The
moment the pursuers stepped on to the balcony it broke under them,
and they dropped pell-mell into the eddying waters, while Michael,
who had thrown off his gown and dived, was able to swim away. It was
said that he had carefully cut away the props so that they would not
support anything so heavy as a policeman. But here again he was
immediately fortunate, yet ultimately unfortunate, for it is said
that one of the men was drowned, leaving a family feud which made a
little rift in his popularity. These stories can now be told in some
detail, not because they are the most marvelous of his many
adventures, but because these alone were not covered with silence by
the loyalty of the peasantry. These alone found their way into
official reports, and it is these which three of the chief officials
of the country were reading and discussing when the more remarkable
part of this story begins.
Night was far advanced and the lights shone in the cottage that
served for a temporary police station near the coast. On one side of
it were the last houses of the straggling village, and on the other
nothing but a waste moorland stretching away toward the sea, the
line of which was broken by no landmark except a solitary tower of
the prehistoric pattern still found in Ireland, standing up as
slender as a column, but pointed like a pyramid.
Pages:
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49