He advanced through the obscure morning twilight with a brisk step, whistling softly as he came. The men noted that he wore shooting-clothes, with gaiters to the knee, and a wide-brimmed, soft, black hat, even then known in Ireland as the American hat, just as the Americans had previously called it the Kossuth.
Half-way, but within full view of the waiting group, he stopped, and looked critically at the sky. Then he stepped aside from the path, and took off this hat of his. The men wondered what it meant.
Jerry was coming along again from the castle, his arms half filled with parcels. He stopped beside the chief, and stood facing the path, removing his cap as well.
Then the puzzled observers saw Malachy looming out of the misty shadows, also bare-headed, and carrying at arms length before him a square case, about in bulk like a hat-box. As he passed The O’Mahony and Jerry they bowed, and then fell in behind him, and marched, still uncovered, toward the landing-place.
The tide was at its flood, and the _Hen Hawk_ had been hauled by ropes up close to the wharf. Malachy, with stolid face and solemn mien, strode in fine military style over the gunwale and along the flush deck to the bow. Here he deposited his mysterious burden, bowed to it, and then put on the hat he had been carrying under his arm.
The men crowded on board at this--all save two, who now rowed forward in a small boat, and began pulling the _Hen Hawk_ out over the bar with a hawser. As the unwieldy craft slowly moved, The O’Mahony turned a long, ruminative gaze upon the sleeping hamlet they were leaving behind. The whole eastern sky was awake now with light--light which lay in brilliant bars of lemon hue upon the hill-tops, and mellowed upward through opal and pearl into fleecy ashen tints. The two in the boat dropped behind, fastened their tiny craft to the stern, and clambered on board.
A fresh, chill breeze caught and filled the jib once they had passed the bar, and the crew laid their hands upon the ropes, expecting orders to hoist the mainsail and mizzen-sheets. But The O’Mahony gave no sign, and lounged in silence against the tiller, spitting over the taffrail into the water, until the vessel had rounded the point and stood well off the cliffs, out of sight of Muirisc, plunging softly along through the swell. Then he beckoned Dominic to the helm, and walked over toward the mast, with a gesture which summoned the whole score of men about him. To them he began the first speech he had ever made in his life: