The end was close at hand. It was when the two men were together that the sound of steps became audible upon the stairs; and the next moment Sirr's assistant, Major Swan, entered the room. Lord Edward had been tracked at last.

Of the scene which followed varying accounts have been given. The surprise party consisted of Sirr himself, Swan, and eight or nine private soldiers, together with a Captain Ryan, who seems to have accompanied the party in the character of a volunteer. Sirr had at first remained below, disposing of his men in such a manner as to frustrate any attempt which might be made at escape; and Swan, though closely followed by Ryan, entered alone the room where Lord Edward was discovered.

At the first sight of the intruder Lord Edward sprang to his feet, and, receiving a shot from a pocket pistol which missed its aim, struck at his assailant with a dagger which had lain by him on the bed.

According to the account afterwards given by Ryan's son, Swan-whose wound was in truth very superficial and was well in a fortnight-thereupon cried out, "Ryan, Ryan, I am basely murdered," when Ryan, who appears to have been a man of courage, ran in to his assistance, armed only with a sword-cane ; received what proved to be, in his case, a mortal wound, and continued, in spite of it, to cling to Lord Edward till further help arrived.

Sirr, meanwhile, hearing from below the report of

the pistol-shot fired by Swan on his first entrance, had hurried upstairs, and has left, in a letter addressed to the younger Ryan, a description of the scene which met his eyes.

"On my arrival in view of Lord Edward," he wrote, "I beheld his lordship standing with a dagger in his hand, as if ready to plunge it into my friends, while dear Ryan, seated on the bottom step of the flight of the upper stairs [communicating with the roof], had Lord Edward grasped with both his arms by the legs and thighs, and Swan in a somewhat similar situation, both labouring under the torment of their wounds; when, without hesitation, I fired at Lord Edward's dagger-arm, when the instrument of death fell to the ground."

Weaponless and wounded, Lord Edward still refused to surrender, making a last attempt to force his way to the door. The soldiers, however, were called in, and, in spite of his desperate resistance, he was made prisoner, though "so outrageous was he "-to quote Ryan-" that the military had to cross their muskets, and force him down to the floor, before he could be overpowered and secured."

Thus ended the struggle. The people's leader was in the hands of the enemy. On this night-possibly at this very hour-Magan was elected a member of the head Committee of the Society of United Irishmen.

CHAPTER XIX
1798

Conduct when a Prisoner-Various Scenes in Dublin-
Pamela-The Facts and her Account of Them at
Variance-Her After-life-Visit to Barère-Death.

THE

'HE capture was effected; the game, so far as Lord Edward was concerned, lost. But he was a man who knew how to face defeat.

The heat and excitement of the struggle over, all his habitual gentleness and courtesy was apparent. He affected, says the Annual Register, with a sneer, in chronicling the event, the politeness of a courtier, and declared he was sorry for the wounds he had inflicted. It was evidently not credible to the writer that consideration towards opponents hurt in the performance of their duty could be genuine in the case of a man whose resistance, while resistance was possible, had been so fierce. Those who knew him would have judged differently. Insisting that the wounds of his adversaries should be attended to before his own, it was only when he had been informed, with purposeless exaggeration, that Ryan was dead and Swan mortally

wounded, that he consented to allow his arm to be dressed, adding, "It was a hard struggle-and are two of them gone?

His own wound, on examination, was pronounced not to be dangerous, the announcement eliciting from him the solitary expression of regret that has already been noticed. Exhausted not alone by the pain and fatigue of the moment, but worn out physically and mentally by the constant stress and strain of the last two months; debarred from participation in the struggle for which he had so strenuously prepared the way, and rendered useless to the cause for whose sake he had sacrificed all the world had to offer, he may indeed have been willing to close his account with life, and to make an end of the tragedy it had become.

At the Castle, to which he was at once taken, he had an interview with Lord Camden's private secretary, Mr. Watson, who, sent by the Lord Lieutenant to assure the prisoner of every consideration consistent with the safe custody of his person, found him in the office of the Minister for War, looking on, pallid but serene, while his wounded arm was dressed.

The secretary, a courteous and kindly official, took an opportunity, after delivering the message with which he was charged, of informing the prisoner privately that it was to be also his errand to convey the news of the arrest to Lady Edward, intimating, with every promise of secrecy, his readiness to be likewise the bearer of any confidential communication from Lord Edward to his wife.