Nuala O'Malley Part 28

The six men guarding the galley, two of them being O'Malleys, and three men who had watched on the tower, were all that remained alive in Bertragh besides Turlough and Brian. 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. Sitting in blank despair on a horse-block, Brian saw the dead bodies of a few less than a hundred men lying there. Turlough Wolf and his six gave over trying to put life into any of them, and now the old man came and put his hand on Brian's shoulder.

"Where has Cathbarr of the Ax gone, master?"

Brian told him dully, and Turlough nodded approval, having at length learned all the story of how that galley had been taken.

"Master, there was deep cunning in this. O'Donnell sent that galley to you, or, rather, to the Bird Daughter, and he had spies watching. Had the Gorumna men drunk of that brew, he would have fallen on there; but here came the galley, and now he comes over the hills. And we are few to meet him."

"We will be more when the men come in from the hill-roads before him,"

and Brian rose up with heavy heart, forcing himself to the task. "Send out a man to haste them in and to warn what men there be at the farms.

Also let him send a wagon or two, that these dead may be carried out before the Dark Master falls on us. Send two men to the tower to build a beacon, for Cathbarr will not be back before to-morrow night."

Brian went to the stables where the three carrier-pigeons were caged, and fetched the cage to the great hall. Here he wrote what had happened, with his plan, in small s.p.a.ce, fastened it under the wing of a bird, and let loose the pigeon from the courtyard.

Stunned though he was by the sudden and terrible blow, Brian had seized on the only course left him. If he could make shift to hold the castle at all, he would do so; if not, he must make terms and get off to Gorumna that he might take vengeance for this dastardly stroke that had been dealt him.

Nuala had nigh three hundred men in her castle, and he felt that all was not yet lost, even should he have to yield Bertragh. The Dark Master would hardly have a large force with him, and he would know nothing of those hundred men Brian had loaned Nuala; so Brian reckoned that if he could get away, O'Donnell would think him a broken man who could do no further against him.

"Well, that's looking too far ahead," thought Brian very wearily.

"Perchance I am broken, indeed, since I have lost two hundred and a half of men without gain."

An hour later rode in a score of men with wagons, and fell to work getting the dead out of the castle, though for burying there was no time. This score, and two more who came in later, were all the men left to Brian; they reported that the Dark Master would be on them by daybreak, with two hundred Scots troopers and one horse cannon.

"His friends proved n.i.g.g.ardly, then," laughed Brian drearily. "We have but to hold the place till to-morrow night, friends, and the O'Malleys will relieve us. Now, one man to watch and the rest of us to rest, for there is work ahead."

Brian, indeed, got some sleep that night, but it was shot through with visions of those poisoned men of his, and their twisted faces gibbered at him, and he thought they shrieked and howled for revenge. When he was roused at dawn, he found the meaning of those noises, since a great storm was sweeping down out of the west, and the farther wore the day, the worse grew the storm.

"Is Heaven itself fighting against us?" he thought bitterly, watching the sea from the battlements. "Against this blast Nuala cannot reach me, if she will."

He got little time to brood, however. Before he had broken his fast the Dark Master's hors.e.m.e.n came in sight--two hundred braw Scots, with wagons and a cannon following after. It was no large force, but Brian found afterward that it was the best the Dark Master could get, since the Galway Irish cared nothing whether the Scots lived or died.

They halted and spread out, half a mile from the castle, and Brian saw that the men were being quartered on the farms round about. Bitterly he wished that he had his lost men, for with them he could have sent those Scots flying home again; but now he was helpless.

With the gates shut and the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds loaded with bullets to sweep the approach, Brian sent his twenty men to the battlements and watched, with Turlough beside him. It was plain that no offensive operations were under way as yet, and an hour pa.s.sed quietly; then ten men rode down to the castle under a white flag, and foremost of them was the Dark Master.

"Now, if I were in your place, master," said Turlough, slanting his eyes up at Brian in his shrewd way, "I would loose those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds and sweep the road bare."

"You are not in my place," said Brian, and the Wolf held his peace.

The Dark Master looked at those bodies piled between the castle and the sh.o.r.e, and it was easy to see that he was laughing and pointing them out to the Scots. At that Brian heard his men mutter no little, and he himself clenched his nails into his palms and cursed bitterly; but he forbade his men to fire and they durst not disobey him. The party rode up under the walls, and the Dark Master grinned at Brian standing above.

"You have great drunkards, Yellow Brian," he called mockingly. "Have all your men drunk themselves to death?"

Brian answered him not, but fingered his hilt; even at that distance the Dark Master seemed to feel the icy blue eyes upon him, for his leer vanished.

"Yield to us, Yellow Brian," he continued, shooting up his head from betwixt his shoulders. "I do not think you have many men in that castle."

"I have enough to hold you till more come," answered Brian.

"Mayhap, and mayhap not," and O'Donnell laughed again. "Keep a watch to seaward, Yellow Brian, and when you see four sail turning the headland, judge if those two caracks of the Bird Daughter's are like to help you."

"If you have no more to say, get you gone," said Brian, feeling the anger in him rising beyond endurance. The Dark Master looked along the walls for a moment, then signed to his men, and they rode off through the driving snow again.

