, who now lay dead at a shebeen house in the neighbourhood, consisted of an old woman and her son, and his wife and a grown daughter, and a son. All these had been killed in various ways,—had been shot with rifles, and stoned with rocks, and made away with, after any fashion that might come most readily to the hands of brutes devoid of light, of mercy, of conscience, and apparently of fear. It must have been a terrible sight to see, for those who had first broken in upon the scene of desolation. In the course of the next morning it had become known to the police, and it was soon rumoured throughout England and Ireland that there had been ten murderers engaged in the bloody fray. It must have been as Captain Clayton had surmised; one with another intent upon destroying that wretched family,—or perhaps only one among its number,—had insisted that others should accompany him. A man who had been one of their number was less likely to tell if he had a hand in it himself. And so there were ten of them. It might be that one among the number of the murdered had seen the murder of Mr. Morris, or of Pat Gilligan, or the attempted murder of Captain Clayton. And that one was not sure not to tell,—had perhaps shown by some sign and indication that to tell the truth about the deed was in his breast,—or in hers! Some woman living there might have spoken such a word to a friend less cautious in that than were the neighbours in general. Then we can hear, or fancy that we can hear, the muttered reasons of those who sought to rule amidst that bloody community. They were a family of the Kellys,—these poor doomed creatures,—but amidst those who whispered together, amidst those who were forced to come into the whispering, there were many of the same family; or, at any rate, of the same name. For the Kellys were a tribe who had been strong in the land for many years. Though each of the ten feared to be of the bloody party, each did not like not to be of it, for so the power would have come out of their hands. They wished to be among the leading aristocrats, though still they feared. And thus they came together, dreading each other, hating each other at last; each aware that he was about to put his very life within the other\'s power, and each trying to think, as far as thoughts would come to his dim mind, that to him might come some possibility of escape by betraying his comrades.

But a miracle had occurred,—that which must have seemed to be a miracle when they first heard it, and to the wretches themselves, when its fatal truth was made known to them. While in the dead of night they were carrying out this most inhuman massacre there were other eyes watching them; six other eyes were looking at them, and seeing what they did perhaps more plainly than they would see themselves! Think of the scene! There were six persons doomed, and ten who had agreed to doom them; and three others looking on from behind a wall, so near as to enable them to see it all, under the fitful light of the stars! Nineteen of them engaged round one small cabin, of whom five were to die that night;—and as to ten others, it cannot but be hoped that the whole ten may pay the penalty due to the offended feelings of an entire nation!

It may be that it shall be proved that some among the ten had not struck a fatal blow. Or it may fail to be proved that some among the ten have done so. It will go hard with any man to adjudge ten men to death for one deed of murder; and it is very hard for that one to remember always that the doom he is to give is the only means in our power to stop the downward path of crime among us. It may be that some among the ten shall be spared, and it may be that he or they who spare them shall have done right.

But s............