ved 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 bastards 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 passed 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 bastards 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
shore, 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 nev