His speed was so great that Bartle could find neither breath nor leisure to make any reply.

“Thank God!” he exclaimed; “oh, thank God it’s not the house, and there lives are safe! but blessed Father, there’s the man’s whole haggard in flames!”

“Oh, the netarnal villains!” was the simple exclamation of Flanagan.

“Bartle,” said his companion, “you heard what I said this minute?”

Their eyes met as he spoke, and for the first time O’Donovan was struck by the pallid malignity of his features.  The servant gazed steadily upon him, his lips slightly but firmly drawn back, and his eye, in which was neither sympathy nor alarm, charged with the spirit of a cool and devilish triumph.

Connor’s blazed at the bare idea of his villainy, and, in a fit of manly and indignant rage, he seized Flanagan and hurled him headlong to the earth at his feet.  “You have hell in your face, you villain!” he exclaimed; “and if I thought that—­if I did—­I’d drag you down like a dog, an’ pitch you head—­foremost into the flames!”

Bartle rose, and, in a voice wonderfully calm, simply observed, “God knows, Connor, if I know either your heart or mine, you’ll be sorry for this treatment you’ve given me for no rason.  You know yourself that, as soon as I heard anything of the ill-will against the Bodagh, I tould it to you, in ordher—­mark that—­in ordher that you might let him know it the best way you thought proper; an’ for that you’ve knocked me down!”

“Why, I believe you may be right, Bartle—­there’s truth in that—­but I can’t forgive you the look you gave me.”

“That red light was in my face, maybe; I’m sure if that wasn’t it, I can’t tell—­I was myself wonderin’ at your own looks, the same way; but then it was that quare light that was in your face.”

“Well, well, maybe I’m wrong—­I hope I am.  Do you think we could be of any use there?”

“Of use! an’ how would we account for being there at all, Connor? how would you do it, at any rate, widout maybe bringin’ the girl into blame?”

“You’re right agin, Bartle; I’m not half so cool as you are; our best plan is to go home—­”

“And go to bed; it is; an’ the sooner we’re there the better; sowl, Connor, you gev me a murdherin’ crash.”

“Think no more of it—­think no more of it—­I’m not often hasty, so you must overlook it.”

It was, however, with an anxious and distressed heart that Connor O’Donovan reached his father’s barn, where, in the same bed with Flanagan, he enjoyed, towards morning, a brief and broken slumber that brought back to his fancy images of blood and fire, all so confusedly mingled with Una, himself, and their parents, that the voice of his father calling upon them to rise, came to him as a welcome and manifest relief.