Rifle volleys are continuous about Merrion Square, and prolonged machine gun firing can be heard also.

During the night the firing was heavy from almost every direction; and in the direction of Sackville Street a red glare told again of fire.

It is hard to get to bed these nights.  It is hard even to sit down, for the moment one does sit down one stands immediately up again resuming that ridiculous ship’s march from the window to the wall and back.  I am foot weary as I have never been before in my life, but I cannot say that I am excited.  No person in Dublin is excited, but there exists a state of tension and expectancy which is mentally more exasperating than any excitement could be.  The absence of news is largely responsible for this.  We do not know what has happened, what is happening, or what is going to happen, and the reversion to barbarism (for barbarism is largely a lack of news) disturbs us.

Each night we have got to bed at last murmuring, “I wonder will it be all over to-morrow,” and this night the like question accompanied us.

CHAPTER VI.

Saturday.

This morning also there has been no bread, no milk, no meat, no newspapers, but the sun is shining.  It is astonishing that, thus early in the Spring, the weather should be so beautiful.

It is stated freely that the Post Office has been taken, and just as freely it is averred that it has not been taken.  The approaches to Merrion Square are held by the military, and I was not permitted to go to my office.  As I came to this point shots were fired at a motor car which had not stopped on being challenged.  Bystanders said it was Sir Horace Plunkett’s car, and that he had been shot.  Later we found that Sir Horace was not hurt, but that his nephew who drove the car had been severely wounded.

At this hour the rumour of the fall of Verdun was persistent.  Later on it was denied, as was denied the companion rumour of the relief of Kut.  Saw R. who had spent three days and the whole of his money in getting home from County Clare.  He had heard that Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington’s house was raided, and that two dead bodies had been taken out of it.  Saw Miss P. who seemed sad.  I do not know what her politics are, but I think that the word “kindness” might be used to cover all her activities.  She has a heart of gold, and the courage of many lions.  I then met Mr. Commissioner Bailey who said the Volunteers had sent a deputation, and that terms of surrender were being discussed.  I hope this is true, and I hope mercy will be shown to the men.  Nobody believes there will be any mercy shown, and it is freely reported that they are shot in the street, or are taken to the nearest barracks and shot there.  The belief grows that no person who is now in the Insurrection will be alive when the Insurrection is ended.

That is as it will be.  But these days the thought of death does not strike on the mind with any severity, and, should the European war continue much longer, the fear of death will entirely depart from man, as it has departed many times in history.  With that great deterrent gone our rulers will be gravely at a loss in dealing with strikers and other such discontented people.  Possibly they will have to resurrect the long-buried idea of torture.