Later on this day I met Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington in the street.  She confirmed the rumour that her husband had been arrested on the previous day, but further than that she had no news.  So far as I know the sole crime of which her husband had been guilty was that he called for a meeting of the citizens to enrol special constables and prevent looting.

Among the rumours it was stated with every accent of certitude that Madame Markievicz had been captured in George’s Street, and taken to the Castle.  It was also current that Sir Roger Casement had been captured at sea and had already been shot in the Tower of London.  The names of several Volunteer Leaders are mentioned as being dead.  But the surmise that steals timidly from one mouth flies boldly as a certitude from every mouth that repeats it, and truth itself would now be listened to with only a gossip’s ear, but no person would believe a word of it.

This night also was calm and beautiful, but this night was the most sinister and woeful of those that have passed.  The sound of artillery, of rifles, machine guns, grenades, did not cease even for a moment.  From my window I saw a red flare that crept to the sky, and stole over it and remained there glaring; the smoke reached from the ground to the clouds, and I could see great red sparks go soaring to enormous heights; while always, in the calm air, hour after hour there was the buzzing and rattling and thudding of guns, and, but for the guns, silence.

It is in a dead silence this Insurrection is being fought, and one imagines what must be the feeling of these men, young for the most part, and unused to violence, who are submitting silently to the crash and flame and explosion by which they are surrounded.

CHAPTER V.

Friday.

This morning there are no newspapers, no bread, no milk, no news.  The sun is shining, and the streets are lively but discreet.  All people continue to talk to one another without distinction of class, but nobody knows what any person thinks.

It is a little singular the number of people who are smiling.  I fancy they were listening to the guns last night, and they are smiling this morning because the darkness is past, and because the sun is shining, and because they can move their limbs in space, and may talk without having to sink their voices to a whisper.  Guns do not sound so bad in the day as they do at night, and no person can feel lonely while the sun shines.

The men are smiling, but the women laugh, and their laughter does not displease, for whatever women do in whatever circumstances appears to have a rightness of its own.  It seems right that they should scream when danger to themselves is imminent, and it seems right that they should laugh when the danger only threatens others.