That night my sleep was troubled and uneasy, and I tossed restlessly about, so that when the first light of day was seen I sprang from my couch. As I did so I heard Calvagh O’Halloran call my name loudly, and at the same instant there was the sound of oars; then Calvagh, as I stepped on deck, came running towards me, crying something I could not quite distinguish, and pointing to The Grey Wolf, which had slipped her anchor, and was now being rowed away from us in the direction of Limerick.
All this came upon me so suddenly that I could scarcely grasp the meaning of it, until I noticed Eva O’Malley standing on the poop of The Grey Wolf, and waving her hand to me in farewell.
“Stop! stop!” I cried; but on went the galley at racing speed. “Stop! stop!” I cried again; but received no other response than that given by those waving hands. I was on the point of ordering Calvagh to get The Cross of Blood under weigh, when I observed that Eva had sent Art O’Malley by one of the small boats of The Grey Wolf to my galley with a message for me.
“What is this? What is this?” I asked of him.
“Eva O’Malley bids me tell you,” replied he, “that she is going in to Limerick to see Sir Nicholas Malby.”
“What?” I cried. “Has she gone crazed! To see Nicholas Malby! What frenzy is this?”
“’Tis no frenzy, Ruari Macdonald,” said Art O’Malley, “but her settled will. And she bade me say that you must wait here, and she will return to-night, or else, if she come not, that we must all go to Limerick to-morrow.”
“What is her intention?”
“That I know not. It was not till I was in the boat that she gave me these words for you, and none of us imagined, when the galley set out, that you were not aware of what she was about.”