There I lay, and, as the night fell, the men of Sir Nicholas marched up and lit their watch-fires not more than a stone’s throw from where I hid. For hours, not daring to move, I heard them singing and talking and jesting with each other. When, at length, silence came upon the sleeping camp, I stole as softly as I could out of the bushes, and moving on, like a cat, so that each step of mine was no more noticed than a puff of wind, I managed to gain the road that leads past Oorid and Sindilla at the foot of the mountains. I walked fast, and sometimes ran, until the day broke, when I turned aside, and, having sought for and found a dry cave on the side of a hill, fell down utterly exhausted, and ere long was in a deep slumber.
I was awakened many hours later, for it was dark again, by a strange sort of cheeping noise at my very ears.
I started up, and the noise ceased; I lay down, and the sound began once more. As I listened, my face to the rocky floor of the cavern, I fancied I could distinguish words, but, as it were, coming from a great way off.
Now, thoroughly aroused, I listened yet more earnestly, and I made out that there were two or three voices, and that the sound of them was not coming from the inside of the cave, nor yet from the outside, but seemed to issue, like a thin whistle, through the rock itself.
I moved stealthily towards the far end, and, lying down again prone, applied my ear to the ground. I now heard quite distinctly, the words being audible, though faint, and with an extraordinary effect of still coming from an immense distance.
I then understood I was in one of the chambers of the Whispering Rocks as they are called, for a wonder of nature has so constructed them that it is possible to hear through them, when all around is still, whatever is said within these caverns. And how this miracle comes to pass I know not, but I had often heard of it; otherwise I might have thought that these sounds came from the spirits of the mountain, and so might not have discovered the vile plot that had been hatched for our ruin.
For, as the voices grew more and more clear, I found myself listening to the story of how these men who were speaking were to present themselves at the castle of Carrickahooley in advance of the English army, and, having gained admittance on the plea that they were fleeing to Grace O’Malley for protection, were treacherously to betray her and the castle into the hands of the Governor by secretly opening the gate as soon as the attack began.
I gripped my dagger in impotent rage, for, placed as I was, I could do nothing. After a time the voices ceased, and, moving noiselessly to the mouth of the cave, I saw that the night was clear and starry, and, feeling refreshed by my long repose, I made on towards Ballanahinch, which I reached in the morning, and where I obtained milk and the flesh of a kid from the wife of one of the kernes, who took me for a wandering priest, and gladly supplied my wants.
For two days and the greater part of two nights I toiled over the mountains and through the forests, seeing no indication of the English, until I came to the fiord of the Killery, where some of our own people dwelt under Muilrea. From thence they brought me round to Clew Bay in a fishing boat, and I was back again at Carrickahooley, more dead than alive from the fatigues I had undergone, inured though I was to all kinds of hardness.