within there at all?" he grumbled. "Ah, tell me now, for the love of God, what'd a lady like ye be doing in the fields at the dead of night these quare times, when maybe any one would be killed next minute!" "There's murdher abroad, ma'am," he announced, when I had followed his whispered instructions and established myself in an old disused graveyard overlooking the road. "Murdher and vingeance." "I'm thinking Teige O'Leary is after going back on them," he continued mysteriously; "a while ago meself was passing the cross-roads at the little rock of the dancing, and I seen him go into his house and he with a look of thunder on his face. 'Tis said in the village that he's after falling out with Con' the hound, and God help him so, for 'twill be a matther of death and no throuble at all about. I hadn't barely turned wesht from the rock when a motor-car come roaring up the hill, and I concealed meself in a ditch overright the pig-sty, and seen three men from the car knock at the cottage door. 'Twas Teige himself opened it, and he dazzled-like by the sunset. "'Come on,' says one of the strangers. the three of them laughed, and one of them to be saying Teige should take his pipes to hell with him. In the latther end the lot of them made off in the motor-car, and Teige sitting between them with the pipes and not to be speaking." Cronin would hazard no opinion as to where they went. He merely shook his head, and launched into a rambling description of his discovery that Sinn Fein scouts were watching my house. They must have reached the front door just when I was slipping out of the library window, for Cronin from some vantage-point had seen me emerging from the fir wood a few minutes later. up, "There's something ma'am," he kept repeating. I felt his keen old eyes trying to read my face in the dark. But, of course, I remained silent. Meanwhile there was no sound of a motor lorry. Nothing and nobody passed along the road. A great stillness settled over the country, broken at intervals by the old man's voice murmuring reminiscences, conjectures, and eventually prayers. For no Irish peasant is at ease in the proximity of graves by night, and only a most potent fear of the living could have induced him to 666 Where'll I go?' says take refuge among the dead. Teige. "The stranger threwn him an ugly look. 'Ye'll go where the republic'll send ye,' says he. 'And maybe 'twill be to hell,' says he, and with that The strange night wore on without incident. The presumption that Dinneen had been successful brought a feeling of immense relief. Gradually growing sleepy, I watched the winding white road, where As I looked, the vague silver overhanging trees made dark thread seemed to penetrate blots of shadow like the deeper the mist, and emerge transpools in a stream. I imagined formed into a definite sound. myself sitting by a peaceful glimmering river, far from all danger and unrest. The hoarse cry of a heron sailing overhead completed the illusion of calm moonlit water. The primrose line in the sky had brightened and spread to the north-east, when I found myself suddenly wide awake and very cold. Over the graveyard trees a long shiver was passing; the grass on the mounds rustled faintly. A barely perceptible shrillness came from the bog-lands below Carrigarinka. It was scarcely even a vibration-just a vague thread of silver drifting before the dawn wind, and striking the senses where sight and hearing are indistinguishable. I glanced down the hill towards the bog which lay invisible beneath a shroud of grey mist. Bat Cronin grasped my arm. "Listen, ma'am, listen!" he whispered. "Whisht! whisht! 'tis the fairies! 'Tis the pipers playing before dawn. Oh, God and the Blessed Saints save us all! Sure there'll be some one dead before morning." His quick-drawn breath and trembling hand revealed an intensity of agitation. The sound shaped itself into a melody, clear though remote, and mournful past the verge of despair. It rose in a minor wail, hovered, and fell. Its closing cadence held a hint of irrevocable doom. Then almost immediately a different strain broke out, vivid and triumphant, like gay colours at sunrise. Once again came the vision of a dauntless unearthly leader. But this time he was advancing alone. A volley of rifle-shots, distant, yet sharp and decisive, brought the music to an end. When the sun rose I walked back into the house through the library window, which was still open as I had left it. I half expected to find signs of a raid, but all was quiet and in order. Evidently the watchers' presence had been due to a not unfounded sus XII. picion that I might have learned of the design upon the patrol, and in consequence might take steps to frustrate it. News spreads with an amazing swiftness in rural Ireland. By the time I had finished breakfast my entire staff was in possession of the fact that Teige O'Leary had been shot mysteriously at the far side of Dinneen was safe and amongst the bog. friends. "There was a handkerchief acrost his eyes, and his legs was wropt round with sugauns," said the cook, an elderly and estimable woman who took a complacent interest in every tragic event. "The bagpipes was in the mud beside him, and his fingers bent as if he'd still be playing, God forgive him! when 'twas saying his prayers he had a right to be, the creature! There was a shlip of paper pinned to his coat, and it saying in big writing, The vingeance of the republic. Thraitors and Informers Beware!' Ah, wisha then! such goings on! 