Kitabı oku: «Grace O'Malley. Machray Robert», sayfa 11

CHAPTER XV.
THE SIEGE IS RAISED

Perchance it was that my spirits had been affected by the sinking of this fine ship, even though I myself had been the cause of the same – the loss of a vessel, I cannot help saying, being a thing more to be deplored than the deaths of many human beings; or it may have been that my mind, now the necessity for prompt and decisive action had passed, became, as it were, relaxed and unstrung; but, as The Cross of Blood threaded her way through the maze of the islands towards Carrickahooley, I could think of nothing save of how I stood in the debt of de Vilela.

In vain I strove to comfort myself by recalling the successes and the victories that had been achieved by and in the name of my mistress, Grace O’Malley, and by telling myself that she had won for herself and us an imperishable renown. Not thus could I silence the voice of my heart, which cried out that all these were but as barrenness and as nothingness so long as Eva O’Malley was not for me. For there was the pain, there the grief and the sadness.

Against myself did I consider myself called upon to fight. I was as deep in the Spaniard’s debt as a man could be, and yet I could not bring myself to resign all hopes of my dear, even to de Vilela, without the bitterest struggles.

Which of us twain possessed the maid’s love? Was it de Vilela, or was it I? Did she love either of us? – that was the all-important question. For myself, my love had grown with my growth, was, I felt, growing still, and would keep on growing as long as I lived.

De Vilela, however, was a stranger, blown in upon us, as it were, by the chance winds of heaven. My claim was perhaps the better claim, but a maid’s heart acknowledges no real claim but the claim of her love, and if her heart’s love was de Vilela’s, then was my claim void and empty indeed.

Therefore, let the maid decide. My thoughts had worked round to this point, when I remembered once more what Grace O’Malley had said about the Don and Eva. What if Eva loved me after all? Again, Let the maid decide, said I.

Yet, somehow, this did not altogether satisfy me. Then it occurred to me that I might pay a part of my debt to de Vilela in the following way.

He could scarcely tarry much longer with us at the castle, as he must soon depart to endeavour to carry out the objects of the secret mission with which he had been entrusted by his master, the King of Spain. The way for him would be clear and open, for I had no doubt that Sir Nicholas would not now be able to continue the siege, and that we would be left in peace and quiet till the spring of the next year, when the war would most probably be renewed against us with larger forces, and with greater determination, both by land and sea. But all that lay in the womb of the future.

As for Don Francisco, I thought it likely that he would try to make the most of the time that remained to him before setting out for the Earl of Desmond’s, that he would ask for Eva’s hand from Grace O’Malley, and that thus the matter would be determined. What I set myself to do was, so long as he remained at Carrickahooley, to keep out of Eva’s presence, and in a manner, as it were, to leave the field to de Vilela.

If the maid loved him, I was out of court; if she loved me, she would tell her foster-sister that she could not accept the offer of the Spaniard; if she cared for neither of us, or wavered between us, then I was resolved to forego whatever advantage I possessed over de Vilela until he had received his answer and had taken his departure.

If she accepted his suit, they would be married, I supposed drearily, before he left, and then they would set out together, and that which was unutterably and unalterably rare, dear, and precious would be gone out of my life. If Eva willed otherwise – it all rested with her. But, in any case, de Vilela was to have his chance free from any mean or unmannerly interference from me.

Little did I guess how severely the strength of my resolution was to be tested, but I thank God, now that all is done, that it bore the strain.

It was not much past the middle of the day when The Cross of Blood drew up at Carrickahooley, but long before we had reached the castle we could hear the sounds of battle rolling towards us from off the land, and could see the tiny clouds of smoke made by the arquebuses as they were fired off.

Disembarking with all haste, and bringing with me most of my crew, I was instantly admitted within the water-gate. There I was told that Grace O’Malley, with de Vilela, her gentlemen, and most of her people, was making a sally on the English.

Rushing to the parapets, I could see that the centre of the fighting was between the castle and the Abbey of Burrishoole, and that it was of a very terrible and bloody character, the Englishmen displaying that dogged courage for which they are famed, while the Irish, inspired by their mistress, performed wonderful feats of valour, and were thrusting their enemies slowly back to their principal position, where, however, their further retreat was speedily checked on their being strengthened by fresh supports.

