An hour later rode in a score of men with wagons, and fell to work getting the dead out of the castle, though for burying there was no time. This score, and two more who came in later, were all the men left to Brian; they reported that the Dark Master would be on them by daybreak, with two hundred Scots troopers and one horse cannon. "His friends proved niggardly, then," laughed Brian drearily. "We have but to hold the place till to-morrow night, friends, and the O'Malleys will relieve us. Now, one man to watch and the rest of us to rest, for there is work ahead." Brian, indeed, got some sleep that night, but it was shot through with visions of those poisoned men of his, and their twisted faces gibbered at him, and he thought they shrieked and howled for revenge. When he was roused at dawn, he found the meaning of those noises, since a great storm was sweeping down out of the west, and the farther wore the day, the worse grew the storm. "Is Heaven itself fighting against us?" he thought bitterly, watching the sea from the battlements. "Against this blast Nuala cannot reach me, if she will." He got little time to brood, however. Before he had broken his fast the Dark Master's horsemen came in sight--two hundred braw Scots, with wagons and a cannon following after. It was no large force, but Brian found afterward that it was the best the Dark Master could get, since the Galway Irish cared nothing whether the Scots lived or died. They halted and spread out, half a mile from the castle, and Brian saw that the men were being quartered on the farms round about. Bitterly he wished that he had his lost men, for with them he could have sent those Scots flying home again; but now he was helpless. With the gates shut and the bastards loaded with bullets to sweep the approach, Brian sent his twenty men to the battlements and watched, with Turlough beside him. It was plain that no offensive operations were under way as yet, and an hour passed quietly; then ten men rode down to the castle under a white flag, and foremost of them was the Dark Master. "Now, if I were in your place, master," said Turlough, slanting his eyes up at Brian in his shrewd way, "I would loose those bastards and sweep the road bare." "You are not in my place," said Brian, and the Wolf held his peace. The Dark Master looked at those bodies piled between the castle and the shore, and it was easy to see that he was laughing and pointing them out to the Scots. At that Brian heard his men mutter no little, and he himself clenched his nails into his palms and cursed bitterly; but he forbade his men to fire and they durst not disobey him. The party rode up under the walls, and the Dark Master grinned at Brian standing above. "You have great drunkards, Yellow Brian," he called mockingly. "Have all your men drunk themselves to death?"