Nuala O'Malley Part 11

For that matter, they might have pa.s.sed unseen, since the hall was black as night save for a single cresset above the fireplace. Here sat the Dark Master, a little oaken table before him on which his breakfast had rested, and at his side crouched a long, lean wolfhound that nuzzled him unheeded. On the other side the table sat the old _seanachie_, who was blind, and who fingered the strings of his harp with odd tw.a.n.gings and mutterings, but without coherence, for O'Donnell had bade him keep silence.

"Go and see what the weather is," commanded the Dark Master. A man rose and ran outside, while other men came in with wood. Their master motioned them away, although the fire had sunk down into embers.

"A gale from the north, which is turning to the eastward, with snow, master."

"Remain outside, and bring me word what changes hap, and of all that you see or hear. Waste no time about it."

The Dark Master drew his cloak about his humped shoulders, and in the flickering dim light from overhead his face stood out in all its ghastly pallor, accentuated by the dead black hair and mustache. But his eyes were burning strangely, and when they saw it the men drew back, and more than one sought the outer chill in preference to staying.

Now O'Donnell Dubh stared into the embers and muttered below his breath, while, as if in response, a little flickering whirlwind of gray ash rose up and fell back again, so that it blew over the embers and deadened them. The muscles of the Dark Master's face contracted until his teeth flashed out in a silent snarl.

"I could have slain, and I did not," he whispered as if to himself. "But there is still time, and I will not be a fool again!"

The watching men s.h.i.+vered, for it seemed that the wind scurried down the wide chimney and again blew up the gray ash until the embers glowed through a white coating. But the wind wrought more than this, for it brought down from the gray clouds a whispering murmur that drifted through the hall, and in that murmur were mingled the sounds of beating hoofs and ringing steel and shrieking men.

"Are watchers posted over the hills and the paths and the Galway roads?"

spoke out the Dark Master as he gazed into the ashes.

"They are watching, master," answered a deep voice from the darkness.

Suddenly the wolfhound raised its head and stared into the ashes also, as if it saw something there that no man saw, for the bristles lifted on its neck, and it whined a little. O'Donnell dropped his hand to the thin muzzle, and the dog was quiet again. But after that the men stared at the fireplace with frightened eyes.

"There is still time, though one has escaped me," said the Dark Master, looking up suddenly at his sightless harper, who seemed to fall atrembling beneath the look. "The one who has escaped matters not, for his bane comes not at my hands. It is the other whom I shall slay--Brian Buidh of the hard eyes. Then the Bird Daughter. But it seems to me that one stands in my path of whom I do not know."

He brooded over the ashes as his head sank between his shoulders like a turtle's head. Then once again the wind swooped down on the castle, and whistled down the chimney, and filled the great hall with a thin noise like the death-rattle of men. The cresset wavered and fell to smoking overhead.

The Dark Master reached his hand across the table and caught the hand of the blind harper and spread it out on the oak. A little shudder shook the old man, and as if against his will he spread out his other hand likewise, his two hands lying between those of the Dark Master. Then there fell a terrible and awestruck silence on the hall.

The stillness was perfect, and continued for a long while. Slowly occurred a weird and strange thing, for, although no blast whimpered down the chimney, the ashes fell away from the embers, which began to glow more redly and set out the forms of the Dark Master and the blind harper in a ruddy light. Suddenly a man pointed to the feet of the Dark Master, and would have cried out but that another man struck him back.

For the ashes had drifted out from the fireplace, flake after flake, and were settling about the feet of the Dark Master beneath the table. They rose slowly into a little gray pile; then one of the men shrieked in horror at the sight, and the Dark Master threw out his head.

"Slay him," he said quietly and drew in his head once more, staring at the table.

There was a thudding blow and a groan, then the stillness of death. The ashes were quiet; the fire glowed ruddily. After a little there came a soft whirl of soot down the chimney, blackening the embers. The soot rose and fell, rose and fell, again and again; it was as if an eddying draft of wind were trying to raise it. Finally it was lifted, but it only whirled about and about over the embers, like a shape drawn together by some uncanny force.

The Dark Master raised his head as a clash of steel and the voice of the watcher came from the outer doorway.

