She looked in puzzlement from me to the Irishman, and from him again to me, and I would very willingly have engaged further in tossing the ball but for the grave news I bore. Breaking off suddenly, I told her with seriousness than within the fourth part of an hour Rory Mac Shane with his posse of rascals would be at her gates.
"It behoves your folk to show," I said, "that they can fight better than they watch; and with your leave, while your man here tells his tale in gross, I will make bold to set things in order for defence."
I did not wait for an answer, but turned abruptly from her (noting how her wrath was kindled against me), and sought my servant and the Irishmen my comrades in captivity. Them I informed of what was toward, and gave commands for the Irishmen to convey to their fellow countrymen. My assured mien and peremptory speech carried it with them, and with Mistress Sheila too, who was so much taken aback by my masterfulness, as well as engrossed with the tale poured out in the Irish tongue by her man, as that she was in a manner fixed and immovable like a monument.
But this posture endured but a little. Being informed of all that had happened, she came flying to me in the midst of the courtyard, and a wondrous light shone upon her face, and she thrust out her hands towards me, and cried—
"Oh, sir, I crave your pardon, and I thank you."
I took her hand and kissed it in the manner of a courtier, yet mayhap with something less formality.
"But haste, sir!" she cried again. "The wherry is yours. Get you, you and your men, to the other side, and escape while yet there is time."
"Madam," I said, "I and my men have no other wish than to serve you."
"I beseech you, endanger not your life in a quarrel that is not your own," she said.
"I trow I make it my own," said I, with a forthright quick look. An instant our glances clung; then she veiled her enkindling eyes, and turning aside hastily, clasped hands with the sour-faced dame who had now come forth, a fearsome dragon, from the postern door.