THE SIEGE IS RAISED.
Perchance it was that my spirits had been affected by the sinking
of this fine ship, even though I myself had been the cause of the
same--the loss of a vessel, I cannot help saying, being a thing more
to be deplored than the deaths of many human beings; or it may have
been that my mind, now the necessity for prompt and decisive action had
passed, became, as it were, relaxed and unstrung; but, as _The Cross
of Blood_ threaded her way through the maze of the islands towards
Carrickahooley, I could think of nothing save of how I stood in the
debt of de Vilela.
In vain I strove to comfort myself by recalling the successes and the
victories that had been achieved by and in the name of my mistress,
Grace O’Malley, and by telling myself that she had won for herself and
us an imperishable renown. Not thus could I silence the voice of my
heart, which cried out that all these were but as barrenness and as
nothingness so long as Eva O’Malley was not for me. For _there_ was the
pain, there the grief and the sadness.
Against myself did I consider myself called upon to fight. I was as
deep in the Spaniard’s debt as a man could be, and yet I could not
bring myself to resign all hopes of my dear, even to de Vilela, without
the bitterest struggles.
Which of us twain possessed the maid’s love? Was it de Vilela, or was
it I? Did she love either of us?--that was the all-important question.
For myself, my love had grown with my growth, was, I felt, growing
still, and would keep on growing as long as I lived.
De Vilela, however, was a stranger, blown in upon us, as it were, by
the chance winds of heaven. My claim was perhaps the better claim, but
a maid’s heart acknowledges no real claim but the claim of her love,
and if her heart’s love was de Vilela’s, then was my claim void and
empty indeed.
Therefore, let the maid decide. My thoughts had worked round to this
point, when I remembered once more what Grace O’Malley had said about
the Don and Eva. What if Eva loved me after all? Again, Let the maid
decide, said I.
Yet, somehow, this did not altogether satisfy me. Then it occurred to
me that I might pay a part of my debt to de Vilela in the following way.
He could scarcely tarry much longer with us at the castle, as he must
soon depart to endeavour to carry out the objects of the secret mission
with which he had been entrusted by his master, the King of Spain.
The way for him would be clear and open, for I had no doubt that Sir
Nicholas would not now be able to continue the siege, and that we would
be left in peace and quiet till the spring of the next year, when the
war would most probably be renewed against us with larger forces, and
with greater determination, both by land and sea. But all that lay in
the womb of the future.
As for Don Francisco, I thought it likely that he would try to make the
most of the time that remained to him before setting out for the Earl
of Desmond’s, that he would ask for Eva’s hand from Grace O’Malley,
and that thus the matter would be determined. What I set myself to do
was, so long as he remained at Carrickahooley, to keep out of Eva’s
presence, and in a manner, as it were, to leave the field to de Vilela.
If the maid loved him, I was out of court; if she loved me, she would
tell her foster-sister that she could not accept the offer of the
Spaniard; if she cared for neither of us, or wavered between us, then
I was resolved to forego whatever advantage I possessed over de Vilela
until he had received his answer and had taken his departure.
If she accepted his suit, they would be married, I supposed drearily,
before he left, and then they would set out together, and that which
was unutterably and unalterably rare, dear, and precious would be gone
out of my life. If Eva willed otherwise--it all rested with her. But,
in any case, de Vilela was to have his chance free from any mean or
unmannerly interference from me.
Little did I guess how severely the strength of my resolution was to be
tested, but I thank God, now that all is done, that it bore the strain.
It was not much past the middle of the day when _The Cross of Blood_
drew up at Carrickahooley, but long before we had reached the castle we
could hear the sounds of battle rolling towards us from off the land,
and could see the tiny clouds of smoke made by the arquebuses as they
were fired off.
Disembarking with all haste, and bringing with me most of my crew, I
was instantly admitted within the water-gate. There I was told that
Grace O’Malley, with de Vilela, her gentlemen, and most of her people,
was making a sally on the English.
Rushing to the parapets, I could see that the centre of the fighting
was between the castle and the Abbey of Burrishoole, and that it was of
a very terrible and bloody character, the Englishmen displaying that
dogged courage for which they are famed, while the Irish, inspired by
their mistress, performed wonderful feats of valour, and were thrusting
their enemies slowly back to their principal position, where, however,
their further retreat was speedily checked on their being strengthened
by fresh supports.
