"Aha, you are of Ireland. You, too, are fighting the tyrant."

"Hooray, me boy!" shouted Tim, "an' it's the thrue word ye've shpoke,
an' niver a lie in the skin av it. Oireland foriver! Be the howly
St. Patrick an' all the saints, I am wid ye an' agin ivery government
that's iver robbed an honest man. Go on, me boy, tell us yer tale."

Timothy was undoubtedly excited. The traditions of a hundred years
of fierce rebellion against the oppression of the "bloody tyrant"
were beating at his brain and in his heart. The Russian caught fire
from him and launched forth upon his tale. For a full hour, now
sitting in his chair, now raging up and down the room, now in a
voice deep, calm and terrible, now broken and hoarse with sobs,
he recounted deeds of blood and fire that made Ireland's struggle
and Ireland's wrongs seem nursery rhymes.

Timothy listened to the terrible story in an ecstasy of alternating
joy and fury, according to the nature of the episode related. It was
like living again the glorious days of the moonlighters and the
rackrenters in dear old Ireland. The tale came to an abrupt end.

"An' thin what happened?" cried Timothy.

"Then," said the Russian quietly, "then it was Siberia."

"Siberia! The Hivins be about us!" said Tim in an awed voice.
"But ye got away?"

"I am here," he replied simply.