Is help indeed coming to you from the North?"
"Yes," she replied, trying to quiet him. "A pigeon came in from Erris to-day, with word that two ships with men were on the way to help me.
When I returned from the South and found that the plague had been at Gorumna, I sent off asking for help, and now it is coming."
"Then send word to Turlough!" cried Brian eagerly. "Tell him to throw my men on the royalist camp _to-night_ and drive the pikemen into the castle! Colonel Vere is dead, and there is such confusion that all will think we have more than two hundred men. If we can leaguer them there until your ships come, we may win all at a blow!"
Nuala found instantly that there was meat in the plan, and as they were rowing out to meet one of her caracks, promised to send in the galley with word to Turlough when they got aboard the larger ship.
This they were no great while in doing. Brian knew nothing of it, for upon the Bird Daughter"s word he had dropped away into a faint once more. With this Nuala O"Malley was quite content, so that when Brian wakened he was greatly refreshed and found himself lying bandaged on a bunk with the sunlight coming through a stern-port beside him, and the Bird Daughter watching him with food and drink ready.
"Take of this first," she smiled; "then we will talk."
Brian obeyed, being very thirsty and ravenously hungered. He had little pain except when he tried to move, and so he ate as he lay, propped up with folded garments, and watched the Bird Daughter. She refused to speak until he had eaten the meat and cakes she had fetched, but when he smiled and asked for a razor her grave face rippled with frank laughter, and her deep violet eyes danced as they looked into his.
"I am sorry I have none," she said mockingly. "So you must wait till we come to port again. Just at present we are off Slyne Head and bearing northward."
"What!" Brian stared at her. "Are you in jest?"
It appeared that she was not, for she was sailing north to meet those ships of her kinsmen, and to hasten them back with her. Meantime Cathbarr had been sent ash.o.r.e to meet Turlough and hold the Dark Master and his royalists in check. Nuala had sent fifty of her men to join Turlough, left twenty to hold her castle, and had ten with her upon the carack. It seemed likely that Turlough and Cathbarr could hold the Dark Master penned up for a few days at least, even with fewer men; if they could not, said Nuala shortly, they had best sit at spinning-wheels for the rest of their lives.
"You are a wonderful girl!" said Brian, and fell asleep again.
He remembered little of that voyage, for they met two caracks crowded with men off Innishark that afternoon, found they were the expected O"Malleys from the North, and turned back with them at once. Brian wakened again that same evening, but Nuala refused to let him go on deck until the following morning, when they sighted Bertraghboy Bay. Then Brian discarded most of his bandages, dressed, and, with his left arm in a sling, joined the Bird Daughter on the quarterdeck. He found that his burns were well on toward healing, for he could walk slowly without great pain, and had every confidence that he could sit a horse if need be.
Sailing past Bertragh Castle, the three ships went on up the bay and cast anchor. It was not hard to see that Turlough and Cathbarr had done their work well, for in pa.s.sing the castle they had made out that the royalist pikemen had been driven inside, and there was some musketry to be heard at times. No sooner had the anchor-cables roared out, indeed, than a band of men came riding toward the sh.o.r.e, and Nuala sent off a boat for them. She had known nothing of Cathbarr"s deeds at the castle until Brian had told her of them, and on seeing that the giant was among those coming off, she smiled at Brian.
"Now you shall see how a girl can conquer a giant, Yellow Brian!"
Brian laughed and waved a hand to Turlough, who was beside Cathbarr in the boat. As the men came over the rail, Nuala quietly pushed him aside and faced the giant, sharply bidding him kneel. Cathbarr had been all for rushing forward to Brian, and obeyed with an ill grace, when Nuala quickly leaned forward and kissed him on the brow.
"That is for bravery and faith," she said. "Truly, I would that you served me!"
Poor Cathbarr grew redder than the Bird Daughter"s cloak. He started to his feet, gazed around sheepishly, found all men laughing at him--and did the best thing he could have done, which was to go to his knees again and put Nuala"s hand to his lips.
"While my master serves you, I serve you," he blurted out, and this answer must have pleased Nuala mightily, for she flushed, laughed, and bade all down into the cabin.
