Captain O’Connor rejoined the regiment on the evening before the transports arrived.  He walked with two sticks, but this was a measure of precaution rather than of necessity.

“I feel like an impostor,” he said, laughing, as he replied to the welcome of his comrades.  “I believe I could safely throw away these sticks and dance a jig; but the doctor has laid his commands on me, and my man, who has been ruling me with a rod of iron, will not permit the slightest infringement of them.  He seems to consider that he is responsible for me in all respects, and if he had been master and I man he could not have behaved with grosser despotism.”

“I am glad to see you looking so well, O’Connor,” Ralph said, shaking his captain warmly by the hand.

“I don’t know whether I do right in shaking hands with you, Conway,” O’Connor said.  “I have been thinking it over while I have been lying there, and I have come to the conclusion that it’s you I have to thank for this affair altogether.”

There was a general laugh.  “How do you make that out?” Ralph asked.

“It’s clear enough, now my eyes are opened.  It was you who discovered that passage, and when you did so you said at once to yourself, now, I will get O’Connor and Desmond to go down this place, they are safe to break their necks, and then I shall get all the honor and glory of the affair.  And so it came about.  There were Desmond and I lying on the top of each other with the breath knocked clean out of our bodies, while you were doing all the fighting and getting the credit of the affair.  I appeal to all friends here if it is not a most suspicious affair.”

There was a chorus of agreement.  “We did not think it of you, Conway;” “A most disgraceful trick;” “Ought to be sent to Coventry;” “Ought to be drummed out of the regiment;” mingled with shouts of laughter.

“By the way, the trial of those fellows comes on next week,” one of the officers said when the laughter subsided; “so if the transports don’t come in you will be able to see the last of them, O’Connor.”

“I shall have no objection to see that red rascal hung; but as to the other poor devils, I should be glad enough for them to get off.  An Irish peasant sees no harm in making whisky, and it’s only human nature to resist when you are attacked; beside it was the Red Captain’s gang that set them to fighting, no doubt.  If it hadn’t been for them I don’t suppose there would have been a shot fired.  I hope that’s the view the authorities will take of it.”

As it turned out this was the view taken by the prosecuting counsel at the trial.  The Red Captain was tried for the murder of his officer and for the shooting of two constables in Galway, was found guilty, and hung.  The others were put on trial together for armed resistance to his majesty’s forces, and for killing and slaying three soldiers.  Their counsel pleaded that they were acting under the compulsion