The motorist did not at once remove his hand, whereupon the white-moustached man gripped his gun in both hands and ran violently towards him.  He ran directly to him, body to body, and, as he was short and the motorist was very tall, stared fixedly up in his face.  He roared up at his face in a mighty voice.

“Are you deaf?  Are you deaf?  Move back!”

The motorist moved away, pursued by an eye as steady and savage as the point of the bayonet that was level with it.

Another motor car came round the Ely Place corner of the Green and wobbled at the sight of the barricade.  The three men who had returned to the gates roared “Halt,” but the driver made a tentative effort to turn his wheel.  A great shout of many voices came then, and the three men ran to him.

“Drive to the barricade,” came the order.

The driver turned his wheel a point further towards escape, and instantly one of the men clapped a gun to the wheel and blew the tyre open.  Some words were exchanged, and then a shout: 

“Drive it on the rim, drive it.”

The tone was very menacing, and the motorist turned his car slowly to the barricade and placed it in.

For an hour I tramped the City, seeing everywhere these knots of watchful strangers speaking together in low tones, and it sank into my mind that what I had heard was true, and that the City was in insurrection.  It had been promised for so long, and had been threatened for so long.  Now it was here.  I had seen it in the Green, others had seen it in other parts—­the same men clad in dark green and equipped with rifle, bayonet, and bandolier, the same silent activity.  The police had disappeared from the streets.  At that hour I did not see one policeman, nor did I see one for many days, and men said that several of them had been shot earlier in the morning; that an officer had been shot on Portobello Bridge, that many soldiers had been killed, and that a good many civilians were dead also.

Around me as I walked the rumour of war and death was in the air.  Continually and from every direction rifles were crackling and rolling; sometimes there was only one shot, again it would be a roll of firing crested with single, short explosions, and sinking again to whip-like snaps and whip-like echoes; then for a moment silence, and then again the guns leaped in the air.

The rumour of positions, bridges, public places, railway stations, Government offices, having been seized was persistent, and was not denied by any voice.

I met some few people I knew.  P.H., T.M., who said:  “Well!” and thrust their eyes into me as though they were rummaging me for information.

But there were not very many people in the streets.  The greater part of the population were away on Bank Holiday, and did not know anything of this business.  Many of them would not know anything until they found they had to walk home from Kingstown, Dalkey, Howth, or wherever they were.