"Surrender, you rebel, or I will shoot you."
He held the pistol out before him. O'Connor crying, "Go back, Nora darling!" urged his horse forward, raising his sword the while. But Anthony fired and the bullet struck O'Connor in the sword arm, which fell helpless. In a second Anthony had gripped O'Connor, and in the struggle the two men rolled off their horses. Anthony was on top, and he drew a second pistol from his belt. Before he could use it his hand was seized.
It was Nora. Her assistance enabled O'Connor to regain his feet.
"By G----, I'll make him swing on this very spot!" cried Anthony, foaming with passion.
"Thank God! Captain Anthony, I've saved you from committing murder!"
For a moment his eyes met Nora's. Their deep, soft, tender influence, and the soft, low, sweet voice fell like a happy calm on his soul. For a second a fierce, wild longing to clasp her in his arms took possession of him, and all his heart's love went out to her. Then there was the noise of galloping horses below the bend of the road.
Turning to O'Connor, Captain Anthony said gently, "The Yeos are coming, save yourselves."
And Larry and Nora went down the boreen together.
"Superstitious?" Well, I confess I am a little. I would rather not sit down at table with twelve others, and I think that no really good host should expose his guest to such a predicament. I have, indeed, made one of thirteen at dinner on more than one occasion, and was not a penny the worse, nor, as far as I can recall, was anyone else. But all the same, I don't like the number. And I would rather see two magpies than one any day, and I don't like to hear the 'tick' of the death watch at night.
I would rather not pass a churchyard alone after dark, but then I don't like churchyards even in the daytime, and would avoid them if I could. I was once induced to make one at a seance of Spiritualists, and sat for at least half an hour, with five or six others, round a table in the dark, vainly hoping for a glimpse of a spirit from the other world, or for a sound of the rapping, the system of telegraphy said to be employed by its denizens, but I neither saw nor heard anything.
The reader will gather from this that I am like nine out of ten of his acquaintances in matters of this kind. I am not a convinced sceptic as to supernatural visitations, and, on the other hand, I am not a believer in them. All I know is that I had never seen anything to bring me in touch, real or imaginary, with the other world until a certain night in the first days of the month of September, over twenty years ago, when I was staying at one of the most charming seaside resorts on the eastern coast of Ireland.