“’Ay, I shall keep my oath,’ said he. ’No drop of his blood shall be shed. But die he too must, and so shall this accursed brood be destroyed from off the face of the earth. Bind him so that he cannot escape,’ he ordered.
“And they bound me with strips of tanned deerskin, even as you saw when I was found in the drifting boat. Then he spoke to two of his men, who carried me down to the beach, and threw me into the bottom of the boat. Getting themselves into another, they towed that which I was in some two or three miles from shore, until, indeed, I could hear the struggling of the waters made by the tide, called the ’Race of Strangers.’ And then they left me to the mercy of the sea.”
“How long ago was that?” asked the maid.
“Two days ago,” I replied. “I drifted, drifted with wave and tide, expecting every moment to be swallowed up; and part of the time, perhaps, I slept, for I cannot remember everything that took place. And then you found the boat, and me in it,” I added simply.
“’Tis a strange story,” said the maid’s father; and he turned away to see to the working of the ship, which was straining and plunging heavily in the swell, and left us two children to ourselves.
I looked at the maid, who had been so tender and kind.
“Who are ye?” I asked timidly.
“I am Grace O’Malley,” said she proudly, “the daughter of Owen O’Malley of Erris and of Burrishoole in Connaught—he who has just gone from us.”
And then she told me of herself, of her father, and of her people, and that the ship was now returning to Clare Island, which belonged to them.
“See,” said she, pointing through a window in the stern, “there are the headlands of Achill, only a few miles from Clare Island,” and I looked out and saw those black ramparts of rock upon which the ocean hurls itself in vain.