From the beginning I had marked Rory Mac Shane himself, and kept as close a watch upon him as in the press and hurry I could. Being, as I have said, a man of monstrous bulk, he was not so nimble in his motions as the leaner fry, nor did not essay to mount upon a ladder among the first. But as I turned from dealing with one hardy climber, I espied Mac Shane, a good way off, swing himself from the top of his ladder and throw one leg across the wall, plying a doughty sword against an ancient servitor that sought to stay him with his pike. At the very instant of my espying him, he cleft the pike shaft clean through with his blade, and dealt the old man so grievous a wound that he dropt to the ground, coughing out his life-blood. I had leapt towards him, and immediately afterwards came upon him a-tilt; and having the advantage of him, as being balanced insecurely on the wall, I doubt not I should have sped him but that the dying man lay heaped between us. Whereby my sweeping stroke failed somewhat of its full momentum, and Mac Shane turned my sword aside as it was in the very act of falling upon his head. But giving back before my onslaught, he was dislodged from his perch, and toppled with a lusty shout backward into the water. I had not time to look what had become of him, even had it been prudent to show my head above the parapet, being drawn to another part of the wall on a like errand. But after a minute or two, when I noted a faltering in the attack, I supposed that he had at the least got some damage, and hoped that it was grievous enough to render him unable for further fighting. There came no more men up the ladders; which seeing, we clambered upon the wall, and beheld the whole rout setting their craft towards the shore, some few, who had lost their standing, swimming by their side. We sped them on their way with a shower of whatsoever missiles we could first lay hands upon, and discovered that in the hurry of their flight they had left two of their ladders still hooked upon the wall. These we took as trophies. I was nowise ill-pleased to see Rory Mac Shane in his boat bearing marks of his discomfiture, his yellow hair falling lank like seaweed over his cheeks, and his obese frame seeming somewhat shrunken by reason that his sodden clothing hung more closely upon him. When I turned from observing him, the Lady Sheila met me, bearing a brimming cup of mead. "’Tis nectar, from a hand fair as Hebe’s," said I, quaffing deeply. The lustre left her face, and she looked stonily upon me, whereat in some surprise I said— "Why, mistress, have I said aught amiss?" "Nay, sir, what you say is naught to me, but—but I like not to be equalled with some English wench."