One of the 28th Part 27

"What has happened?" Ralph exclaimed. "Have they shot you?"

"No. Hold the torch up and you will see the way we came."

The soldier did so, and Ralph looking up saw a hole in the top of the cave twenty feet above.

"You don't mean to say you came through there, O'Connor?"

"I did, worse luck to it!" O'Connor said. "The pa.s.sage got steeper and steeper, and at last my foot slipped, and I shot down and came plump into the middle of a peat fire; and a moment later Desmond shot down on to the top of me. We scattered the fire all over the place, as you can imagine; but I burned my hands and face, and I believe the leg of my breeches is on fire--something is hurting me confoundedly."

"Yes, it is all smoldering!" Ralph exclaimed, putting it out with his hands.

"Have you got them all?" Captain O'Connor asked.

"Everyone; not one has made his escape. It would have fared badly with us, though, if Lieutenant Adc.o.c.k had not sent down the men to our a.s.sistance. Where is your leg broken, O'Connor?"

"Above the knee," the captain said.

"Here is some whisky and water," Ralph said, handing him his bottle.

"Now, I will see what has happened to Desmond," and he stooped over the insensible officer.

"He has got a nasty gash on his forehead, and I think his right arm is broken," he said. "I will pour a little spirits between his lips, and then he had better be carried out into the air."

This was done; and then Ralph went outside, and shouted to Sergeant Morris to bring down another twenty men.

"If you please, sir," one of the coast-guard men said, touching his hat, "I don't see any signs of our officer. Have you seen him?"

"No," Ralph said. "Perhaps he is still in that pa.s.sage. You had better run up to the top and see."

Two minutes later the man returned:

"He's down there, sir; but he says he can't get up or down."

"You had better run down to the boat at once," Ralph said. "I see she is close insh.o.r.e. Bring a couple more of your men up with you and a rope. If you tie that round your body you can go down and bring him up."

Ralph then returned to the cavern, where the men were still guarding the prisoners.

"You can march them outside now," he said. "Then make them sit down, and stand over them with fixed bayonets till Sergeant Morris arrives.

Now let us look to the wounded."

An examination showed that two of the soldiers were dead, and three others badly wounded. Seven of the party in the cave lay on the ground. One only was alive; the rest had fallen either from bullet or bayonet wounds. Seeing that nothing could be done here Ralph looked round the cavern. He soon saw that just where Captain O'Connor had fallen there was an entrance into another cave. He reloaded his pistols before he entered this, but found it deserted.

It contained two large stills, with mash tubs and every appliance, two or three hundred kegs of whisky, and some thirty sacks of barley. This at once accounted for the cave being known, and for the number of men found in it; for in addition to the seven that had fallen six prisoners had been taken. The walls of the cave were deeply smoke-stained, showing that it had been used as a distillery for a great number of years.

"That is satisfactory," Captain O'Connor said when Ralph reported to him the discovery he had made. "That place where I came down is of course the chimney. Peat does not give much smoke, and making its way out through that screen of bushes it would be so light that it would not be noticed by any one on the cliffs. Well, it's been a good morning's work--a band of notorious scoundrels captured and an illicit still discovered in full work. It was a cleverly contrived place. Of course it is a natural cavern, and was likely enough known before the fall of rocks from above so completely concealed the entrance. I wish those fellows would come, though, for my leg is hurting me amazingly, and these burns on my hands and face are smarting horribly. Shout out to them on the cliff, Conway, and tell them to send at once to fetch Dr. Doran from the village. The wounded ought to be seen to as soon as possible, and it is likely enough that some of them cannot be taken up over the rocks to the top of the cliff. I dread the business myself."

In a quarter of an hour Sergeant Morris arrived with his party. By this time Lieutenant Desmond had recovered consciousness, and although in great pain from his broken arm was consoled upon hearing of the complete success of the expedition. The soldiers were furious on hearing that three of their comrades had been killed, and two of their officers badly injured.

"Sergeant," Ralph said, "bring four of your men into the cave with me.

Now," he continued when they entered, "there is a pile of blankets in that corner; take one of them and fasten it across two of the men's muskets, so as to make a litter. Then we must lift Captain O'Connor carefully and put him on it and get him outside. It will be a difficult business getting him through the narrow entrance, but we must manage it as well as we can. But first let us thoroughly examine the caves; there may be another entrance somewhere."

