"Yes," returned Brian, with a sharp glance. In the giant's face there was only a simple good-humor, however, mingled with a childlike confidence in all things. "And I told you that you were not bound to my service." "No, but I am bound to your friendship," laughed Cathbarr rumblingly. "I can well understand how I might die in a cause not mine own, since I am fighting for you; but I cannot see how death is to come upon me through water and fire, brother!" "Nonsense," smiled Brian. "Death is far from your heels, brother, unless you are seeking it." "Not I, Brian. I neither seek nor avoid if the time comes. Only I wish that witch-woman had told me a little more--" "Keep your mind off it, Cathbarr," said Brian. "In Spain the Moriscoes say that the fate of man is written on his forehead, and God is just." "What the devil do I care about that?" bellowed Cathbarr. "I care not when I die, brother--but I want to strike a blow or two first, and how can that be done if death comes by water and fire?" "Well, take heart," laughed Brian, seeing the cause of the other's anxiety. "You are not like to die from that cause to-night, and I promise you blows enough and to spare." Cathbarr grunted and said no more. The last of the storm had fled away, and the two men rode through a glittering sunset and a clear, cold evening that promised well for the morrow. They traveled easily, and it was hard on midnight when a sentry stopped them half a mile from the hollow where the men were resting. Brian noted with approval that no fires had been lighted, and he and Cathbarr at once lay down to get an hour's sleep among the men. Two hours before daybreak the camp was astir, and Brian gathered his lieutenants to arrange the attack. Thinking that the Dark Master would be in the castle, he and Cathbarr took a hundred men for that attack, ordering the rest to get as close to the camp as might be, but not to attack until he had struck on the castle, and to cut off the O'Donnells from their ships. Then, assured that the plan was understood, he and Cathbarr loaded their pistols and set out with the hundred. Brian ordered his men to give quarter to all the Scots who would accept it, if they got inside the castle, and as they marched forward through the darkness he found to his delight that O'Donnell seemed to have no sentries out. "We have caught the black fox this time," muttered Cathbarr, after they had passed the camp-fires without discovery and the black mass of the castle loomed up ahead. "They will hardly have repaired those gates by now, brother." Brian nodded, and ordered his men to rest, barely a hundred paces from the castle. Since there was no need of attacking before dawn, in order to let Nuala come up the bay, he went forward with Cathbarr to look at the gates.