Now the purpose of Grace O’Malley in this outfall could not have
extended beyond inflicting upon the Governor considerable loss, as
she knew his force was far superior to her own in numbers; and I
was therefore not surprised to witness the Irish at this juncture
beginning to retreat, the English attacking them fiercely in front and
on their flanks.
It was at this instant that Sir Nicholas, who was himself directing the
operations of his troops, conceived that he might cut our people off
altogether from the castle by sending forward some soldiers he had held
as a reserve, and placing them between the Irish and the castle.
I could see all this quite plainly from the walls, and, fearing lest he
might succeed, I summoned my men, and, issuing from the castle gate,
marched to meet this new body of the enemy, in order, if so be I was in
time, to defeat the attempt, which, if well carried out, could not but
be attended with the greatest possible danger, and perhaps disaster, to
my mistress.
Being delayed by the roughness of the ground from coming up as quickly
as I could have wished, and as they had the start of us, the English
had effected their purpose, and the Irish were surrounded.
But, as we ran forward, some of the enemy faced about to meet us, and
so, being taken, as it were, between two fires--Grace O’Malley with her
men on the one side, and I with mine on the other--they were speedily
thrown into the utmost confusion, of which we did not fail to make a
good account. Still the contest was by no means entirely in our favour,
for the resistance of the Governor’s soldiers was protracted and
bitter, each man contending for his own hand with all the strength and
cunning he was possessed of.
At length the main body of the Irish under Grace O’Malley fought their
way through the enemy and joined themselves to us, my mistress being
both surprised and rejoiced to find that we had returned, and had been
able to come to her assistance. Beside her, their swords gleaming redly
in their hands, were Brian Ogue, and Art, and Henry O’Malley, and the
other gentlemen of her household; and leaning upon the arm of one of
them, and supported and protected by two men, I beheld de Vilela,
desperately wounded!
His face was pale, drawn, deep-lined, and spotted with blood, the eyes
being closed, and the lips shut tight; the figure within his armour was
bent with weariness, and weakness, and wounds; the fingers of the right
hand still grasped the handle of his sword, but they shook and trembled
as with palsy. Truly, he looked like one whose doom is sealed, and my
heart went out to him with a great compassion.
Calling to four of my men, who were armed with spears, I caused them
to make a rough litter with their weapons, and upon this rude but
soldierly contrivance we laid the Spaniard, and so bore him to the
castle, while behind us the fight still continued, but with less and
less fierceness.
Not a sound came from Don Francisco, although the jolting must have
given him the most intense pain, save once when my mistress took his
hand and spoke to him, when he made reply in Spanish that “all was
well” with him. And I thought the words were not unworthy, but well
became the brave soul of the man.
“I will go in with him,” said Grace O’Malley to me, when we had arrived
at the gate; “Ruari, do you gather our people together, and lead them
within the walls.”
And I did her bidding, so that in a short time I had them collected in
a compact body, and under cover of the ordnance, belching forth from
the battlements, retreated within the gate, bearing most of our wounded
with us. There I found Grace O’Malley waiting to hear the news I had
brought.
“De Vilela?” I first inquired.
“He is still alive,” said she, “but I fear the hour of his passing is
already upon him.”
“’Fore God,” cried I, with a sob in my throat, “I trust not.”
“Eva tends him,” said she--and in a flash I remembered everything.
“He is in good keeping,” said I.
“He is in the hands of God,” said she, in a voice and manner so touched
with unwonted solemnity and deep feeling that I gazed at her in
amazement.
Then a wild thought came to me: could she, did she, our princess, care
for this man? But no sooner had the thought arisen in my mind than I
dismissed it. “What have I to do with love?” she had said on a former
occasion, and she had meant it.
Her next words, however, appeared to give point to my suspicion, but
when I considered them more carefully, I saw I was wrong. For what she
had said was, “There are few men like Don Francisco,” but the tone in
which they were spoken was not that, it seemed to me, of a woman who
loves; rather was it that of one who deplores the expected loss of a
dear friend. Yet sometimes, in the silent watches of the night, have I
wondered--and I wonder still.
“We have heard the roar of great guns from time to time this morning,”
said she, changing the subject abruptly, “and, knowing that you had
no ordnance to speak of, I feared for your safety. Tell me what has
happened.”
Whereupon I related all that had taken place, and how that the English
war-vessel had been dashed to pieces on the rocks at the hither end of
the Gate of Fears.
Much I spoke in praise of Calvagh and the rowers of _The Cross of
Blood_, and said that it was fitting they should be given a rich
reward, for, notwithstanding the terrors inspired in all seafaring men
by the place, and in spite of the ordnance of the Englishman making the
passage like the mouth of hell, they had stood fast every one.
