“What!” said Connor, looking towards the east, “can it be day-light so soon?”

“Begad, it surely cannot,” replied his companion.

“Holy mother above us, what is this?”

Both involuntarily stood to contemplate the strange phenomenon which presented itself to their observation; and, as it was certainly both novel and startling in its appearance, we shall pause a little to describe it more minutely.

The night, as we have already said, was remarkably dark, and warm to an unusual degree.  To the astonishment, however, of our two travellers, a gleam of light, extremely faint, and somewhat resembling that which precedes the rising of a summer sun, broke upon their path, and passed on in undulating sweeps for a considerable space before them.  Connor had scarcely time to utter the exclamation just alluded to, and Flanagan to reply to him, when the light around them shot farther into the distance and deepened from its first pale hue into a rich and gorgeous purple.  Its effect, however, was limited within a circle of about a mile, for they could observe that it got faint gradually, from the centre to the extreme verge, where it melted into utter darkness.

“They must mean something extraordinary,” said Connor; “whatever it is, it appears to be behind the hill that divides us from Bodagh’s Buie’s house.  Blessed earth! it looks as if the sky was on fire!”

The sky, indeed, presented a fearful but sublime spectacle.  One spot appeared to glow with the red-white heat of a furnace, and to form the centre of a fiery cupola, from which the flame was flung in redder and grosser masses, that darkened away into wild and dusky indistinctness, in a manner that corresponded with the same light, as it danced in red and frightful mirth upon the earth.  As they looked, the cause of this awful phenomenon soon became visible.  From behind the hill was seen a thick shower of burning particles rushing up into the mid air, and presently the broad point of a huge pyramid of fire, wavering in terrible and capricious power, seemed to disport itself far up in the very depths of the glowing sky.  On looking again upon the earth they perceived that this terrible circle was extending itself over a wider circumference of country, marking every prominent object around them with a dark blood—­red tinge, and throwing those that were more remote into a visionary but appalling relief.

“Dhar Chriestha,” exclaimed Flanagan, “I have it; thim I spoke about has paid Bodagh Buie the visit they promised him.”

“Come round the hip o’ the hill,” said Connor, “till we see where it really is; but I’ll tell you what, Bartle, if you be right, woe betide you! all the water in Europe wouldn’t wash you free in my mind, of being connected in this same Ribbon business that’s spreading through the country.  As sure as that sky—­that fearful sky’s above us, you must prove to me and other’s how you came to know that this hellish business was to take place.  God of heaven! let us run—­surely it couldn’t be the dwelling-house!”