The six men guarding the galley, two of them being O'Malleys, and three men who had watched on the tower, were all that remained alive in Bertragh besides Turlough and Brian. The men had drunk deep of that poisoned wine; when Con Teague and his men tried to get away after a few had died, they were slain. But so swift was the poison that only one of the O'Malleys had lived to reach Brian. The fires still burned brightly, and before some of them meat was burning. Sitting in blank despair on a horse-block, Brian saw the dead bodies of a few less than a hundred men lying there. Turlough Wolf and his six gave over trying to put life into any of them, and now the old man came and put his hand on Brian's shoulder. "Where has Cathbarr of the Ax gone, master?" Brian told him dully, and Turlough nodded approval, having at length learned all the story of how that galley had been taken. "Master, there was deep cunning in this. O'Donnell sent that galley to you, or, rather, to the Bird Daughter, and he had spies watching. Had the Gorumna men drunk of that brew, he would have fallen on there; but here came the galley, and now he comes over the hills. And we are few to meet him." "We will be more when the men come in from the hill-roads before him," and Brian rose up with heavy heart, forcing himself to the task. "Send out a man to haste them in and to warn what men there be at the farms. Also let him send a wagon or two, that these dead may be carried out before the Dark Master falls on us. Send two men to the tower to build a beacon, for Cathbarr will not be back before to-morrow night." Brian went to the stables where the three carrier-pigeons were caged, and fetched the cage to the great hall. Here he wrote what had happened, with his plan, in small space, fastened it under the wing of a bird, and let loose the pigeon from the courtyard. Stunned though he was by the sudden and terrible blow, Brian had seized on the only course left him. If he could make shift to hold the castle at all, he would do so; if not, he must make terms and get off to Gorumna that he might take vengeance for this dastardly stroke that had been dealt him. Nuala had nigh three hundred men in her castle, and he felt that all was not yet lost, even should he have to yield Bertragh. The Dark Master would hardly have a large force with him, and he would know nothing of those hundred men Brian had loaned Nuala; so Brian reckoned that if he could get away, O'Donnell would think him a broken man who could do no further against him. "Well, that's looking too far ahead," thought Brian very wearily. "Perchance I am broken, indeed, since I have lost two hundred and a half of men without gain."