Bernard had never before had occasion to look into the small and ominously black muzzle of a loaded revolver. An involuntary twitching seized upon his muscles as he did so now, but his presence of mind did not desert him.

“No! Don’t shoot!” he called out. The words shook as he uttered them, and seemed to his nervously acute hearing to be crowded parts of a single sound. “That’s rank foolishness!” he added, hurriedly. “There’s no trick! Nobody dreams of touching you. I give you my word I’m more astonished than you are!”

The major seemed to be somewhat impressed by the candor of the young man’s tone. He did not lower the weapon, but he shifted his finger away from the trigger.

“That may or may not be the case,” he said with a studious affectation of calm in his voice. “At all events, you will at once do as I said.”

“But see here,” urged Bernard, “there’s an explanation to everything. I’ll swear that old O’Daly was put in here by our friend here—Jerry Higgins. That’s straight, isn’t it, Jerry?”

“It is, sir!” said Jerry, fervently, with eye askance on the revolver.

“And it’s evident enough that he couldn’t have got out by himself.”

“That he never did, sir.”

“Well, then—let’s figure. How many people know of this place?”

“There’s yoursilf,” responded Jerry, meditatively, “an’ mesilf an’ Linsky—me cousin, Joseph Higgins, I mane. That’s all, if ye l’ave O’Daly out. An’ that’s what bothers me wits, who the divil did l’ave him out?”

“This cousin of yours, as you call him,” put in the resident magistrate—“what did he mean by speaking of him as Linsky? No lying, now.”

“Lying, is it, your honor? ’T is aisy to see you’re a stranger in these parts, to spake that word to me. Egor, ’t is me truth-tellin ’s kept me the poor man I am. I remember, now, sir, wance on a time whin I was only a shlip of a lad—”

“What did you call him Linsky for?” Major Snaffle demanded, peremptorily.

“Well, sir,” answered Jerry, unabashed, “’t is because he’s freckles on him. ‘Linsky’ is the Irish for a ‘freckled man!’ Sure, O’Daly would tell you the same—if yer honor could find him.”

The major did not look entirely convinced.

“I don’t doubt it,” he said, with grim sarcasm; “every man, woman and child of you all would tell the same. Come now—we’ll get up out of this. Link your arms together, and give me the lantern.”

“By your lave, sir,” interposed Jerry, “that trick ye told us of your father—w’u’d that have been in a marteller tower, on the coast beyant Kinsale? Egor, sir, I was there! ’T was me tuk the gun-rags from your father’s mouth. Sure, ’t is in me ricolliction as if ’t was yesterday. There stud The O’Mahony—”

At the sound of the name on his tongue, Jerry stopped short. The secret of that expedition had been preserved so long. Was there danger in revealing it now.

To Bernard the name suggested another thought. He turned swiftly to Jerry.

“Look here!” he said. “You forgot something. The O’Mahony knew of this place.”

“Well, thin, he did, sir,” assented Jerry. “’T was him discovered it altogether.”

“Major,” the young man exclaimed, wheeling now to again confront the magistrate with his revolver, “there’s something queer about this whole thing. I don’t understand it any more than you do. Perhaps if we put our heads together we could figure it out between us. It’s foolishness to stand like this. Let me light the candles here, and all of us sit down like white men. That’s it,” he added as he busied himself in carrying out his suggestion, to which the magistrate tacitly assented. “Now we can talk. We’ll sit here in front of you, and you can keep out your pistol, if you like.”

“Well?” said Major Snaffle, inquiringly, when he had seated himself between the others and the door, yet sidewise, so that he might not be taken unawares by any new-comer.

“Tell him, Jerry, who this O’Mahony of yours was,” directed Bernard.

“Ah, thin—a grand divil of a man!” said Jerry, with enthusiasm. “’T was he was the master of all Muirisc. Sure ’t was mesilf was the first man he gave a word to in Ireland whin he landed at the Cove of Cork. ‘Will ye come along wid me?’ says he. ‘To the inds of the earth!’ says I. And wid that—”

“He came from America, too, did he?” queried the major. “Was that the same man who—who played the trick on my father? You seem to know about that.”

“Egor, ’t was the same!” cried Jerry, slapping his fat knee and chuckling with delight at the memory. “’T was all in the winkin’ of an eye—an’ there he had him bound like a calf goin’ to the fair, an’ he cartin’ him on his own back to the boat. Up wint the sails, an’ off we pushed, an’ the breeze caught us, an’ whin the soldiers came, faith, ’t was safe out o’ raych we were. An’ thin The O’Mahony—God save him!—came to your honor’s father—”

“Yes, I know the story,” interrupted the major. “It doesn’t amuse me as it does you. But what has this man—this O’Mahony—got to do with this present case?”

“It’s like this,” explained Bernard, “as I understand it: He left Ireland after this thing Jerry’s been telling you about and went fighting in other countries. He turned his property over to two trustees to manage for the benefit of a little girl here—now Miss Kate O’Mahony. O’Daly was one of the trustees. What does he do but marry the girl’s mother—a widow—and lay pipes to put the girl in a convent and steal all the money. I told you at the beginning that it was a family squabble. I happened to come along this way, got interested in the thing, and took a notion to put a spoke in O’Daly’s wheel. To manage the convent end of the business I had to go away for two or three days. While I was gone, I thought it would be safer to have O’Daly down here out of mischief. Now you’ve got the whole story. Or, no, that isn’t all, for when I got back I find that the young lady herself has disappeared; and, lo and behold, here’s O’Daly turned up missing, too!”

“What’s that you say?” asked Major Snaffle. “The young lady gone, also?”

“Is it Miss Kate?” broke in Jerry. “Oh, thin, ’t is the divil’s worst work! Miss Kate not to be found—is that your m’aning? ’T is not consayvable.”

“Oh, I don’t think there’s anything serious in that,” said Bernard. “She’ll turn out to be safe and snug somewhere when everything’s cleared up. But, in the meantime, where’s O’Daly? How did he get out of here?”

The major rose and walked over to the door. He examined its fastenings and lock with attention.

“It can only be opened from the outside,” he remarked as he returned to his seat.

“I know that,” said Bernard. “And I’ve got a notion that there’s only one man alive who could have come and opened it.”

“Is it Lin—me cousin, you mane?” asked Jerry.

“Egor! He was never out of me sight, daylight or dark, till they arrested us together.”............