'He is now,' said Maltby, 'so far in, that if her Majesty will take advantage of his doings his forfeited living will countervail her Highness's charges; and Stanley remarked that the Queen might make instead of losing money by the rebellion. After a sharp fight, the Geraldines were worsted, and the Sheehy gallowglasses, which were Desmond's chief strength, lost very heavily. The two brothers escaped by the speed of their horses and bore off the consecrated banner, 'which I believe,' said Maltby, 'was anew scratched about the face, for they carried it through the woods and thorns in post haste.' Sanders, if he was present, escaped, but his fellow-Jesuit, Allen, was killed. In a highly rhetorical passage Hooker describes this enthusiast's proceedings, and likens his fall to that of the prophets of Baal. Maltby's commission died with Drury, and he stood on the defensive as soon as he heard of the event.[25] [Sidenote: Desmond and Ormonde.] Ormonde had been about three years in England, looking after his own interests, and binding himself more closely to the party of whom Sussex was the head. Disturbance in Munster of course demanded his presence, and he prepared to start soon after the landing of James Fitzmaurice. 'I pray you,' he wrote to Walsingham, 'do more in this my cause than you do for yourself, or else the world will go hard.' [Sidenote: Desmond is forced to say 'yes' or 'no.'] In thanking the Secretary for his good offices he said, 'I am ready to serve the Queen with my wonted good-will. I hope she will not forget my honour in place of service, though she be careless of my commodity.' A month later he was in Ireland, and after spending some days at Kilkenny, was present at the delivery of the sword to Pelham, whom he prepared to accompany to the south. He had the Queen's commission as general in Munster, and Kildare was left to guard the Ulster border. Little knowing the man he had to deal with, Desmond wrote to bid him weigh his cause as his own. 'Maltby,' he said, 'is a knave that hath no authority, who has been always an enemy to mine house.' To some person at Court, perhaps to Sidney, he recounted his services. Before the landing of Fitzmaurice he had executed three scholars, of which one was known to be a bishop. He had at once given notice of the landing, had blockaded Smerwick, and had helped to drive off the O'Flaherties, so that the traitors had like to starve. After Fitzmaurice's death he had broken down the fort and had been ready to victual Drury's army, had not the latter prepared to support his men by spoiling the Desmond tenants. Finally, he had delivered his son, and would have done more, but that many of his men had deserted while he was under arrest. All along he had feared the fate of Davells for his wife and son, knowing that his brother John hated them mortally. Maltby had none the less treated him as an enemy, and had in particular 'most maliciously defaced the old monument of my ancestors, fired both the