Brian greeted Turlough with no little joy, but beyond a.s.surances that all went well, gained no knowledge of what had happened. Nuala had sent for the O"Malley chieftains, and proposed to hold a conference at once.
The O"Malleys arrived from the other ships in a scant five minutes--dark, silent men who spoke little, but spoke to the point. Art Bocagh, or the Lame, had had one leg hamstrung in his youth, but Brian took him for a dangerous man in battle; while his cousin Shaun the Little was a very short man with tremendous shoulders.
Nuala took her seat at the head of the stern-cabin table, and the position of affairs was gone over carefully.
It seemed that no sooner had Turlough learned from Cathbarr of what had taken place in the castle, and that Brian was safe on shipboard, than he drove his men down pell-mell on the camp, just before dawn. Any other man would have been exhausted by the events of that night, but Cathbarr had led them in the a.s.sault. The result had been that, with hardly any resistance, they had slain some four-score of the pikemen, and would have captured or slain them all had it not been for the Dark Master"s cannon which drove them back.
The better part of the royalist officers had fallen, either then or under the ax of Cathbarr in the hall of the castle. In fact, after learning that he had slain some nineteen persons on that occasion, Cathbarr had taken no few airs upon himself. Vanity was to him as natural as to a child, and Brian hugely enjoyed watching the giant strut. However, what remained of Vere"s five hundred pikemen were in the castle, joined to the Dark Master"s men; and Turlough"s advice was that since there must be some seven hundred mouths to feed, the safest plan was to bide close and force the fight to come to them, rather than to take it to O"Donnell.
"There is reason against that, Turlough Wolf," said Brian quickly. "The Dark Master has men on the hills, and if news is borne to Galway of what has happened, we are like to have a larger army on our heels than we can cope with."
"I have attended to O"Donnell"s watchers," said Turlough grimly. "When Cathbarr bore word of the pact from Gorumna Castle, I sent out hors.e.m.e.n and we swept the hills bare of men. O"Donnell has no more than are in the castle, and a score of our own men are on the roads, watching for any ill."
"How many men have we in all?" spoke up Lame Art O"Malley. "In our ships there are sixty men we can spare for land battle."
"That gives us three hundred in all," replied Turlough to Nuala"s questioning glance. "If we take a strong position we should sweep most of O"Donnell"s men away at the first charge."
"There you are wrong," said Brian, shaking his head. "Those pikemen are bad foes for cavalry, and our two hundred hors.e.m.e.n would shatter on them if they stood firm."
"Not if we choose our ground," said the Bird Daughter, her eyes flashing. "Nay, _I_ am master here, my friends! Now this is my rede. We shall not waste men by attacking the castle, unless forced to it by an army from Galway. Instead, we will wait until the Dark Master is driven out by hunger; then we will fall on him and destroy him utterly.
"Yellow Brian, you have some knowledge of war, and you shall take this matter in charge. Cathbarr, do you command fifty horse, with the men from our ships here, and keep the Dark Master in play. With the remainder, we shall wait in whatever spot Brian shall choose, and before many days are sped I think that Bertragh will be mine again."
The Bird Daughter had her way, since none could find much against her plan; and that afternoon Brian went ash.o.r.e with her and the O"Malleys, leaving the three ships at anchor under a small guard. Turlough had made camp a short mile from the castle, on a little hill among the farms; both Nuala and the O"Malley men were somewhat surprised at finding the O"Donnell women and children safe and untouched in their own steads.
"I saw to that," laughed Turlough, slanting his crafty eyes at Brian. "I had but to threaten them in Brian"s name, and the men only were slain."
"I think that you are a hard master," laughed Nuala, but Brian smiled and pointed to his men, who were pouring out to meet him with shouts of joy.
"All men do not rule by fear alone, Bird Daughter," he said quietly. She gave him a quick glance. "I found these men riffraff of the wars, and while they have no such love for me as Cathbarr here, I think they had liefer follow me than any other leader."
After that Nuala said little concerning Brian"s discipline.
