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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.
Nuala sped a word to her sailing-master, and the men let down the sails with shouting and great creaking of ropes. The Bird Daughter stood under the high poop bulwark, and now she turned to Brian. "Do you speak with them and find their business, for it seems to me that all is not as it should be, and they would likely know me too well."
Nuala signaled the other carack to bear down with her, and presently they made out that it was a large sailing galley, which headed straight for them. "That is none of my ships," exclaimed Nuala, watching. "It seems strange that she does not flee before us, Brian. She bears no ensign, yet she must be from these parts, and would naturally have some fear of pirates."
"Well, no use of delaying further," he said, when at length the grayness of dawn began to dull the starlight. Since to light matches would have meant discovery, he had brought with him those hundred Kerry pikemen Nuala had recruited after the dark Master's defeat, and he passed on the word to follow.
With that he put spurs to his horse and rode on with better heart, striving to forget his troubles in thinking of the stroke he would deal that night. If those three pigeons had won clear to Gorumna, he would find Nuala and her men waiting at Cathbarr's tower, and before the dawn they would be back again and over the hills.
Brian loosed another of the pigeons, telling Nuala how things chanced, and of the four pirate ships, and set the last bird in the tower in case of need, which proved a lucky thing for him in the end. Brian and his men slept after meat, while Turlough Wolf remained watching.
"You have slain the Dark Master as you promised, Brian," she said quietly. "And have you forgotten also that you meant to claim a reward from me for that deed?" Brian laughed, and his face softened as happiness laid hold upon his heart. "I have not forgotten that, Nuala; but now I am not going to ask that reward in the same way I had intended."
But he did not pause long upon that thought, sweeping his blue eyes to hers in a smile. "If you had been a man, Nuala, you had never had fealty from me." "So then it was pity?" and swift anger leaped into her face. "Was it pity that drove Cathbarr to proffer his life for mine?" parried Brian, his eyes grave. He felt a great impulse to speak out all that was in him, but crushed it down.
"There shall be no quarter to these O'Donnells," she cried hotly. "Those whom we take shall hang, and the Scots with them " "Not the Scots," exclaimed Brian quickly. "They are honest men enough, Nuala, and may serve us well as recruits.
Cathbarr was left in charge of the camp, and Brian rode up to the gates with Nuala and her two kinsmen, with a flag of truce. Murrough and his men were put into consternation by the news Brian gave them. After much stroking of his matted beard, Murrough proposed to surrender the castle on condition that he hold his post of lieutenant. Brian laughed, for he had other views on the subject.
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