75 лучших рассказов / 75 Best Short Stories

�They are too cowardly to risk their own lives in that way.’

During this conversation Flannigan had not betrayed the slightest interest in what was going on. He raised his head now, and looked at the captain.

�Don’t you think you are rather underrating them?’ he said. �Every secret society has produced desperate men – why shouldn’t the Fenians have them too? Many men think it a privilege to die in the service of a cause which seems right in their eyes, though others may think it wrong.’

�Indiscriminate murder cannot be right in anybody’s eyes,’ said the little clergyman.

�The bombardment of Paris was nothing else,’ said Flannigan; �yet the whole civilised world agreed to look on with folded arms, and change the ugly word “murder” into the more euphonious one of “war.” It seemed right enough to German eyes; why shouldn’t dynamite seem so to the Fenian?’

�At any rate their empty vapourings have led to nothing as yet,’ said the captain.

�Excuse me,’ returned Flannigan, �but is there not some room for doubt yet as to the fate of the Dotterel? I have met men in America who asserted from their own personal knowledge that there was a coal torpedo aboard that vessel.

�Then they lied,’ said the captain. �It was proved conclusively at the court-martial to have arisen from an explosion of coal-gas – but we had better change the subject, or we may cause the ladies to have a restless night;’ and the conversation once more drifted back into its original channel.

During this little discussion Flannigan had argued his point with a gentlemanly deference and a quiet power for which I had not given him credit. I could not help admiring a man who, on the eve of a desperate enterprise, could courteously argue upon a point which must touch him so nearly. He had, as I have already mentioned, partaken of a considerable quantity of wine; but though there was a slight flush upon his pale cheek, his manner was as reserved as ever.

A whirl of conflicting ideas was battling in my own mind. What was I to do? Should I stand up now and denounce them before both passengers and captain? Should I demand a few minutes’ conversation with the latter in his own cabin, and reveal it all? For an instant I was half resolved to do it, but then the old constitutional timidity came back with redoubled force.