d.

While the men were saddling, Brian called Turlough and told of the hag's
word that she would meet him again "on a black day for him."

"Now, what think you she meant by that, Turlough? Is this the meeting?"

"No, master, for it is no meeting. It may be as you think, and that she
was but trying to lead you into the west; yet, for my part, I call it
sorcery," and the old man crossed himself, for, like better men than
himself, Turlough ascribed all he could not fathom to magic. "It seems
to me that she is some witch who is hanging on your tracks, and that
when--"

"Oh, nonsense!" laughed Brian, flinging the matter from his mind. "At
any rate, she has served me well this time. Now, what rede shall we
follow in this matter, and shall we capture and slay the Dark Master
first, or fall on his men first, or both together?"

"It is ill to sunder a force of men, master," quoth Turlough. "If those
horsemen of O'Donnell's are encamped in a valley two miles to the north,
it is a vale of which I know well. But we must mind this--if O'Donnell
gets safe into Galway again with either these horsemen or those
Millhaven pirates of his clan, he will drive hard against Bertragh."

"The Dark Master shall come no more to Galway," said Brian grimly,
fingering his ax. "Now finish, and quickly."

"I have a plan in my mind, master; but unless we slay the Dark Master,
it is like to fail us. Let us send a hundred of the men around to the
north, for I will tell them how to ride, so that by this night they can
fall upon those men of his and scatter them in the darkness, and drive
them south where we can slay them utterly at our wills. If we drove them
back whence they came, there would be little craft in it, and it is to
my liking to do a thing well or not at all."

"A true word there," nodded Brian, his eyes gleaming. "I think those men
are as good as dead now, Turlough. Speak on."

"With fifty men, master, you and I can reach the valley of the Dubh
Linn. We cannot do it with horses, unless we ride around to the north,
and in that there would be danger of striking on the Dark Master's
scouts. But while our hundred are circling far around, we with fifty can
go over the mountain by valleys and paths I know of, so that by this
evening we will come to the Black Tarn and strike the Dark Master as our
hundred men fall on his camp. That is my--"

"Good!" cried Brian, leaping up eagerly. "Then we--"

"Hold, master!" And Turlough caught his ar