Whatever I can do to save you from harm here I will." The poor woman's escape from detection, while performing the friendly office of listening, was indeed very narrow.

Short and hurried as her last advice to M'Carthy was, the words in which she conveyed it had scarcely been uttered, when her husband, accompanied by three persons, their faces still blackened, made his appearance.

They took seats in silence around the fire, and one of them, handing over a bottle of whiskey to Finnerty, merely nodded, as much as to say, pass that about.
Finnerty accordingly did so, and each of them drank a glass or two, after which they were silent as before.

This silence, to M'Carthy, began to wear a solemn and a fearful aspect, especially as he knew enough of the habits of the people to be aware, that in drinking whiskey is often resorted to in order to deaden their moral, perceptions, or, in other words, as a stimulant to crime.
At length, after about a quarter of an hour had elapsed, and three of them--that is to say, two of the strangers and Finnerty--had each drank three glasses of spirits, the fourth, who had taken only one glass, beckoned to the other two to follow him.
"I think," said he, "they are all gone, and the coast is clear." In this man's voice, M'Carthy, to his infinite delight, once more recognized that of his unknown well-wisher.

Be this as it may, he and the other two left the house, and, as the reader is no doubt interested in their movements, we shall permit him to follow them to the dining-room of the shooting-lodge, where the meeting had just been held.
"Very well, then," he proceeded, "it is so best, as none of us can become a traitor against the rest.