Turlough looked at Brian and Brian at him, and the same thought was in the minds of both. If those Millhaven men had four ships driving down before that storm, as seemed probable enough, the Bird Daughter's two little caracks would never land men under the guns of Bertragh.

About noon the snow fell less thickly, though the storm had risen to great power, and Brian made out that the Scots were bringing forward that cannon of theirs. Having some little knowledge of artillery himself, he drew the charge of bullets from a b.a.s.t.a.r.d and put in more powder, then put the bullets back, a full bag of them. He did the same with two more of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds on that wall, and when the Scots had halted aimed all three very carefully, and set men by them to fire at his order. The Scots were turning their cannon about, a score of men being in their party, and Brian judged that they were eight hundred paces away--just within range of his b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

"The Dark Master lost this hold because he had too many men," he said to Turlough, "and we shall lose it because we have too few; but we will make better use of these shot than did he. Fire, men!"

The three men brought down their linstocks and ran for it, having seen that extra charge of powder set in the cannon. But none of the pieces burst, though they roared loud enough and leaped at their recoil-ropes like mad things. When the white smoke shredded down the wind, Brian's men yelled in great delight, for those Scots and horses about the cannon were stricken down or fleeing, and the piece had not yet been loaded.

"They will get little joy of that cannon," said Brian grimly, and went in to meat.

During the rest of the day the cannon stood there silent, dead horses and men around it; nor was any further attack made. Brian knew well that having found him prepared, the Dark Master would now attack at night and hard did Brian pray that the storm might abate from the west, or at least shift around, so that Nuala's ships could come to his aid.

Instead, the gale only swooped down the wilder, and seemed like to hold a day or more, as indeed it did. About mid-afternoon Turlough came and beckoned him silently out to the rear or seaward battlement and pointed out.

No words pa.s.sed between the two men, nor were any needed; beating around the southern headland were four flecks of white that Brian knew for ships coming from the west with the storm, and he saw that for once the Dark Master had told the truth.

"I have some skill at war," he said to Turlough that afternoon when they had seen the four ships weather past them and anchor a mile up the bay; "and since the Dark Master's troopers are also skilled at that game, they will fall to work without waste of time or men. We may look to have the dry moat filled with fascines to-night and our gates blown in with petards. At the worst, we can hold that tower, where the powder is stored."

If he had had more men, Brian would have slung the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds down from the high walls and set them in the courtyard where they could sweep the gates when these had been blown in. But they weighed a ton and half each, and there was no time to build shears to let them down, even had they had spars and ropes at hand. So Brian set them to cover the approach, and had the smaller falcons brought down to the courtyard, all five, where he trained them on the gates and loaded them with bullets heavily.

"Turlough and I will fire these ourselves," he told his men that evening as they made supper together, the men looking forward to the night's work with great joy. "Do the rest of you gather on either hand by the stables, with spare muskets and pistols."

So this was done as he said. Because of the storm Brian did not light his beacon after all, but he stocked the tower with food and wine, and told his men to get there, if they could, when the rest was taken. That tower had Brian's chamber in the lower part and a ladder in the upper part, where was great store of powder.

The five falcons were set in front of the hall doorway, where once Brian had come near to being nailed. 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. It was wearing well on to midnight when the old man woke them all, and Brian went to the walls to hear a thud of hoofs and a murmur of men coming across the wind to him. He sent off men to loose the loaded guns on the outer walls at random, and then suddenly flung lighted cressets over the gates.

A wild yell answered this, and bullets from the men who were filling the dry moat, while others scrambled across it and charged up to the gates with small powder-kegs and petards ready. This was not done without scathe, however; Brian's men loosed their muskets, and one by one the heavy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds thundered out across the snow, though the result was hard to see in the darkness.

There came a ragged flash of musketry in reply, and that abandoned cannon roared out l.u.s.tily, though its ball pa.s.sed far overhead. Brian stood on a demi-bastion that half flanked the gates, and after firing his pistol into the men below, he leaped down the steps into the courtyard and joined Turlough behind the falcons.

"One at a time, Turlough. They'll have the gates down in a minute."

While he waited for the storm to fall, Brian saw that two or three of his men had been hit. He wondered dully that the Dark Master had not made a general a.s.sault, and concluded that he must wish to save men. It was a long moment that dragged down on him; then a splash of light burst up, the gates were driven inward and shattered, and with a great roar there fell a rain of riven beams and stones and dirt.

Sheltering in the hall doorway, Brian and Turlough stayed unmoving through an instant of black silence. 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 ma.s.s.

The Dark Master was not to be beaten this time, however. Another wave of Scots swept up, with a ma.s.s of men behind them. While some of Brian's men tried to get the two falcons reloaded, a storm of bullets swept across the courtyard, and Brian saw Turlough turn and run for it through the doorway, while two of the men fell over a falcon.

But as the first line of men broke into the courtyard, Brian fired the remaining three cannon as fast as he could touch linstock to powder. The bullet-hail tore the front ranks to shreds, but through the darkling smoke-cloud he saw other men come leaping, and knew that the game was up.

On the next instant his men had closed around him, muskets were stabbing the powder-smoke, and Brian fell to work with his Spanish blade.

O'Donnells and Scots together heaved up against them, but Brian's point weaved out between cutlas and claymore and bit out men's lives until the ma.s.s of men surged back again like the backleash of a wave that comes against a wall.