ss. A few years previously a very
small body of English troops had been able, as we have seen, to put to
flight fully three times their own number of Irish. In the last dozen
years circumstances however had in this respect very materially changed.
The Desmond followers had been for the most part armed only with skeans
and spears, much as their ancestors had been under Brian Boru. One
English soldier armed with a gun could put to flight a dozen such
assailants as easily as a sportsman a dozen wolves. Tyrone's men, on the
other hand, were almost as well armed as their antagonists. Some of
these arms had come from Spain, others had been purchased at high prices
from the English soldiery, others again from dealers in Dublin and
elsewhere. Man to man, and with equal arms, the Ulster men were fully
equal to their assailants, as they were now about to prove.

In August, 1598, Bagnall advancing from the south found Tyrone engaged
in a renewed attack upon the fort of Blackwater, which he had invested,
and was endeavouring to reduce by famine. At the advance of Bagnall he
withdrew however to a strong position a few miles from the fort, and
there awaited attack.

The battle was not long delayed. The bitter personal hatred which
animated the two leaders seems to have communicated itself to the men,
and the struggle was unprecedentedly fierce and bloody. In the thick of
the engagement Bagnall, lifting his beaver for a moment to get air, was
shot through the forehead and fell. His fall was followed by the
complete rout of his army. Fifteen hundred soldiers and thirteen
officers were killed, thirty-four flags taken, and all the artillery,
ammunition, and provisions fell into the victor's hands. The fort
immediately surrendered, and the remains of the royal army fled in
confusion to Armagh, which shortly abandoning, they again fled south,
not attempting to reform until they took refuge at last in Dundalk.

Such an event as this could have but one result. All the waverers were
decided, and all determined to throw in their lot with the victor. The
talisman of success is of more vital importance to an Irish army than
probably to any other, not because the courage of its soldiers is less,
but because their imagination is greater, and more easily worked upon. A
soldier is probably better without too much imagination. If the auguries
are unfavourable he instinctively augments, and exaggerates them
tenfold. Now, however, all the auguries we