p
and the O'Malleys had sought their ships, the Bird Daughter unexpectedly
became very cordial toward Brian once more, and they sat up late before
the fireplace.

Brian did not understand it, but he was quite willing to accept it, and
when the talk turned on personal matters he was careful to ask no
questions concerning Nuala's plans for the future. Instead, he told her
tales of his life at the Spanish court, which interested her vastly,
until in the end she broke forth with a passionate outburst.

"Oh, I wish I were a man!" she cried softly and eagerly, looking into
the red embers. "All my life I have been among men, and yet not of them;
I have had to do with guns and ships and powder, and I think I have not
done so ill, yet I have had dreams of other things--things which I
hardly know myself."

Astonished though he was at her sudden unfolding of herself, Brian
looked at her gravely, his blue eyes very soft as he pierced to her
thought.

"Yes," he said gently, "you are a woman, Bird Daughter--and if you were
a man I think that you might have gain, but others would have great
loss."

"Eh?" She looked straightly at him, unfearing his half-expressed
thought. "I do not seek idle compliments, Yellow Brian, from those who
serve me."

Brian flushed a little.

"It is hard to receive compliments gracefully," he said, and at that she
also colored, but laughed, her eyes still on his.

"There, give grace to my rude tongue, Brian! Of course you meant it--but
why?"

"Because there is no woman like you, Nuala--so able to weld men into
union, so vibrant with inner power, and yet so womanly withal. It is no
little honor to have known you, to have--"

"I wish you would tell me your name, Yellow Brian!"

There was woman's cunning in the placing of that answer, and it took
Brian all aback. For a moment he was near to blurting out his whole
story; then he took shame for letting a girl's face so run away with
him. None the less, he knew well that it was her heart as well as her
face, and her spirit as well as her heart, that had captured him; yet,
because he had had no dealings with women since leaving Spain some
months before, he told himself that if the Bird Daughter had other women
near by to compare herself with, less attraction might be found in her.

But he did not pause long upon that thought, sweeping his blue eyes to
hers in a smile.

"If you had been a man, Nuala, you had never had fealty from me."

"So--then i