For each year at this season there set out from Cadiz for Limerick and Galway a goodly fleet of galleons, each of which carried a burden more to be desired than a king’s ransom. These ships were laden with many barrels of the wines both of France and Spain, with rolls of silks, with bales of fine leather, with suits of raiment and shirts of mail, and blades of Toledo, and with other articles of price, the products of Europe, and, even, to some extent, of the mysterious Orient, where Turk and infidel held their sway. These were exchanged against the fish—for which our island was famous—the hides, salt, meat, wheat, and barley of the country.
Grace O’Malley’s vengeance on Galway was to attack, capture, or destroy that portion of the wine fleet, as it was commonly spoken of, the destination of which was that town. The boldness and daring of the project took my breath away; but I could conceive of nothing that was so likely to cause consternation and terror as its successful issue to the great merchants of the city, and to mortify and enrage the Governor.
It was a great enterprise—this attack—and one which, if the event went against us, would probably be the end of us all. But there was one thing that gave us an advantage, which, skilfully used, could not fail to be of such importance as to be almost in itself decisive. This was that the wine fleet had arrived safely at Galway year after year, without falling in with any danger other than that which came from the ordinary risks of the sea. Hence the immunity they had so long enjoyed would breed in them a feeling of complete security, and dispose them to be careless of precautions.
Still I was staggered; and what was passing through my mind being seen in my face, Grace O’Malley inquired, a trifle disdainfully:
“Think ye, Ruari, the venture too much for me?”—and the accent fell on the last word of the sentence. “I tell you, Nay!”
“Nothing—nothing,” exclaimed I, wildly, “is too high for you! As for me, it is yours to command—mine to obey.”
Then we took counsel together, first having summoned Tibbot the Pilot, and the other chiefs and officers who were in the galleys. When Grace O’Malley had made her purpose known there was at first the silence of stupefaction, then there followed the rapid, incoherent, impulsive exclamations of fierce and savage glee.
While we were occupied in this manner, a fishing smack had come into the bay, and on it were the pipers Phelim and Cormac and some others of our men, whom we had been forced to leave behind, but who had made their way out of Galway, being secretly helped therein by the fisher-folk who dwelt in a village by themselves without the gates. These brought word that the city was in a state of great alarm, and that the Governor had declared that he would not rest until he had sent out an expedition to raze Grace O’Malley’s castles to the ground, to destroy her galleys, and to blot out her name from Ireland.
Nothing had been needed to add to our determination, but, if need there had been, here it was. We were now all proclaimed rebels and traitors, so that we could look for nothing but torture and death at the hands of the English. A price would soon be placed upon our heads, and whoever wrought us a mischief or an injury of any kind would be considered as doing the Queen a service.
Such was our situation. To most of our people the Queen of England was no more than an empty name, and even to those of us who appreciated the might and resources of that princess, it appeared better that we should be aware of who were our foes and who were our friends, and if her representative, Sir Nicholas Malby, were our open enemy, as we were now well assured he was, we knew with whom our quarrel lay, and what we might expect from him.