"Master, the blast thickens with black fog!"

"Remain on watch," said O'Donnell, and his head fell.

But through the hall men's hands went out to one another in the darkness. For storm-driven fog was not a thing that many men had seen even on the west coast, and when it did happen men said that a warlock was at work. There was not far to seek for the warlock in this case, muttered the O'Donnells.

Now the Dark Master looked into the fireplace and that whirling figure of soot raised itself anew and began its unearthly dance over the embers. After no long time men saw that the pile of gray ashes under the table was lifting also, lifting and whirling as though the wind spun it; but there was no wind.

"There is a man to be blinded," said the Dark Master. "Let him be blinded with fog and snow, and the men with him, and let the wind come out of the east and drive him to this place."

Slowly, so slowly that no man could afterward say where there was beginning or end, the whirling figure of soot dissipated; and little by little the dancing stream of gray ashes drifted back into the fireplace; then it also dissipated, seeming to pa.s.s up the chimney, so that the embers glowed red and naked.

"_Seanachie_," said the Dark Master in a terribly piercing voice, "who is this standing in my way, standing between me and Brian of the hard eyes?"

The blind harper began to tremble, but again came the clash and the watcher's voice from the doorway.

"Master, there is snow mingled with the fog, and the wind is s.h.i.+fting to the eastward."

"Light the beacon and remain on watch," said the Dark Master. But at the watcher's word new terror seized on the men in the hall.

"_Seanachie_, who stands in my way? Speak!"

The beard of the blind harper quivered and rose as if the wind lifted it, but men felt no wind through the hall. Then the old man began to writhe in his chair, and twisted to take his hands from the table, but he could not, although only he alone held them there. Suddenly his mouth opened, and a voice that was not his voice made answer:

"Master, two people stand in your way."

"Describe them," said the Dark Master, and those near by saw that sweat was running down his face, despite the coldness of the hall. After a moment's silence the old harper spoke again; he had lost his eyes twenty years since, yet he spoke of seeing.

"Master, I see two people but dimly. One is a man, huge of stature and standing like Laeg the hero, the friend of the hero Cuculain, leaning upon an ax--"

"That is Cathbarr of the Ax," broke in the Dark Master. "His bane comes not at my hands. Who is the other?"

Again the old harper seemed to struggle, and his voice came more faintly:

"I cannot see, master. I think it is a woman--"

"That is the Bird Daughter," quoth the Dark Master.

"Nay, it is an old woman, but she blinds me--"

And the harper fell silent, writhing, until horror gripped those who looked on. O'Donnell leaned forward, his head sticking straight out and his eyes blazing.

"What do you see, _seanachie_? Speak!"

"I see men," and the old harper's voice rose in a great shriek. "A storm of men and of hoofs, and red snow on the ground, and fire over the snow, and the man of the ax laughing terribly. And I see other men riding hard; men with long hair and the flag of England in their midst--and Cuculain smites them--Cuculain of the yellow hair--the Royal Hound of Ulster smites them and scatters them--"

"_Liar!_"

With the hoa.r.s.e word the Dark Master leaned forward and smote the blind harper with his fist, so that the old man slid from his chair senseless.

Upon that the Dark Master swung around with his teeth bared and his head drawn in like the head of a snake about to strike.

"Lights!" he roared. "Lights! Bear the _seanachie_ to his chamber, and send men to ring in the harbor and build beacons on the headlands.

Hasten, you dogs, or I'll strip the flesh from you with whips!"

Under his voice and his flaming eyes the hall sprang into life, while the men carried out the blind harper and one of their own number who had been stricken with madness at what he had seen. Then the hall blazed up with cressets, logs were flung on the fire, and parties of men set out to build beacons and guard the bay as the Dark Master had given command.

And when word was spread abroad among the others of what had chanced in the hall that morning, Red Murrough, the Dark Master's lieutenant, swore a great oath.

"If that Cuculain of whom the _seanachie_ spoke be not the man Brian Buidh, then may I go down to h.e.l.l alive!"

And the men, who feared Red Murrough's heavy hand and hated him, muttered that he would be like to travel that same road whether living or dead, in which there was some truth.