Now the purpose of Grace O’Malley in this outfall could not have extended beyond inflicting upon the Governor considerable loss, as she knew his force was far superior to her own in numbers; and I was therefore not surprised to witness the Irish at this juncture beginning to retreat, the English attacking them fiercely in front and on their flanks.

It was at this instant that Sir Nicholas, who was himself directing the operations of his troops, conceived that he might cut our people off altogether from the castle by sending forward some soldiers he had held as a reserve, and placing them between the Irish and the castle.

I could see all this quite plainly from the walls, and, fearing lest he might succeed, I summoned my men, and, issuing from the castle gate, marched to meet this new body of the enemy, in order, if so be I was in time, to defeat the attempt, which, if well carried out, could not but be attended with the greatest possible danger, and perhaps disaster, to my mistress.

Being delayed by the roughness of the ground from coming up as quickly as I could have wished, and as they had the start of us, the English had effected their purpose, and the Irish were surrounded.

But, as we ran forward, some of the enemy faced about to meet us, and so, being taken, as it were, between two fires – Grace O’Malley with her men on the one side, and I with mine on the other – they were speedily thrown into the utmost confusion, of which we did not fail to make a good account. Still the contest was by no means entirely in our favour, for the resistance of the Governor’s soldiers was protracted and bitter, each man contending for his own hand with all the strength and cunning he was possessed of.

At length the main body of the Irish under Grace O’Malley fought their way through the enemy and joined themselves to us, my mistress being both surprised and rejoiced to find that we had returned, and had been able to come to her assistance. Beside her, their swords gleaming redly in their hands, were Brian Ogue, and Art, and Henry O’Malley, and the other gentlemen of her household; and leaning upon the arm of one of them, and supported and protected by two men, I beheld de Vilela, desperately wounded!

His face was pale, drawn, deep-lined, and spotted with blood, the eyes being closed, and the lips shut tight; the figure within his armour was bent with weariness, and weakness, and wounds; the fingers of the right hand still grasped the handle of his sword, but they shook and trembled as with palsy. Truly, he looked like one whose doom is sealed, and my heart went out to him with a great compassion.

Calling to four of my men, who were armed with spears, I caused them to make a rough litter with their weapons, and upon this rude but soldierly contrivance we laid the Spaniard, and so bore him to the castle, while behind us the fight still continued, but with less and less fierceness.

Not a sound came from Don Francisco, although the jolting must have given him the most intense pain, save once when my mistress took his hand and spoke to him, when he made reply in Spanish that “all was well” with him. And I thought the words were not unworthy, but well became the brave soul of the man.

“I will go in with him,” said Grace O’Malley to me, when we had arrived at the gate; “Ruari, do you gather our people together, and lead them within the walls.”

And I did her bidding, so that in a short time I had them collected in a compact body, and under cover of the ordnance, belching forth from the battlements, retreated within the gate, bearing most of our wounded with us. There I found Grace O’Malley waiting to hear the news I had brought.

“De Vilela?” I first inquired.

“He is still alive,” said she, “but I fear the hour of his passing is already upon him.”

“’Fore God,” cried I, with a sob in my throat, “I trust not.”

“Eva tends him,” said she – and in a flash I remembered everything.

“He is in good keeping,” said I.

“He is in the hands of God,” said she, in a voice and manner so touched with unwonted solemnity and deep feeling that I gazed at her in amazement.

Then a wild thought came to me: could she, did she, our princess, care for this man? But no sooner had the thought arisen in my mind than I dismissed it. “What have I to do with love?” she had said on a former occasion, and she had meant it.

Her next words, however, appeared to give point to my suspicion, but when I considered them more carefully, I saw I was wrong. For what she had said was, “There are few men like Don Francisco,” but the tone in which they were spoken was not that, it seemed to me, of a woman who loves; rather was it that of one who deplores the expected loss of a dear friend. Yet sometimes, in the silent watches of the night, have I wondered – and I wonder still.

“We have heard the roar of great guns from time to time this morning,” said she, changing the subject abruptly, “and, knowing that you had no ordnance to speak of, I feared for your safety. Tell me what has happened.”

Whereupon I related all that had taken place, and how that the English war-vessel had been dashed to pieces on the rocks at the hither end of the Gate of Fears.

Much I spoke in praise of Calvagh and the rowers of The Cross of Blood, and said that it was fitting they should be given a rich reward, for, notwithstanding the terrors inspired in all seafaring men by the place, and in spite of the ordnance of the Englishman making the passage like the mouth of hell, they had stood fast every one.