“And what of yourself?” cried she, between smiles and tears. “What of
yourself, my Ruari?”
And she took from the mantle upon her shoulder a brooch of gold, with
mystic signs, of which I knew not the meaning, engraved upon it, and in
the midst of it a sapphire, with the deep blue in it of the unfathomed
abysses of the sea. This she handed to me, one of her arms about my
neck, and I was uplifted with pride, albeit there was some shame mixed
with it too. But the gift I compelled myself to decline.
“I may not take it,” cried I; for the brooch was one of the tokens of
her chieftainship to her people, and firmly resolved was I that there,
in the land of her fathers, no man should ever have the slightest cause
to think there was any other chief save her, and her alone. But if I
took the brooch--”No,” said I; “I may not take it.”
Then, seeing I was determined, she sighed, said no more, but kissed
me on the cheek--a thing she had not done since I was a little child,
playing with her, a child too, on the sands of the shores of Clew Bay.
Thereafter together we went into the chamber of the main tower where de
Vilela had been laid. There by his couch was my dear, a presence soft,
tender, and full of sweet womanly pity and of the delicate ministries
that spring from it. There upon the couch lay the wreck of a man; so
calm, so pale, so worn, that he looked like one dead.
“He still breathes,” said Eva, in a whisper.
Perhaps it was the result of the conversation I had just had with Grace
O’Malley, or it may have been the subtle influence of that scene, with
that quiet figure stretched upon the couch for its centre, but there
was no bitterness in my breast when I saw Eva there. Who, indeed, could
have felt any other emotion at such a time but that of sorrow?
For two days de Vilela hung between life and death. More than once
did it seem that his spirit had left his shattered body, and yet it
did not. On the third day the Spaniard rallied; Teige O’Toole, our
physician, declared that there was hope; and from that instant Don
Francisco began slowly to recover.
All within the castle rejoiced, and I as much as any; but when I saw
how constantly Eva was with him, and how the sick man was restless
and uneasy in her brief absences from his side, and how she watched
over and soothed and tended him, her mere presence being a better
restorative than all the healing simples of Teige O’Toole, is it to be
marvelled at that I found the determination I had come to of leaving
the field open to him, and of withdrawing from it, become more and more
difficult to maintain?
Neither did Sir Nicholas nor his army help greatly to distract my
thoughts. For there, outside our walls, at a safe distance from our
cannon, did the Governor lie day after day for a long week, waiting,
doubtless, for the warship that never came.
We did not, on our side, stir out of the castle, for whatever
advantage, if any, had been reaped from the sally had been purchased at
too heavy a price. Grace O’Malley rightly had come to the conclusion
that we had everything to gain by sitting still, and that Sir Nicholas,
seeing that he could do nothing against us without ordnance, would
soon grow tired of this futile business, and so go back to Galway.
Whether he had heard in some way that the vessel he had expected had
been wrecked, or feared that events had happened which had prevented
it from being sent at all by Winter, the English Admiral, I know not;
but one night he stole away from Burrishoole, and when the morning was
come, lo, there was not an Englishman anywhere to be seen.
It was an unfortunate coincidence in one respect that the very morning
which saw the siege raised should also have witnessed the arrival of
Richard Burke, attended by fifty horsemen and more than a hundred
gallowglasses, for if we could have counted on such a number of
fighting men in addition to our own, we should certainly have again
attacked the Governor’s forces and not stood so much upon our defence.
But in another respect it fell out luckily enough for us, and this was
that we might now pursue him with some hope of overtaking him, and of
stopping him from plundering the country, owing to the assistance of
the Burkes. There was nothing more certain than that Sir Nicholas, as
he retreated towards Galway, would drive before him all the cattle and
horses of the land, and thus he would, after all, unless prevented,
gather an enormous spoil, depriving us, and those who looked to us for
protection, of a great part of our wealth. And already he had done us a
vast amount of injury and harm.
So soon, therefore, as Richard Burke, who was sorely disappointed that
he had not reached Carrickahooley sooner, had come into the castle, and
had been received and entertained by my mistress, from whom he heard a
narrative of what had recently occurred, Grace O’Malley proposed that
he and I should set out with a large force to endeavour to recover
from the English the plunder they were taking away. And to this the
MacWilliam gladly assented, observing that no proposal could please him
better than to take part in getting back her property for her.
