At last, out it came--
"Bedad! we're going to do it! London's to be set o' fire in seventeen
places at the same moment, an' I'm to light two of them to me own self, and
make a holycrust--ay, that's the word--o' Ireland's scorpions, to sting
themselves to death in circling flame--"
"You would not do such a villanous thing?" cried we, both at once.
"Bedad! but I won't harm a hair o' their heads! Shure, we'll save the women
and childer alive, and run for the fire-ingins our blessed selves, and then
out with the pikes, and seize the Bank and the Tower--
"An' av' I lives, I lives victhorious,
An' av' I dies, my soul in glory is;
Love fa--a--are--well!"
I was getting desperate: the whole thing seemed at once so horrible and so
impossible. There must be some villanous trap at the bottom of it.
"If you don't tell me more about this fellow Power, Mike," said I, "I'll
blow your brains out on the spot: either you or he are villains." And I
valiantly pulled out my only weapon, the door key, and put it to his head.
"Och! are you mad, thin? He's a broth of a boy; and I'll tell ye.
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