For answer he pointed upwards to the heavens, while the Queen watched him, wondering and afraid.
"There's something supernatural here," she whispered. "Hope has come back to the earth, and only an hour ago I could see nothing but blind destruction. You have faith?"
"Faith?" He bowed his head. "Yes, faith in God most pitiful—faith in my Lady Margaret of England—faith in this country, always very great in moments of danger. We are a masterful race. Even Ulster strikes bravely in his peril, strikes out like a man and fights hard. It has given me a new faith in Englishmen to find him such a strong enemy."
The Queen looked down at the long lines of the investing troops, and the midsummer sun shone on her wavy hair. The face of Margaret at rest was surely the saddest face in all the world. Her loathing and terror of the man was gone for ever.
"We must not think," said Brand, "that Ulster is beaten yet. I feel that he has other weapons, other resources; I cannot guess where the next blow will fall, but he strikes hard, with rare confidence in his strength."
"Yesterday," she said, and there was a little quiver about her lips, "I was Queen of England."
"And to-morrow," he answered, "you will be Empress of the World."
"And yet," she went on, "I have misgivings—everything changes so quickly that I am bewildered."
"Yesterday I was my own master, at least I thought so; but now——" He looked at the Queen's face and his eyes became very bright. "Ah, yes, it is all written up on the mess-room walls—
'I swear
To reverence the Queen as if she were
My conscience, and my conscience as the Queen.'