That night Nuala and Brian took up headquarters at one of the larger farms, and while Cathbarr went before the castle to keep the Dark Master in check and allow none to leave the place, they called in a number of those men O"Donnell had loaned to Brian, and questioned them about the provisioning of the castle.
From these they found that there was good store of all things for the usual garrison, but with seven hundred men to feed the Dark Master would be forced out speedily. So with the dawn Brian and Turlough rode forth to select a battleground, and while Brian was very sore and riding caused him great pain at first, he soon found himself in better shape.
Turlough picked a hollow in the road a mile farther from the castle, flanked on either hand by woods and hillsides where men might lie hidden. Brian found it good, and that afternoon a part of their hors.e.m.e.n were shifted thither in readiness.
For the next three days there was little done. Twice the Dark Master attempted sallies with what few hors.e.m.e.n he had left, but on each occasion Cathbarr"s horse smote his men and drove them back. To be sure, O"Donnell thundered with his b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, but the guns only burned up good powder, for Brian would allow no a.s.sault made.
By Turlough"s advice, however, they brought about the Dark Master"s fall through certain prisoners made in the two sallies.
These captives were led through the depleted central camp, though they knew nothing of that picked place farther back. Having been allowed to see what men Brian had here, Turlough slyly drove Cathbarr into parading his vanity before them; and in all innocence the giant told how he could put the Dark Master"s men to flight single-handed, and of his anxiety lest the O"Donnells should fear to fight in the open. What was more, Brian affected to be utterly shattered by his wounds, and with that the prisoners were sent back with a message offering quarter to all within the castle save the Dark Master himself.
Early the next morning a horseman came riding fast from Cathbarr with word that the garrison was stirring. Without delay, Brian donned a mail-shirt, bound his useless left arm to his side, and mounted. The Bird Daughter insisted on accompanying him, and stilled his dismayed protests by a.s.serting her feudal superiority; in the end she had her way.
Leaving her kinsmen and a hundred more men to dispute O"Donnell"s pa.s.sage and give back slowly before him with Cathbarr, she and Brian rode to their men among the trees on the hillsides over the hollow in the road. Here they had a hundred and fifty men, composed of the Scots troopers and the pick of the others, and Nuala took one side of the road while Brian took the other. Then, being well hidden, they waited.
Brian was savagely determined to slay the Dark Master that day, and came near to doing it. Presently a man galloped up to say that O"Donnell and six hundred men were on the road, having left the rest to hold the castle. A little later Cathbarr"s retreating force came in sight, and after them marched O"Donnell. He had deployed his muskets in front and rear, and rode in the midst of his pikemen, whose banner of England blew out bravely in the morning wind.
At the edge of the dip in the road Cathbarr led his men in full flight down the hollow and up the farther rise, where he halted as if to dispute the Dark Master further. There were barely a dozen mounted men with O"Donnell, and he made no pursuit, but marched steadily along with his muskets pecking at Cathbarr"s men. When he had come between the wooded hillsides, however, Cathbarr came charging down the road; the pikemen settled their pikes three deep to receive him, and with that Brian led out his men among the trees and swooped down with an ax swinging in his right hand.
Alive to his danger, the Dark Master tried to receive his charge, but at that instant Nuala"s men burst down on the other flank. Brian headed his men, and at sight of him a yell of dismay went up from the O"Donnells. A moment later the pikemen"s array was broken and the fight disintegrated into a wild affray wherein the hors.e.m.e.n had much the better of it.
Brian tried to cut his way to the Dark Master, but when O"Donnell saw the pikemen shattered he knew that the day was lost. He gathered his dozen hors.e.m.e.n and went at Cathbarr viciously; Brian saw the two meet, saw O"Donnell"s blade slip under the ax and Cathbarr go from the saddle, then the Dark Master had broken through the ring and was riding hard for the North.
Brian wheeled his horse instantly, found the Bird Daughter at his side, and with a score of men behind them they rode out of the battle in pursuit. It proved useless, however, for the Dark Master had the better horseflesh; after half an hour he was gaining rapidly, and with a bitter groan Brian drew rein at last.
"No use, Nuala," he said. "I must wait until my strength has come back to me, for I have done too much and can go no farther."