scant half-hour before
some two-score horsemen had fled past them toward Tuam.

"Good!" cried Brian. "Now, Turlough, lead us around Tuam, and I think we
shall finish this thing long before the day comes."

Said Turlough sourly, "Every horse down is a man gone, master," but to
that Brian only laughed and set in his spurs.

So now they let gallop through the darkness, trusting more to Turlough's
wits than to their horses' feet; for Brian knew that if his own beasts
were spent, those of the Dark Master were no better unless he were to
get mounts at Tuam. That would be hard, however, for there were no
horses to be had save far in the mountains where the war had not swept
all things away.

No sooner had they reached the road again beyond Tuam than it seemed to
Brian that he heard the faint drum of hoofs ahead of him, and at that he
gave a shout and drove on with such of his men storming behind as might
come. Many of them had gone down, indeed, but now all wakened from their
nodding sleep and kept close, though here and there one dropped out.
Turlough, whose steed had been the best of all save Brian's, kept at his
master's flank.

They were hard on Claregalway when Brian saw his quarry first--a deep
mass of men far ahead on an open stretch of road. Then he knew that the
race was nearly won, and for all that his beast was sobbing under his
thighs, he raced ahead, and laughed out loud when a little band cut off
from the main body of the Dark Master's men. There were fifteen or less
who waited his coming with pistols ready, but Brian rode hardily at
them, their balls whistled overhead or past, and he was on them.

The shock of the meeting came near to unseating him, and sent one of the
foe sprawling, horse and man; Brian cut another to the chin and thrust
the life from a third, and before the first sword had slithered on his
steel-cap his men had swept aside the devoted fifteen, and he was riding
on. O'Donnell had straightened his party for nothing.

Now the Dark Master was riding for his life, and knew it. Some few of
his men fell out with spent beasts, and these Brian's party rode over,
taking and giving but one blow, or none at all. When Claregalway drew up
ahead, cold and gray under the stars, Brian was but two hundred yards
behind with forty men still behind him, while O'Donnell had not half so
many.

As he thundered down to the river Brian had drawn as much ahead of
Turlough and the others as he was behind the Da