Leaving the two ladies together, each went to his place in the ships. Some of my men, who had been ashore, now returned and informed me that they had learned that it was the annual custom to light a great fire on the headland of Arran, on which stand the ruins of the ancient castle called Dun Aengus, as soon as the vessels of the wine fleet hove into sight.
The smoke of this fire, if it were day, or the flame of it, if it were night, was a signal to the merchants of Galway, who, as soon as they saw it, made preparations for the reception of the ships—this being the chief event each year in the life of the town. To the end that the office of this beacon should be better fulfilled, they had placed a small body of soldiers and others in huts that stood between the crumbling walls of the old fort.
I debated with myself whether it would not be more prudent to have the lighting or the not lighting of the fire in my own power, but, being in no little doubt, put the matter off until later in the day. By the middle of the afternoon, however, there were abundant evidences that the weather, which had for days past been fine, was about to change; and as the sun fell, dark clouds were gathering sullenly in the sky, the wind from the south-west was blowing stormily across the island—though our galleys felt it not at all, being under the lee of the land—and already we could hear the thunder of the waves as they rushed upon the further coast. And all the night through a tempest of terrible violence raged.
When the morning came, the fury of the gale rather increased than diminished, and so that day and the next, when the winds and waves began to subside, we remained at anchor in our harbour, safe from the storm. On the night of the third day the wind died down to a breeze, and the moon struggled fitfully through the scud and drift of the clouds.
Uncertain as to how the storm might shift, the galleys had been kept ready to put out from the shore at any moment, and therefore it fell out that nothing had been done by us with regard to the Galway men at Dun Aengus. In the middle watch, it being very dark save when the moon shone out, to be hidden again as fast as it appeared, we saw a bright tongue of flame shoot up, flashing and shining brightly against the blackness of the sky. Quickly raising our anchors, we made off past the island of Inishmaan, and on by Inisheer until we ran close in by the point of Trawkeera.
I wondered how it was that on such a night the watchman at Dun Aengus had made out the coming of the fleet, but discovered as we went upon our course, that another beacon had been lit far down the southern coast, and as soon as they had seen it they had set a torch to their own. Thus were we also apprised of the coming of the wine fleet, and that by the hands of the people of Galway themselves, as it were. As the day began to dawn, greyly and drearily, a large, unwieldy Spanish galleon entered the South Sound, about half a league outside of Trawkeera. Not more than half her sails were set, and she rolled heavily from side to side in the swell left by the storm. A few sleepy sailors stood in the waist of the ship, and no armed watch was to be seen.
It had been arranged between Grace O’Malley and myself that I was to attack the first vessel that came in sight, and in the still, spectral light, we stole silently out from the shadow of Inisheer, the one great mainsail of The Cross of Blood being set, and the oars shipped until the word was given.