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Brian greeted Turlough with no little joy, but beyond assurances 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.
Cathbarr made little of that, and would have drunken it except that his clumsy hand knocked it from the table and emptied it all. But as it happened, that mischance saved his life. A little after, Brian pulled out a Spanish pipe he had got that day from one of the O'Malleys, with some tobacco, and began puffing in great good-humor, for it was long since he had tasted tobacco.
When Cathbarr had joined them and they had dined well on Royalist stores and wine, Turlough made report on his mission. It seemed that he had met with a party of the O'Malleys at the head of Kilkieran Bay at the close of his first day's ride, and after hearing his errand they had taken him in their ship out to Gorumna Isle, where stood the hold of Nuala, the Bird Daughter.
The Bird Daughter had her way, since none could find much against her plan; and that afternoon Brian went ashore with her and the O'Malleys, leaving the three ships at anchor under a small guard.
The arrangements having been perfected, Brian saw his three hundred men troop off on their march over the hills, after which he told Nuala at greater length all that had taken place in the castle since his parting with her at sea. Bitter and unrestrained were the curses of the O'Malleys as they heard of how his men had been poisoned, while Nuala's eyes flamed forth anger.
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.
At every cross-road a mountain-path reinforcement awaited us, and as we wended along, our numbers were momentarily increasing; here and there along the line, some energetic and not over-sober adherent was regaling his auditory with a speech in laudation of the O'Malleys since the days of Moses, and more than one priest was heard threatening the terrors of his Church in aid of a cause to whose success he was pledged and bound.
The men had drunk deep of that poisoned wine; when Con Teague and his men tried to get away after a few had died, they were slain. But so swift was the poison that only one of the O'Malleys had lived to reach Brian. The fires still burned brightly, and before some of them meat was burning.
Here they made a brief stand; then Cathbarr leaped over into the midst and his ax crushed down two men at once; Brian followed him, and for an instant it seemed that they would sweep all before them. Just then, however, Lame Art toppled from the bulwarks with a bullet through him from above, and the Dark Master's disappearance was explained by a rain of grenades that whirled among the O'Malleys.
He came across the hustings and shook hands with Godfrey; and as the news of the scrimmage with his daughter had just arrived, said that he was sorry his prospect of success had not been greater, that in resigning he might testify how deeply he felt the debt the O'Malleys had laid him under." "And my uncle, how did he receive his advances?"
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