“My darling Mary,” said Phil, “it’s too late now, you see, to speak in this tone—­we’re caught, that’s all, found out, and be cursed to these fellows.  If they had found us anywhere else but in your bed-room, I didn’t so much care; however, it can’t be helped now.”

As he spoke he raised his eye-brows from time to time at his companions, and winked with an expression of triumph so cowardly and diabolical, that it is quite beyond our ability to describe it.  They, in the meantime, winked and nodded in return, laughed heartily, and poked one another in the ribs.

“Bravo, Mr. Phil!—­success, Captain!—­more power to you!”

“Come now, boys,” said Phil, “let us go.  Mary, my darling, I must leave you; but we’ll meet again where they can’t disturb us—­stand around me, boys, for, upon my honor and soul, these hot-headed fellows of brothers of hers will knock my brain’s out, if you don’t guard me well; here, put me in the middle of you—­good by, Mary, never mind this, we’ll meet again.”

However anxious M’Loughlin had been to prevent the possibility of angry words or blows between his sons and these men still the extraordinary yell which accompanied the discovery of young M’Clutchy in his daughter’s bedroom, occasioned him to relax his vigilance, and rush to the spot, after having warned and urged them to remain where they were.  Notwithstanding his remonstrances, they followed his footsteps, and the whole family, in fact, reached her door as Phil uttered the last words.

“Great God, what is this,” exclaimed her father, “how came M’Clutchy, Val the Vulture’s son, into my daughter’s sleeping-room?  How came you here, sir?” he added sternly, “explain it.”

Not even a posse of eighteen armed men, standing in a circle about him, each with a cocked and loaded pistol in his hand, could prevent the cowardly and craven soul of him from quailing before the eye of her indignant father.  His face became like a sheet of paper, perfectly bloodless, and his eye sank as if it were never again to look from the earth, or in the direction of the blessed light of heaven.

“Ah!” he proceeded, “you are, indeed, your treacherous, cowardly, and cruel father’s son; you cannot raise your eye upon me, and neither could he.  Mary,” he proceeded, addressing his daughter, “how did this treacherous scoundrel get into your room? tell the truth—­but that I need not add, for I know you will.”

His daughter had been standing for some time in a posture that betrayed neither terror nor apprehension.  Raised to her full height, she looked upon M’Clutchy and his men alternately, but principally upon himself, with a smile which in truth was fearful.  Her eyes brightened into clear and perfect fire, the roundness of her beautiful arm was distended by the coming forth of its muscles—­her lips became firm—­her cheek heightened in color—­and her temples were little less than scarlet.  There she stood, a concentration of scorn, contempt, and hatred the most intense, pouring upon the dastardly villain an unbroken stream of withering fury, that was enough to drive back his cowardly soul into the deepest and blackest recesses of its own satanic baseness.  Her father, in fact, was obliged to address her twice, before he could arrest her attention; for such was the measureless indignation which her eye poured upon him, that she could scarcely look upon any other object.