There was a pool of blood under his pomatumed, powdered, and curled head, more under his right arm, which was slightly extended, with the open hand thrown palm upwards, as if appealing to heaven.

Toole examined him.

‘No pulse, by Jove!  Quiet there! don’t stir!’ Then he clapped his ear on Sturk’s white Marseilles vest.

‘Hush!’ and a long pause.  Then Toole rose erect, but still on his knees, ’Will you be quiet there?  I think there’s some little action still; only don’t talk, or shift your feet; and just—­just, do be quiet!’

Then Toole rose to his knees again, with a side glance fixed on the face of Sturk, with a puzzled and alarmed look.  He evidently did not well know what to make of it.  Then he slipped his hand within his vest, and between his shirt and his skin.

’If he’s dead, he’s not long so.  There’s warmth here.  And see, get me a pinch or two of that thistle-down, d’ye see?’

And with the help of this improvised test he proceeded to try whether he was still breathing.  But there was a little air stirring, and they could not manage it.

‘Well!’ said Toole, standing this time quite erect, ’I—­I think there’s life there still.  And now, boys, d’ye see? lift him very carefully, d’ye mind?  Gently, very gently, for I tell you, if this haemorrhage begins again, he’ll not last twenty seconds.’

So on a cloak they lifted him softly and deftly to the bier, and laid covering over him; and having received Toole’s last injunctions, and especially a direction to Mrs. Sturk to place him in a well-warmed bed, and introduce a few spoonfuls of warm port wine negus into his mouth, and if he swallowed, to continue to administer it from time to time, Sergeant Bligh and his men commenced their funereal march toward Sturk’s house.

‘And now, Mr. Adjutant,’ said Lowe, ’had not we best examine the ground, and make a search for anything that may lead to a conviction?’

Well, a ticket was found trod into the bloody mud, scarcely legible, and Sturk’s cocked hat, the leaf and crown cut through with a blow of some blunt instrument.  His sword they had found by his side not drawn.

‘See! here’s a foot-print, too,’ said Lowe; ‘don’t move!’

It was remarkable.  They pinned together the backs of two letters, and Toole, with his surgical scissors, cut the pattern to fit exactly into the impression; and he and Lowe, with great care, pencilled in the well-defined marks of the great hob-nails, and a sort of seam or scar across the heel.

[Illustration:  Footprint.]

’Twas pretty much after this fashion.  It was in a slight dip in the ground where the soil continued soft.  They found it in two other places coming up to the fatal spot, from the direction of the Magazine.  And it was traceable on for some twenty yards more faintly; then, again, very distinctly, where—­a sort of ditch interposing—­a jump had been made, and here it turned down towards the park wall and the Chapelizod road, still, however, slanting in the Dublin direction.