“To-morrow will be too late,” said the king furiously. “We shall have half Ulster on our backs to-morrow.”
“I want scaling ladders, grapnels,” said the officer angrily. “This work has been thrown on us at a moment’s notice, and we are not prepared for it. I can get them out in a day, but not in a night.”
“Attack a door with your ram,” snarled Conachúr, “and guard your other doors.”
“I am doing that,” said the captain, “and my men, I fear, are beginning to love the work.”
He returned to his place, and in a few minutes the thud and batter of the ram was heard again. Conachúr strode there and watched the work with savage impatience. The captain returned and stood by him.
“You put good doors in the Red Branch, majesty,” he said cheerfully; “an hour of that ramming will begin to make them quiver.”
A shout arose, but it was multiplied from every side by the roaring soldiery, and one could not tell from which direction danger came.
“They have popped out somewhere,” said the captain. “In about two minutes they will pop in again, somewhere—they know but we don’t,—and in those two minutes we will lose five men or twenty.”
“Stick to the ram!” Conachúr roared. “Keep at that door, my men!”
A wild yelling came from the side and a burst of men came pell-mell round the corner. Weapons were striking everywhere and anywhere.