Vere cried out in sudden wonder.
"'Fore Gad! Look!"
Then indeed the Dark Master looked, and sprang to his feet, and one great shout of alarm and fear shrilled up from those watching. For as Cathbarr stood there, the veins had suddenly come out on his face and neck, and with a dull sound the ropes had broken on his arms, and he was free.
Murrough rushed forward, and his pistol spat fire. Cathbarr, with his eyes still on the Dark Master, put out a hand and Murrough went whirling away with a dull groan. Then the giant rushed.
O'Donnell did not stay for that meeting, but slipped away like a shadow into his surging men, yelling at them to fire. There were few muskets in the hall, however, and an instant later Cathbarr had reached the table where Vere still sat astounded. He brought down a fist on the royalist's steel cap, and Vere coughed horribly and fell out of his chair with his skull crushed.
Now a musket roared out, and another. But Cathbarr caught up the oaken table and faced around on the men who were surging forward at him; lifting the ten-foot table as though it were paper, he bellowed something and rushed at them, casting the table in a great heave. It fell squarely on the front rank, and then indeed fear came upon the hall. For Cathbarr's foot had struck against his ax, and he rose with it in his hand.
There was a din of screams and shouts, for half the men were struggling to get out of the hall and the rest were rushing to get at Cathbarr. Another musket crashed, and in the smoke Brian saw the giant stagger, recover, and go bellowing into the crowd.
Brian struggled from the table, groaned with pain, and then stood watching. He could walk, but his weakness and the chains on his wrists and ankles hindered him from being of any advantage to Cathbarr, though he lifted his voice in a shout of encouragement.
Cathbarr heard the shout, and roared out with delight. A musket-ball had cut across his forehead, and with the blood dripping from his beard he looked more like a demon than a man. The huge ax flashed in the smoky light, and before it men groaned and shrieked and gave back; it cleaved steel and flesh, or smashed helms and heads together, and the Dark Master had slipped from the place, so that his men had no leader.
Over the roar of fear-mad men, over the storm of shrieks and shouts, over the dust and smoke, rose the mighty bellow of Cathbarr and the thudding blows of his ax. The royalist officers were fighting around the doorway, while O'Donnell's men were trying to make head against the giant, but he swept through them like a whirlwind, awing them more by his ferocious aspect and his mad rage than by the half-seen effect of his terrific strength.