l fall to work without waste of time or men. We may look to have
the dry moat filled with fascines to-night and our gates blown in with
petards. At the worst, we can hold that tower, where the powder is
stored."

If he had had more men, Brian would have slung the bastards down from
the high walls and set them in the courtyard where they could sweep the
gates when these had been blown in. But they weighed a ton and half
each, and there was no time to build shears to let them down, even had
they had spars and ropes at hand. So Brian set them to cover the
approach, and had the smaller falcons brought down to the courtyard, all
five, where he trained them on the gates and loaded them with bullets
heavily.

"Turlough and I will fire these ourselves," he told his men that evening
as they made supper together, the men looking forward to the night's
work with great joy. "Do the rest of you gather on either hand by the
stables, with spare muskets and pistols."

So this was done as he said. Because of the storm Brian did not light
his beacon after all, but he stocked the tower with food and wine, and
told his men to get there, if they could, when the rest was taken. That
tower had Brian's chamber in the lower part and a ladder in the upper
part, where was great store of powder.

The five falcons were set in front of the hall doorway, where once Brian
had come near to being nailed. Brian loosed another of the pigeons,
telling Nuala how things chanced, and of the four pirate ships, and set
the last bird in the tower in case of need, which proved a lucky thing
for him in the end.

Brian and his men slept after meat, while Turlough Wolf remained
watching. It was wearing well on to midnight when the old man woke them
all, and Brian went to the walls to hear a thud of hoofs and a murmur of
men coming across the wind to him. He sent off men to loose the loaded
guns on the outer walls at random, and then suddenly flung lighted
cressets over the gates.

A wild yell answered this, and bullets from the men who were filling the
dry moat, while others scrambled across it and charged up to the gates
with small powder-kegs and petards ready. This was not done without
scathe, however; Brian's men loosed their muskets, and one by one the
heavy bastards thundered out across the snow, though the result was hard
to see in the darkness.

There came a ragged flash of musketry in reply, and that abandoned
cannon roared out lustily, though its