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"If I had followed Turlough's rede, there when I first met this devil," thought Brian bitterly, "I had slain him upon the road, and that would have been an end of it. Well, I think that I shall heed Turlough Wolf next time if there is a next time." Brian looked out from his shelter with troubled eyes, for there was something in the wind of which he had no inkling.
Then only did he remember Turlough's speech on the day of that first meeting with the Dark Master "The master of all men at craft and the match of most men at weapons" and he knew that, despite the hunched shoulders, this O'Donnell must be no mean fighter. But the next instant he was gazing into the evil eyes, and their blades had crossed.
"Good!" cried Brian joyfully. "Cathbarr, have a hundred and fifty men saddled at dawn what is this?" Turlough's messenger handed him a paper. It was a safe-conduct issued by the Confederacy and Royalist leaders in the name of one Stephen Burke, and where the wily Wolf had gotten it the messenger did not know.
"Failte abhaile! Welcome, Yellow Brian!" "So you won back before me, eh?" Brian swung down from his horse and gripped hands with old Turlough Wolf. "Get the men camped, Cathbarr, then join us." Turlough's cunning eyes rested on the wagons and weary horsemen, and he nodded approvingly as Brian told him of what had chanced.
Out of it broke a wild Scots yell, and in the light of the courtyard cressets a wave of men surged up in the breach. Brian's linstock fell on a falcon, and the little gun barked a hail of bullets across the Scots; Turlough's gun followed suit, and the first lines of men went down in a struggling mass. The Dark Master was not to be beaten this time, however.
Then Brian straightened up, feeling Turlough's hand touch his; but for a space he stood silent while his mind cast out for what the Dark Master's words meant. In a flash it came to him.
And when women rode to battle there was no mercy asked or given, from Royalist or Confederate or Parliament man. Nuala O'Malley was a woman of blood, said Brian to himself, and he would give her blood for her help. So he curtly refused Turlough's advice, saw that the ten bridles of his bound and mounted captives were lined together, and beckoned to Cathbarr.
And this was why she had recognized him and why she had evidently watched over him since that first meeting, out of the love she had borne the earl, his grandsire, in days now buried under many bitter years. The two men looked into each other's eyes, and Brian saw that Turlough's jaw had dropped loosely, and that fright had stricken the old man almost out of his senses.
The seal of the Confederacy on the safe-conduct was quite enough for any man in these parts, however. Brian had not ridden a hundred paces farther before he saw one of Turlough's men beckoning to him from the door of an inn, so he left his troopers to drink outside and passed within. Turlough's man joined him at a table, and there Brian gained news of the most cheering.
Thim an' their Army of Independence! 'Twas an' Army of Independence they levied to help the French invasion. Four or five nameless stones mark the graves of French officers killed in this engagement. I saw them on my way from Castlebar to Turlough's Tower. My Orange friend went on: "We'll send a hundred Orangemen to fight their Army of Independence.
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