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"Sure, you knew a vessel came from America last night. Well, in her was one that was called the Queen of Ireland long ago." "Queen of Ireland well, what then?" Dyck's voice was tuneless, his manner rigid, his eyes burning. "Well, she Miss Sheila Llyn and her mother are going to the Salem Plantation, down by the Essex Valley Mountain. It is her plantation now. It belonged to her uncle, Bryan Llyn.
Sheila swept her arms around her mother's neck and drew the fine head to her breast. At that moment they heard the clatter of hoofs, and presently they saw a horse and rider pass the window. "It's a government messenger, mother," Sheila said. As Sheila said, it was a government messenger, bearing a packet to Mrs. Llyn a letter from her brother in America, whom she had not seen for many years.
If Mrs. and Miss Llyn come back that way, they will be in greater danger than were we, for the Maroons were coming here to capture the ladies and hold them as hostages; and they would not let them pass. In any case, the risk is immense. The ladies must be got to Spanish Town, for the Maroons are desperate.
"But that wouldn't influence Boyne," was the reply. "His first wife had a beautiful and interesting face, but it didn't hold him. He went marauding elsewhere, and she divorced him by act of parliament. I don't think you knew it, but his first wife was one of your acquaintances Mrs. Llyn, whose daughter you saw just before we left Playmore.
"Because it is the king of the rivers in these parts." "Does the fountain come out of a rock?" "It does not; it comes out of a lake, a llyn." "Where is the llyn?" "Over that crag at the foot of Aran Vawr." "Is it a large lake?" "It is not; it is small." "Deep?" "Very." "Strange things in it?" "I believe there are strange things in it." His English now became broken. "Crocodiles?"
"She deserves all that any better man might do. Why don't you marry her to some great man in your Republic? It would settle my trouble for me and free her mind from anxiety. Mrs. Llyn, we are not children, you and I. You know life, and so do I, and " She interrupted him. "Be sure of this, Mr. Calhoun, she knows life even better than either of us.
And the harrying and burning at Rhyll, when the mother and her babes perished. No, you weren't there, Tad, but you know and I know who was. Ah, Tad, she's crying to God that mother, and holding the little dead things in her hands, close up to his face. And now you'd murder Llyn, for all he's ever been for peace." "Hush-s-sh! not so loud, Gwen." "Not so loud! not so loud!" she jibed bitterly.
He was high-placed, but not so high as to be sure of success where a woman was concerned, and he had made up his mind to capture Sheila Llyn, if so be she could be caught flying, or settled, or sleeping. "Ah, well, he has drunk with worse men than republicans. Boland. He was a common sailor. He drank what was given him with whom it chanced in the fo'castle."
When she opened the packet now, she felt it would help to solve she knew not how the trouble between herself and her daughter. The letter had been sent to a firm in Dublin with which Bryan Llyn had done business, with instructions that it should be forwarded to his sister.
A hundred yards from them, over the boggy upland, among scattered boulders, a dark figure is moving. Now he stops short, gesticulating; turns right and left irresolutely. At last he hurries on and upward; he is running, springing from stone to stone. "There is but one thing, Wynd. After him, or he'll drown himself in Llyn Cwn Fynnon." "No, he's striking to the right.
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