At length, on the tenth day after my return to Carrickahooley, our spies came in from their lairs in the forests and hills with the news that the English army was camped two leagues away, and that it appeared to be the intention of its leaders to spend the night there. The spies described the army as an immense host, there being more than three hundred well-armed soldiers, besides a great swarm of the gallowglasses of Sir Murrough O’Flaherty of Aughnanure, who himself had accompanied the Governor.
When I inquired eagerly if Sir Nicholas had any ordnance, the spies averred that they had seen none. And, whether the difficulty of dragging heavy pieces through Connaught had been found insurmountable, or, strong in numbers and relying on the terror inspired by the name of the English, he had resolved to dispense with them altogether, I knew not; but to my mind the absence of these engines of war more than made up for his superiority over us in men.
Doubtless, his action in this respect was founded on the confidence he entertained that we were about to be betrayed to him by the traitors within the castle itself, nor could he dream that the galleries of the Whispering Rocks had given up his secrets to me.
All that night the guard, of which I was in command, stood to their arms upon the battlements; but there was not a sound save such as ever comes from the sleeping earth or the never-sleeping sea. The morning dawned still and fair, and the sun rose out of the world, tinting with a fresh bloom the slopes of the distant hills now purpling with the bursting heather, and changing the thin, vaporous mist that lay over land and water below them, into one great gleaming sheen of silver.
All that night, too, our spies lay concealed in the woods, and noted every movement within the English camp; and now, as the day advanced, they came in to report that Sir Nicholas was marching down to the seashore. By noon he had established himself in and about the Abbey of Burrishoole, no regard being had to the sacredness of the building. And here he halted for the rest of the day, probably being greatly surprised that we had not so far offered any resistance to his approach.
Now this ancient religious house stands on a rocky height looking across the small bay that is next to that on the edge of which the castle is built, and therefore the distance between the enemy and ourselves was so inconsiderable that it behoved us to be constantly on the alert.
In the evening, then, when the night-watch was posted on the walls and about the gate, I doubled the number of the guard, choosing such men, and those chiefly from my own crew of The Cross of Blood, as were of proved endurance and courage.
De Vilela had proffered his services, as my second in command, and I had given him charge of a picked company whose station was beside the gate of the drawbridge—that is, the gate on the landward side of Carrickahooley.
Grace O’Malley herself saw that everything was disposed according to her mind before she withdrew to the apartments of the women in the main tower. But well did I know that it was not to sleep that she had gone. She had now attired herself in the mantle, leather-quilted jack, and armour of an Irish gentleman, and her eyes were full of the fierce light of battle; but, deeming it likely to increase the confidence of her people if they saw her retire according to her usual custom, she had left us to ourselves.
I was leaning upon the edge of the parapet, gazing into the deepening darkness of the night, and musing on many things, when one of my officers came up, and informed me that among those who had fled to us for refuge from the English were certain kernes who passionately begged to be permitted to share the night-watch, being consumed with zeal against the enemy.