Cautiously as he had been instructed, tenderly and with much beer, Mulcahy opened his projects to such as he deemed fittest to listen. And these were, one and all, of that quaint, crooked, sweet, profoundly irresponsible and profoundly lovable race that fight like fiends, argue like children, reason like women, obey like men, and jest like their own goblins of the rath through rebellion, loyalty, want, woe, or war. The underground work of a conspiracy is always dull and very much the same the world over. At the end of six months—the seed always falling on good ground—Mulcahy spoke almost explicitly, hinting darkly in the approved fashion at dread powers behind him, and advising nothing more nor less than mutiny. Were they not dogs, evilly treated? had they not all their own and their national revenges to satisfy? Who in these days would do aught to nine hundred men in rebellion? Who, again, could stay them if they broke for the sea, licking up on their way other regiments only too anxious to join? And afterwards … here followed windy promises of gold and preferment, office, and honour, ever dear to a certain type of Irishman.

As he finished his speech, in the dusk of a twilight, to his chosen associates, there was a sound of a rapidly unslung belt behind him. The arm of one Dan Grady flew out in the gloom and arrested something. Then said Dan—

‘Mulcahy, you’re a great man, an’ you do credit to whoever sent you. Walk about a bit while we think of it.’ Mulcahy departed elate. He knew his words would sink deep.

‘Why the triple-dashed asterisks did ye not let me belt him?’ grunted a voice.

‘Because I’m not a fat-headed fool. Boys, ’tis what he’s been driving at these six months—our superior corpril with his education and his copies of the Irish papers and his everlasting beer. He’s been sent for the purpose and that’s where the money comes from. Can ye not see? That man’s a gold-mine, which Horse Egan here would have destroyed with a belt-buckle. It would be throwing away the gifts of Providence not to fall in with his little plans. Of coorse we’ll mut’ny till all’s dry. Shoot the colonel on the parade-ground, massacree the company officers, ransack the arsenal, and then—Boys, did he tell you what next? He told me the other night when he was beginning to talk wild. Then we’re to join with the niggers, and look for help from Dhulip Singh and the Russians!’

‘And spoil the best campaign that ever was this side of Hell! Danny, I’d have lost the beer to ha’ given him the belting he requires.’

‘Oh, let him go this awhile, man! He’s got no—no constructiveness, but that’s the egg-meat of his plan, and you must understand that I’m in with it, an’ so are you. We’ll want oceans of beer to convince us—firmaments full. We’ll give him talk for his money, and one by one all the boys’ll come in and he’ll have a nest of nine hundred mutineers to squat in an’ give drink to.’

‘What makes me killing-mad is his wanting us to do what the niggers did thirty years gone. That an’ his pig’s cheek in saying that other regiments would come along,’ said a Kerry man.

‘That’s not so bad as hintin’ we should loose off on the colonel.’

‘Colonel be sugared! I’d as soon as not put a shot through his helmet to see him jump and clutch his old horse’s head. But Mulcahy talks o’ shootin’ our comp’ny orf’cers accidental.’

‘He said that, did he?’ said Horse Egan.

‘Somethin’ like that, anyways. Can’t ye fancy ould Barber Brady wid a bullet in his lungs, coughin’ like a sick monkey, an’ sayin’, “Bhoys, I do not mind your gettin’ dhrunk, but you must hould your liquor like men. The man that shot me is dhrunk. I’ll suspend investigations for six hours, while I get this bullet cut out, an’ then—” ’