“And,” continued he, “as it is impossible for Sir Nicholas to move
quickly, hampered as he must be with many herds of cattle and bands of
horses, we can catch him up before he has gone very far.”
“You will also have many opportunities,” said Grace O’Malley, “of which
I am sure you will not fail to make the most, of coming upon detached
bodies of his troops as they struggle through the thick forests and the
passes of the mountains, and of cutting them off. You can harass and
harry him nearly every step of his retreat, so that when he at length
reaches Galway it will be with greatly lessened forces, and with so
slender a spoil that he will not care to boast of it.”
“You would not offer him battle?” asked I.
“You must be the judges of that for yourselves,” said she; “but Sir
Nicholas is a fine soldier, and as wary as a fox in warfare, and I
think you can do him far more deadly hurt by acting as I have said.
You will risk but little, and may gain much.”
Then Grace O’Malley and Richard Burke began talking of what prospect
there was of a general rising of the Irish against the Queen, and of
the help that might be looked for from Philip of Spain, and of other
matters, some of which, I suspect, lay even nearer the heart of one of
them, at least.
But of this I cannot tell, for when they commenced to speak of affairs
of State I went out from the hall in which they were, to get my men
in readiness to pursue the English. And welcome to me was it that our
expedition, and its hard service, held out the promise of drawing off
my thoughts from Eva and de Vilela.
I was eager that we should make a start at once, but the Burkes were
weary and footsore with their long, toilsome journey. For that day,
then, they rested, Grace O’Malley giving them and all in the castle a
great feast, filling them with food and wine, while her harpers stirred
their souls with songs of the mighty deeds done by the mighty dead.
Songs, too, they made to music now sweet, now fierce, in honour of
my mistress, acclaiming her as not the least in the long list of a
line of heroes! Whereupon the castle rang with tumultuous shoutings
of applause. Then the minstrels cunningly turned their themes to the
Burkes of Mayo, English once, but Irish now--ay, even more Irish than
the Irish themselves.
And so the day passed.
In the morning we left Carrickahooley with a hundred horsemen and a
hundred running footmen, besides horse-boys and others. Behind us
came many of the fugitives who had come to us fleeing from before the
English, and who now were returning to their homes, or to what poor,
charred remains of them might be found.
As we moved swiftly on, we saw many evidences of the havoc wrought by
the ruthless invaders; here the hut of the wood-kerne, who lives by
hunting, there the hovel of the churl, who tills the fields, burnt to
the ground; while over all brooded the silence of desolation and death.
It was not till evening was upon us that we knew by many indications
that we were close on the enemy. Then we halted and waited till the
night had fully come, sending out in the meantime our spies to see what
the English were doing.
Softly, like thieves, they returned with word they had discovered
that Sir Nicholas and the greater portion of his army were not to be
seen, having apparently gone on, but that a small company of English
soldiers and most of the O’Flahertys of Aughnanure were camped some two
or three miles away, having in their charge great droves of cattle.
Having no thought that they were being followed up by us, they had made
no preparations for defence, and therefore might easily fall into our
hands.
Leaving our chargers to the care of the horse-boys, we divided
ourselves into two bands, Richard Burke being in command of the one,
and I of the other; and, going very circumspectly so as to give no hint
of our approach, we burst upon the enemy, many of whom were slain at
the first onset, but a far larger number escaped us in the darkness. We
spent the rest of the night in their camp, having secured the cattle;
and when daylight made manifest everything to us I saw that we had
accomplished all this victory without the loss of a single man, there
being but few wounds even among us.
Then we rode on that day and two more, now and again falling in with
scattered companies of the enemy, whom we slew or dispersed, and
recovering from them whatever plunder they were taking out of the land.
But Sir Nicholas we did not meet with, as he had gone on day and night
without halting, having heard, as I afterwards learned, that the Burkes
of Clanrickarde, under Ulick, the son of the earl, had brought together
several hundred men, including many Scots, and that they were even now
threatening Galway itself.
As we were not purposed to go on to Galway after the Governor, we
returned to Carrickahooley at our leisure.
And now, as we journeyed northwards, Richard Burke’s talk to me was all
of his love for my mistress. How brave, how strong, how great she was!
And of how wonderful a spirit and so wise withal! Did I think that she
had a regard for anyone in especial? Or, that he might have a chance
with her?
And thus he talked and talked, until I, who had my own love trouble,
and found it hard enough, was first constrained to listen, then to
utter words of sympathy, and, last of all, was unfeignedly glad
when our arrival at the castle put a stop to the outflowing of his
eloquence.