Two of the men in her seemed to be soldiers, and I signalled Tibbot, whose galley was leading, to capture her—which he did after a short chase, the occupants of the boat surrendering without any resistance.
I had the two soldiers, as they proved to be, brought on board of The Cross of Blood, and having assured them that I intended them no harm, asked how matters stood in the city. The first words they uttered were enough to stun me.
“Grace O’Malley,” said one of them, “was brought into Limerick yesterday, and delivered up to Sir Nicholas Malby.”
“Grace O’Malley in Limerick,” I cried, “and Sir Nicholas Malby there also!”
The fatality of the thing completely broke down my control, and I could not speak for some minutes. I had somehow felt all along that my mistress would be given up to the English by Desmond, but to be told that this had actually come to pass was none the less a crushing blow. And to Sir Nicholas Malby, the Colonel of Connaught, our implacable foe!
The two men gazed at me curiously, seeing how overcome I was.
“How comes Sir Nicholas Malby to be in Limerick?” I asked, pulling myself together. “Connaught is his government, not Munster; how does he happen to be here?”
“You surely must know,” said the man who had spoken before, “that Sir James Fitzmaurice, one of the Desmonds, has arrived in the country at the head of a large army from Spain, and that the Irish people are flocking in to him from all quarters?”
“Yes,” said I, shortly, “I know all that.”
“Sir Nicholas Malby was summoned by the President of Munster,” said the soldier, “in hot haste to the defence of Limerick. We were in garrison at the time at Athlone, several hundred of us, and Sir Nicholas, having marshalled us in our companies, immediately set off in response down the Shannon, and two days ago we arrived here. The President is terror-stricken, and the whole city trembles with fear.”