moment of triumph, feel sorrow for what he had thought it best to do. A brave heart, I have called it; a noble heart-and so it was. A heart ever entendered to me from the first when, God He knows, there was none else to show me kindness; a heart that so long as it beat was ever loyal, good, and true.
"Will you put back to the bridge?" I asked him, seeing that he still kept the boat's course headed up river. "Surely it would be best to make straight for the packet and go on board at once. Suppose O'Rourke has recovered by now and informed my uncle. What may he not do to us?"
"Nothing," replied Oliver, as he still set a fast stroke, "nothing. To begin with-which is the most important thing-he cannot catch the Dove, no, not even if he could persuade the captain of one of His Majesty's sloops now lying in the river to put out in chase of her, – such vessels as she is can show their heels to anything they have a few hours' start of. And as for what he can do to us-why, what can he attempt? We have been employed on his service, I hold in my pocket a letter from him justifying me in kidnapping the youth who claims to be Lord St. Amande. Well! that is what thy cousin claims to be in succession, and, even if he did not do so, how can thy uncle make any stir, or announce himself, as he needs must do if he blows on me; he, a participator in what I have done? While for O'Rourke-the noble Captain O'Rourke, Hanoverian spy, Jacobite plotter, white or black cockade wearer as the time serves and the wind shifts, crimp and bully, – think you he will come within a hundred leagues of Mr. Robert St. Amande after having failed so damnably? Nay! more likely are we to meet him in the streets of London when we get there than in those of Dublin! So bend thy back to it, Gerald, and pull hard for Essex Bridge. The tide runs out apace."
As we passed up through the shipping lying in the river and on to our destination, Quin did utter one more remark to the effect that, if he had in very fact slain O'Rourke, or injured him so badly that he could not rise from the spot where he fell, it was possible we might still find him there, but that he did not think such a thing was very likely to come about.
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