“And what of yourself?” cried she, between smiles and tears. “What of yourself, my Ruari?”

And she took from the mantle upon her shoulder a brooch of gold, with mystic signs, of which I knew not the meaning, engraved upon it, and in the midst of it a sapphire, with the deep blue in it of the unfathomed abysses of the sea. This she handed to me, one of her arms about my neck, and I was uplifted with pride, albeit there was some shame mixed with it too. But the gift I compelled myself to decline.

“I may not take it,” cried I; for the brooch was one of the tokens of her chieftainship to her people, and firmly resolved was I that there, in the land of her fathers, no man should ever have the slightest cause to think there was any other chief save her, and her alone. But if I took the brooch – ”No,” said I; “I may not take it.”

Then, seeing I was determined, she sighed, said no more, but kissed me on the cheek – a thing she had not done since I was a little child, playing with her, a child too, on the sands of the shores of Clew Bay.

Thereafter together we went into the chamber of the main tower where de Vilela had been laid. There by his couch was my dear, a presence soft, tender, and full of sweet womanly pity and of the delicate ministries that spring from it. There upon the couch lay the wreck of a man; so calm, so pale, so worn, that he looked like one dead.

“He still breathes,” said Eva, in a whisper.

Perhaps it was the result of the conversation I had just had with Grace O’Malley, or it may have been the subtle influence of that scene, with that quiet figure stretched upon the couch for its centre, but there was no bitterness in my breast when I saw Eva there. Who, indeed, could have felt any other emotion at such a time but that of sorrow?

For two days de Vilela hung between life and death. More than once did it seem that his spirit had left his shattered body, and yet it did not. On the third day the Spaniard rallied; Teige O’Toole, our physician, declared that there was hope; and from that instant Don Francisco began slowly to recover.

All within the castle rejoiced, and I as much as any; but when I saw how constantly Eva was with him, and how the sick man was restless and uneasy in her brief absences from his side, and how she watched over and soothed and tended him, her mere presence being a better restorative than all the healing simples of Teige O’Toole, is it to be marvelled at that I found the determination I had come to of leaving the field open to him, and of withdrawing from it, become more and more difficult to maintain?

Neither did Sir Nicholas nor his army help greatly to distract my thoughts. For there, outside our walls, at a safe distance from our cannon, did the Governor lie day after day for a long week, waiting, doubtless, for the warship that never came.

We did not, on our side, stir out of the castle, for whatever advantage, if any, had been reaped from the sally had been purchased at too heavy a price. Grace O’Malley rightly had come to the conclusion that we had everything to gain by sitting still, and that Sir Nicholas, seeing that he could do nothing against us without ordnance, would soon grow tired of this futile business, and so go back to Galway.

Whether he had heard in some way that the vessel he had expected had been wrecked, or feared that events had happened which had prevented it from being sent at all by Winter, the English Admiral, I know not; but one night he stole away from Burrishoole, and when the morning was come, lo, there was not an Englishman anywhere to be seen.

It was an unfortunate coincidence in one respect that the very morning which saw the siege raised should also have witnessed the arrival of Richard Burke, attended by fifty horsemen and more than a hundred gallowglasses, for if we could have counted on such a number of fighting men in addition to our own, we should certainly have again attacked the Governor’s forces and not stood so much upon our defence.

But in another respect it fell out luckily enough for us, and this was that we might now pursue him with some hope of overtaking him, and of stopping him from plundering the country, owing to the assistance of the Burkes. There was nothing more certain than that Sir Nicholas, as he retreated towards Galway, would drive before him all the cattle and horses of the land, and thus he would, after all, unless prevented, gather an enormous spoil, depriving us, and those who looked to us for protection, of a great part of our wealth. And already he had done us a vast amount of injury and harm.

So soon, therefore, as Richard Burke, who was sorely disappointed that he had not reached Carrickahooley sooner, had come into the castle, and had been received and entertained by my mistress, from whom he heard a narrative of what had recently occurred, Grace O’Malley proposed that he and I should set out with a large force to endeavour to recover from the English the plunder they were taking away. And to this the MacWilliam gladly assented, observing that no proposal could please him better than to take part in getting back her property for her.

