"What think you of this ally, Art Bocagh? Could he be truly the Earl's grandson?"
"I know not," grunted the other. "But I do not care whether he be Brian Buidh or Brian O'Neill or Brian the devil—he is such a man as I would fain see sitting in Gorumna Castle, Shaun!"
And Shaun the Little nodded with a grin.
When the sun began its westering, Brian and Cathbarr rode back from the tower with food and weapons at their saddle-bows, and they paused at the hill-crest to watch the four ships weigh anchor and up sail, then went on into the hills. They were to meet their men at that valley where the Dark Master had been defeated and broken in the first siege, and jogged along slowly, resting as they rode.
"Brother," said Cathbarr suddenly, fingering the haft of his ax and looking at Brian, "do you remember my telling you, that night after we had bearded the Dark Master and got the loan of those two-score men, how an old witch-woman had predicted my fate?"
"Yes," returned Brian, with a sharp glance. In the giant's face there was only a simple good-humor, however, mingled with a childlike confidence in all things. "And I told you that you were not bound to my service."
"No, but I am bound to your friendship," laughed Cathbarr rumblingly. "I can well understand how I might die in a cause not mine own, since I am fighting for you; but I cannot see how death is to come upon me through water and fire, brother!"
"Nonsense," smiled Brian. "Death is far from your heels, brother, unless you are seeking it."
"Not I, Brian. I neither seek nor avoid if the time comes. Only I wish that witch-woman had told me a little more—"
"Keep your mind off it, Cathbarr," said Brian. "In Spain the Moriscoes say that the fate of man is written on his forehead, and God is just."