'Tis the quare times we're having! Is it the chicken or the beef ye'll be ating to-day, ma'am?" 6 Towards noon Cronin brought word that Dinneen's cottage was closed and empty, and "divil a one in the village to give an account of him, good or bad; and, faith, some had it 'twas he got Teige O'Leary shot, and that maybe he'd be on the run now himself." This illogical surmise amused me, but I kept my own counsel, feeling satisfied that, for the present at any rate, Mike 66 Most regrettable," the young officer was saying. He seemed distressed and nervous. "The patrol set out as usual last night. Some three miles from camp the lorry broke down. While repairs were being carried out a man was observed looking over the fence about thirty yards away. He climbed into the road and moved through the shadows towards the lorry. The soldier on sentry duty challenged him. The man held up one hand, keeping the other suspiciously in his pocket. The sentry fired. The man fell, shot through the heart. discovered why he put up both hands. only one arm." Then we had not He had RAISULI. BY WALTER B. HARRIS. MULAI AHMED BEN MOHAMMED ER-RAISULI is to-day a man of about fifty years of age. He is by birth sprung from one of the most aristocratic families in Morocco, and is a Shereef, or direct descendant of the Prophet, through Mulai Idris, who founded the Mohammedan Empire of Morocco, and was the first sovereign of the Idrisite Dynasty. The children of Mulai Idris were established in various parts of the country, and it is from Mulai Abd-es-Salam, whose tomb in the Beni Aros tribe is a place of great sanctity, that the famous brigand is directly descended his family, and he himself, still holding a share in the lands, the rights, and the privileges which were enjoyed by their renowned ancestor. A branch of the family settled in Tetuan, where a fine mosque forms a mausoleum for his more recent ancestors, and is venerated as a place of pilgrimage. Possibly it was this holy ancestry that turned Raisuli from the paths of virtue, for after having received an excellent education in religion and religious law at Tetuan he took to the adventurous, lucrative, and in Morocco by no means despised, profession of I. a cattle robber. It is a risky business and requires courage. You may just as likely be shot yourself as shoot any one else; but prestige tells in favour of the head of the band, and a reign of terror of the young Raisuli ensued. He became celebrated. He was a youth of great courage, of the most prepossessing looks, and he and his followers earned money easily and fast-and spent it still faster. But cattle robberies led to other crimes. Murders followed, and it must be confessed that Raisuli's hands are none too clean in that respect; but murder in Morocco cannot be classed with murder in England. Life is cheap, and the dead are soon forgotten. By nature he was, and is, cruel, and the profession he had adopted gave him unlimited scope to exhibit his cruelty. On one occasion a Shereef who had married his sister proposed, according to Moslem custom, to take a second wife. Raisuli's sister, enraged, fled to her brother and complained. Nothing occurred till the night of the new marriage, when at the height of the festivities Raisuli and his men entered his brother-inlaw's house and put to death the young bride and her mother. At length his acts became I first met him. I was campinsupportable. The whole ing on a shooting expedition near Arzeila when he and his seldom; and even on, I never heard him laugh. With his followers he was cold and haughty, and they treated him with all the respect due to his birth. country round lived in terror of his raids. The late Sultan ordered his arrest. His greatest friend betrayed him; he was seized and sent to prison in the dreaded dungeons of Mogador. When, in 1903, I was Raisuli's prisoner at Zinat, he narrated more than once to me the history of those four or five years spent in prison. He showed me the marks of the chains on his ankles, wrists, and neck; he told me of the filth and the cold; of the introduction of a file in a loaf of bread; of five months' patient work at night; and of a delayed flight. He escaped, but for a very few hours. He did not know his way about the town, and he had forgotten that the chains would almost prevent his walking. He entered a street that had no out- When next I saw him I was let and was recaptured. Fresh his prisoner at his stronghold chains were heaped upon him, at Zinat, situated about twelve and it was not till two years miles from Tangier-in June later that he was released on 1903. He had altered a little. the petition of Haj Mohammed His face had filled out, the Torres, the Sultan's represen- mouth had become harder and tative at Tangier. He came a little more cruel, but he was back to his home, meaning to still remarkably handsome. He live a quiet and peaceful life, had not changed for the better. but he found that his friend Only a few months before my who had betrayed him had capture he had sold one of his become Governor of Tangier prisoners to an enemy for and confiscated all his property. $1500, and stood by to see the He applied for its return, but purchaser cut the victim's could not obtain it. He threat- throat. As long as he had reened, but they laughed at him stricted his energies to cattle-and then he took to his old lifting and to attacks upon profession and became a bri- natives no one paid very serigand. ous attention to him, though It was at this period that the Makhzen were trying to |