But as the first line of men broke into the courtyard, Brian fired the remaining three cannon as fast as he could touch linstock to powder. The bullet-hail tore the front ranks to shreds, but through the darkling smoke-cloud he saw other men come leaping, and knew that the game was up.
On the next instant his men had closed around him, muskets were stabbing the powder-smoke, and Brian fell to work with his Spanish blade. O'Donnells and Scots together heaved up against them, but Brian's point weaved out between cutlas and claymore and bit out men's lives until the mass of men surged back again like the backleash of a wave that comes against a wall.
Brian heard the Dark Master's voice from somewhere, and with that muskets spat from the gloom and bullets thudded around him. One slapped his steel cap away and another nicked his ear, and a third came so close across his eyes that he felt the hot breath of it; but his men fared in worse case than that, for they were clutching and reeling and fallen, and Brian leaped across the last of them into the hall with bullets driving at his back-piece.
As he ran through the hall he knew that his falcons had punished O'Donnell's men heavily, and that his twenty men had not fallen without some payment for their lives. None the less, Bertragh Castle was now lost to him and to the Bird Daughter; but he thought it likely that he would yet make a play that might nip O'Donnell in the midst of his success.
In this Brian was a true O'Neill and the true luck of the Red Hand had seemed to dog him, for he had lost all his men without suffering a defeat, and now that he was beaten down, he was planning to strike heaviest.
He gained the tower well enough, and found Turlough there to receive him, with food and wine and loaded pistols. They soon had the door of the lower chamber fast barred and clamped, and Brian flung himself down on his bed, panting, but unwounded to speak of.
"Now sleep, master," said the old man. "They will search elsewhere, and finding this door closed will do naught here until the morning."
Brian laughed a little.
"It is not easy to sleep after fighting, Turlough. I think that now I will send off that last pigeon, so give me that quill yonder."
With great care Brian wrote his message, telling what had passed, and saying that he hoped to ride free from the castle next morning. In that case he would be at Cathbarr's tower before evening came, and he told Nuala to have all her men landed there at once, since she could hope to do nothing by sea against the pirate ships.