Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/68

66 Dick swung him clear of the giant's long arm.

"You'll likely get what you don't expect in a minute," he said. "Steady, O'Hara. It's only professional instinct. He had to try to do something."

"Let him go an' thry ut outside, thin." O'Hara dropped back exhausted. "Arrah! Get me rid ov him! How shud I be turnin' me sowl tu hivin wid him an' his knives afther me?"

Dick made the matter clear and comprehensive. De Choiseaux met it with heated reference to his diploma and other matters. Then Dick took him by the elbows and ran him out, for a certain look on O'Hara's face had warned him that there was no time for civilities. He trod back softly, laying his warm living hand over the clammy one.

"All right," he said. "You can take your time about it. Now—have you any matters to fix up?"

O'Hara spoke with long pauses between, and Dick followed the lips with his pencil. O'Hara's dog howled once with its nose up. Then it curled in the blankets at its master's feet and slept. A clock on the wall ticked busily, shortening down the minutes, one by one. At last O'Hara raised himself, and his eyes grew dark.

"I—wud be wantin' tu make me confession," he gasped.

Dick sat back on his heels in alarm.

"Holy Powers, don't make it to me, man," he said. "I've sins enough of my own."

"Anny man can give anny man absolution"

"I couldn't. Don't speak of such a hideous farce. Ask de Choiseaux."

"If the Sergeant had sint a praste—why didn't he sind a praste?"

"You never go to chapel. I suppose he didn't know you had any religion."

"A man foinds the nade ov ut—when he comes tu die"

"Does he?" Dick wondered a moment. "I can't see what difference it makes," he said. "But go on, if it's any amusement to you. I'm listening."

O'Hara spoke in whispers broken by the ebb and flow of his life-tide. And then he twisted on his bed.