at the words, then his head fell again at the response.

"They have scattered in the mountains, it is said, master."

"Murrough, have men sent to meet these royalists with food and wines,
and if they are bound hither we will entreat them softly and send them
home again empty. Now let us enjoy Brian Buidh a while--though he has
stood up but poorly. It is in my mind that we will nail him up
to-morrow."

With that Brian felt the whip stroking across his naked back. His
muscles corded and heaved up in horrible contraction, but no sound broke
from him; again and again the hide whip licked about him until he felt
the warm blood running down his legs, and then with merciful suddenness
all things went black, and he hung limp against the post.

"Take him back," ordered the Dark Master in disgust. "Why, that boy we
cut up the other side of Clifden had more strength than this fool!"

"His strength went out of him with his hair," grinned Red Murrough, and
they carried Brian to his prison.

The Dark Master had spoken truly, however. Brian's strength lay not so
much in brute muscles, though he had enough of them, as in his nervous
energy; and the slow horror of his burning hair and of that iron which
had twice raked the length of his body had come close to destroying his
whole nervous system. Other men might have endured the same thing and
laughed the next day, but Brian was high-strung and tense, and while his
will was still strong, his physical endurance was shattered.

With the next morning, this fact had become quite evident to the general
disgust of all within Bertragh Castle. The Dark Master himself visited
the cell, and upon finding that Brian was lost in a half stupor and
muttering words in Spanish which no one understood, he angrily ordered
that he be revived and finished with that afternoon.

Red Murrough set about the task with savage determination. By dint of
sea water externally and mingled wine and uisquebagh internally he had
Brian wakened to a semblance of himself before midday. Then food, oil,
and bandages about his wounds, and in another hour Brian was feeling
like a new man.

He was under no misapprehension as to the cause of this kindness, but
cared little. So keenly had he suffered that he was glad to reach the
end, and he walked out behind Red Murrough that afternoon with a ghastly
face, but with firm mouth and firmer stride, though he was very weak and
half-drunk with the liquors he had swallowed.

H