m, quickly staying him. When
Brian looked down he read a sudden fear in the old man's gray eyes.
"That was my first rede, Yellow Brian, and you would do well to hear my
second also."

"Say it," said Brian, and glanced at the brightening sky.

"My second rede is this. That message might be a trap to ensnare us,
though I have two minds about this Black Woman. But if we fail to slay
the Dark Master at the Black Tarn, we are like to have an ill time."

"Why so?" asked Brian, for he could see no likelihood of that. "I said
that we would slay him."

"Master, do you hold the lives of men in your keeping?" In the gray eyes
leaped a swift horror that amazed Brian. "I tell you that if the Dark
Master escapes from our hand, and his men are driven past our fifty into
the south, he will ride hard before us into Galway. I see evil in that
first rede of mine, Yellow Brian. I see evil in it--"

He broke off, staring past Brian with fixed and unseeing eyes, his face
rigid.

"Turlough, are you mad?" Brian seized the other's shoulder, shaking him
harshly. The old man shivered a little, and sanity came back into his
eyes as they met the icy blue of Brian's. "What daftness is upon you,
man?"

"I know not, master," whimpered old Turlough feebly. "Do as you will."

"Then I will to follow your rede, divide my men as you say, and when we
have slain the Dark Master, we will cut off the last of these O'Donnells
of his, ride to Millhaven and take that hold, and send word to the Bird
Daughter that she may keep Bertragh Castle and send Cathbarr north to
me. Now go, and tell a hundred of the men how to ride around this
mountain; then be ready to guide me over it to the Black Tarn."

"You are a hard man, Yellow Brian," said Turlough, and turned him about
and did as Brian had ordered.

None the less, Brian gave some thought to that second rede of
Turlough's. He saw clearly enough that with the northern horsemen driven
past, scattered though they might be, they could be cut off to a man if
the Dark Master were slain. But if O'Donnell should escape by some trick
of fate, he could gather up his men and drive south.

"If he does that, there will be slaying between Sligo and Galway," swore
Brian quickly. "But I cannot see that he will escape me here. When
another day breaks, I shall have won my Spanish blade again--and then
ho! for the Red Hand of Tyr-owen!"

So Brian laughed and donned his jack and back-piece, while Turlough drew
plans in th