intensity for about twenty-five minutes. Then it fell into a sputter of
fire and ceased.

I went to bed about four o'clock convinced that the Green had been
rushed by the military and captured, and that the rising was at an end.

That was the first day of the insurrection.




CHAPTER II

TUESDAY


A sultry, lowering day, and dusk skies fat with rain.

I left for my office, believing that the insurrection was at an end. At
a corner I asked a man was it all finished. He said it was not, and
that, if anything, it was worse.

On this day the rumours began, and I think it will be many a year before
the rumours cease. The _Irish Times_ published an edition which
contained nothing but an official Proclamation that evily-disposed
persons had disturbed the peace, and that the situation was well in
hand. The news stated in three lines that there was a Sinn Fein rising
in Dublin, and that the rest of the country was quiet.

No English or country papers came. There was no delivery or collection