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 trapdoor opened off the garden into the room. The barrels were let down through this trapdoor. 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 today 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 today 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 workingman?” 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 today and midnight tonight. 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 today, 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, figureheads 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 judges’ 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 Englishwoman 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 thunderstorm 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 Godlike 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 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. + 