Seven of the party in the cave lay on the
ground. One only was alive; the rest had fallen either from bullet or
bayonet wounds. Seeing that nothing could be done here Ralph looked
round the cavern. He soon saw that just where Captain O'Connor had
fallen there was an entrance into another cave. He reloaded his
pistols before he entered this, but found it deserted.
It contained two large stills, with mash tubs and every appliance, two
or three hundred kegs of whisky, and some thirty sacks of barley. This
at once accounted for the cave being known, and for the number of men
found in it; for in addition to the seven that had fallen six
prisoners had been taken. The walls of the cave were deeply
smoke-stained, showing that it had been used as a distillery for a
great number of years.
"That is satisfactory," Captain O'Connor said when Ralph reported to
him the discovery he had made. "That place where I came down is of
course the chimney. Peat does not give much smoke, and making its way
out through that screen of bushes it would be so light that it would
not be noticed by any one on the cliffs. Well, it's been a good
morning's work--a band of notorious scoundrels captured and an illicit
still discovered in full work. It was a cleverly contrived place. Of
course it is a natural cavern, and was likely enough known before the
fall of rocks from above so completely concealed the entrance.
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