e the men were resting. Brian noted
with approval that no fires had been lighted, and he and Cathbarr at
once lay down to get an hour's sleep among the men.

Two hours before daybreak the camp was astir, and Brian gathered his
lieutenants to arrange the attack. Thinking that the Dark Master would
be in the castle, he and Cathbarr took a hundred men for that attack,
ordering the rest to get as close to the camp as might be, but not to
attack until he had struck on the castle, and to cut off the O'Donnells
from their ships. Then, assured that the plan was understood, he and
Cathbarr loaded their pistols and set out with the hundred.

Brian ordered his men to give quarter to all the Scots who would accept
it, if they got inside the castle, and as they marched forward through
the darkness he found to his delight that O'Donnell seemed to have no
sentries out.

"We have caught the black fox this time," muttered Cathbarr, after they
had passed the camp-fires without discovery and the black mass of the
castle loomed up ahead. "They will hardly have repaired those gates by
now, brother."

Brian nodded, and ordered his men to rest, barely a hundred paces from
the castle. Since there was no need of attacking before dawn, in order
to let Nuala come up the bay, he went forward with Cathbarr to look at
the gates.

These, as nearly as he could tell, were still shattered in; there were
fires in the courtyard, and sentries were on the wall, but their watch
was lax and the two below were not discovered. They rejoined the
hundred, and Brian bade Cathbarr follow him through the hall to that
chamber he himself had occupied in the tower, where O'Donnell was most
likely to be found.

"Well, no use of delaying further," he said, when at length the grayness
of dawn began to dull the starlight. Since to light matches would have
meant discovery, he had brought with him those hundred Kerry pikemen
Nuala had recruited after the dark Master's defeat, and he passed on the
word to follow.

The mass of men gained the moat before a challenge rang out from above,
and with that Brian leaped forward at the gates. A musket roared out,
and another, but Brian and Cathbarr were in the courtyard before the
Scots awakened. A startled group barred their way to the hall, then
Brian thrust once, the huge ax crashed down, and they were through.

Other men were sleeping in the hall, but Brian did not stop to battle
here, running through before the half-awak