“Quick there, come up, and the place is ours!”
In a moment I stood beside him on the narrow edge of grass between the castle wall and the brink. We could hear the shouts and firing away at the gate, but not a soul was left here to bar our passage. Even the sentinel’s shot had passed unheeded. There was a low window leading to one of the offices of the castle, through which we clambered. Next moment we found ourselves standing within the walls of Dunluce.
“Froach Eilan!” shouted Ludar, drawing his dirk and waving on his men.
“Froach Eilan! Ludar!” shouted we, some of us discharging our pieces to add to the uproar, while one man exploded a swivel gun which stood on the seaward battlement.
The effect was magical. There was a sudden pause in the fighting at the bridge. Then rose a mighty answering cry from our McDonnells outside; while the garrison, caught thus between the two fires, looked this way and that, not knowing against which foe to turn.
Though we were but thirteen—nay, only twelve, for the English sentinel in his fall had swept yet another of our brave fellows from the ledge—it was hard for any one to say in the darkness how many we were or how many were yet behind; and the thirty defenders to the place, when once the panic had spread, were in no mood for waiting to see. Many of them laid down their arms at once. Some, still more terrified, attempted to descend the rocks, and so perished; others plunged boldly into the gulf, and there was an end of them.
Ludar meanwhile rushed to the bridge. Many a brave fellow to-night had met his fate on that narrow way. For so far, no assault from our men without had been able to shake the strong portcullis, or make an opening on the grim face of the fortress. Indeed, it seemed to me, a single child in the place might have defied an army, so unassailable did it appear. Our men had carried easily the outer courtyard across the moat, driving the slender garrison back, with only time to lower the gate and shut themselves within before the assault began. But, though they thundered with shot and rock, all was of no avail. The guns of the besieged swept the narrow bridge on either side, and scarce a man who ventured across it returned alive.
Now, all was suddenly changed. Ludar, with a wild shout, fell on the keepers of the gate within and drove them from their post. So sudden was his onslaught, that none had time to ask whence he came or how many followed him. Only a handful of soldiers withstood us. Among these was the gay English fellow whom we had let go an hour or so back; and who now, true to his word, rushed sword in hand at Ludar. I wondered to see what Ludar would do, for kill the fellow I knew he would not. He met the Englishman’s sword with a tremendous blow from his own sheathed weapon, which shivered it. Then with his fist he felled him to the ground, and, thus stunned, lifted him and laid him high on a parapet of the wall till he should come to.
Ere this was done, I and the rest of our men were at it, hand to hand with the few fighting men of the garrison that remained. It did not take long, for there were but half-a-dozen of them, and valiantly as they fought, we were too many and strong for them. One by one they fell or yielded, all except one stout man, the constable of the place, Peter Gary by name, who fought as long as he could stand, and then, before our eyes, flung first his sword, then himself, headlong from the cliff.
That ended the matter. Next moment, the English flag—alas! that I should say it—tumbled from the battlements; and with shouts of “Ludar! Froach Eilan!” the portcullis swung open, and Dunluce belonged once more to the McDonnells.