“And,” continued he, “as it is impossible for Sir Nicholas to move quickly, hampered as he must be with many herds of cattle and bands of horses, we can catch him up before he has gone very far.”

“You will also have many opportunities,” said Grace O’Malley, “of which I am sure you will not fail to make the most, of coming upon detached bodies of his troops as they struggle through the thick forests and the passes of the mountains, and of cutting them off. You can harass and harry him nearly every step of his retreat, so that when he at length reaches Galway it will be with greatly lessened forces, and with so slender a spoil that he will not care to boast of it.”

“You would not offer him battle?” asked I.

“You must be the judges of that for yourselves,” said she; “but Sir Nicholas is a fine soldier, and as wary as a fox in warfare, and I think you can do him far more deadly hurt by acting as I have said. You will risk but little, and may gain much.”

Then Grace O’Malley and Richard Burke began talking of what prospect there was of a general rising of the Irish against the Queen, and of the help that might be looked for from Philip of Spain, and of other matters, some of which, I suspect, lay even nearer the heart of one of them, at least.

But of this I cannot tell, for when they commenced to speak of affairs of State I went out from the hall in which they were, to get my men in readiness to pursue the English. And welcome to me was it that our expedition, and its hard service, held out the promise of drawing off my thoughts from Eva and de Vilela.

I was eager that we should make a start at once, but the Burkes were weary and footsore with their long, toilsome journey. For that day, then, they rested, Grace O’Malley giving them and all in the castle a great feast, filling them with food and wine, while her harpers stirred their souls with songs of the mighty deeds done by the mighty dead.

Songs, too, they made to music now sweet, now fierce, in honour of my mistress, acclaiming her as not the least in the long list of a line of heroes! Whereupon the castle rang with tumultuous shoutings of applause. Then the minstrels cunningly turned their themes to the Burkes of Mayo, English once, but Irish now – ay, even more Irish than the Irish themselves.

And so the day passed.

In the morning we left Carrickahooley with a hundred horsemen and a hundred running footmen, besides horse-boys and others. Behind us came many of the fugitives who had come to us fleeing from before the English, and who now were returning to their homes, or to what poor, charred remains of them might be found.

As we moved swiftly on, we saw many evidences of the havoc wrought by the ruthless invaders; here the hut of the wood-kerne, who lives by hunting, there the hovel of the churl, who tills the fields, burnt to the ground; while over all brooded the silence of desolation and death.

It was not till evening was upon us that we knew by many indications that we were close on the enemy. Then we halted and waited till the night had fully come, sending out in the meantime our spies to see what the English were doing.

Softly, like thieves, they returned with word they had discovered that Sir Nicholas and the greater portion of his army were not to be seen, having apparently gone on, but that a small company of English soldiers and most of the O’Flahertys of Aughnanure were camped some two or three miles away, having in their charge great droves of cattle. Having no thought that they were being followed up by us, they had made no preparations for defence, and therefore might easily fall into our hands.

Leaving our chargers to the care of the horse-boys, we divided ourselves into two bands, Richard Burke being in command of the one, and I of the other; and, going very circumspectly so as to give no hint of our approach, we burst upon the enemy, many of whom were slain at the first onset, but a far larger number escaped us in the darkness. We spent the rest of the night in their camp, having secured the cattle; and when daylight made manifest everything to us I saw that we had accomplished all this victory without the loss of a single man, there being but few wounds even among us.

Then we rode on that day and two more, now and again falling in with scattered companies of the enemy, whom we slew or dispersed, and recovering from them whatever plunder they were taking out of the land. But Sir Nicholas we did not meet with, as he had gone on day and night without halting, having heard, as I afterwards learned, that the Burkes of Clanrickarde, under Ulick, the son of the earl, had brought together several hundred men, including many Scots, and that they were even now threatening Galway itself.

As we were not purposed to go on to Galway after the Governor, we returned to Carrickahooley at our leisure.

And now, as we journeyed northwards, Richard Burke’s talk to me was all of his love for my mistress. How brave, how strong, how great she was! And of how wonderful a spirit and so wise withal! Did I think that she had a regard for anyone in especial? Or, that he might have a chance with her?

And thus he talked and talked, until I, who had my own love trouble, and found it hard enough, was first constrained to listen, then to utter words of sympathy, and, last of all, was unfeignedly glad when our arrival at the castle put a stop to the outflowing of his eloquence.