Searching carefully they found a pa.s.sage behind the stack of kegs. It was some eight feet high and as much wide. They followed it for a short distance, and then saw daylight. Their way was, however, speedily blocked by a number of rocks piled over the entrance.

"This was evidently the original entrance to these caves," Ralph said, "but it was covered up when the rocks came down from above. That would account for the place not being known to the coast-guards. I thought the pa.s.sage we came in by looked as if it had been enlarged by the hand of man. No doubt it was originally a small hole, and when the entrance was blocked the men who made up their minds to establish a still here thought that it would be the best way to enlarge that and to leave the original entrance blocked.

"Well, it's evident we must take Captain O'Connor and the wounded out by the small entrance. It would be a tremendous business to clear those great rocks away."

Captain O'Connor and the two wounded men were with great difficulty taken through the narrow pa.s.sage. The soldier who was alive was the one who had received the charge of the blunderbuss in his legs; he was terribly injured below the knee, and Ralph had little doubt that amputation would be necessary. The other man lived but a short time after being brought into the air.

Ralph now turned to the peasant who had saved his life by grappling with the Red Captain at the moment he was about to discharge his blunderbuss, and who had by his orders been left unbound. He was sitting a short distance from the other prisoners.

"Your name is Denis Moore?" he said.

"It is, your honor," the man replied in surprise; "though how you came to know it beats me entirely."

"I heard it from your wife last night," Ralph said.

"From Bridget?" the man exclaimed. "Why, I thought she was a hundred miles away!"

"She came down here like a brave woman to try and save you," Ralph said, "and gave us information that brought us to this hiding-place; but her name is not to appear, and no one will know how we heard of it. We promised her that no harm should come to you if we could help it, and, thanks to the act by which you saved my life, you have escaped, for being down on the ground you were out of the line of the fire of our bullets. Of course at present we shall treat you as a prisoner, as you were captured with the others; but I think we shall manage to let you slip away. Your wife is to remain at Dunmanway till she hears the news of this affair and that you are safe, and she bade me tell you that you would find her at home, so no one will dream that either she or you had any hand in this affair. Now, point me out which are the four men that belong to this gang that brought you down here."

"The man who has just died was one of them," Denis replied. "None of the other three are here, so I expect they fell in the cabin. They were in the front of the fight. I saw one go down just as I grappled with our captain."

"So much the better," Ralph said. "As to their leader, there will be no difficulty in getting evidence about him. The regiment he belonged to is in Dublin, and they can prove the shooting of his officer; beside, they can get any amount of evidence from Galway."

"Ay; they will be ready enough to speak out now the whole gang are down," Denis Moore said. "They would not have dared to open their lips otherwise. The other prisoners all belong about here. One of their party is the captain's brother. That's how it is they came to take us in. But I think they would have been glad to get rid of us, for the Red Captain's lot were too bad for anything; and it isn't because men are ready to cheat the king's revenue that they are fond of such villains and murderers as these."

In a short time the doctor arrived. He had brought a case of instruments with him.

"There's nothing for it but amputation here," he said when he examined the wounded soldier. "His legs are just splintered. The sooner I do it the better."

Sergeant Morris and three of the men held the poor fellow while the operation was performed. As soon as it was over the doctor applied splints and bandages to Captain O'Connor's leg and Lieutenant Desmond's arm, and dressed the wounds of three of the other men, who had suffered more or less severely.

CHAPTER XIII.

STARTLING NEWS.

"What do you think is the best thing to be done now doctor?" Ralph asked.

"I don't know," he replied. "I don't see how on earth we are going to get them over these rocks and up to the top. A slip or a fall would cost either of your friends their limbs, and that poor fellow his life. I don't see how it is to be managed. It's hard work for a man to climb those rocks, and how a litter is to be carried I can't see. If it were anywhere else I should say build a hut for them; but it would be a tremendous business getting the materials down, and I don't think it could possibly be managed by night."

"I am sure it couldn't," Ralph said, shaking his head. "I think, though, if we got two long poles and slung a piece of canvas like a hammock between them we may possibly get them down to the sh.o.r.e. You see we have plenty of strength to get them over rough places."

"We could manage that easy enough," Lieutenant Adc.o.c.k, who had some time before joined the party, said. "There are some sixteen-feet oars in the boat and some sails. We could easily rig up the hammock. I suppose you mean to take them off in the boat, Mr. Conway?"

"Yes; that's what I meant," Ralph said. "Then you can land them in your cove, and they might stop in the village till they are fit to be moved."