It was the cold which had awakened him from his unconsciousness, he guessed. By dint of shifting his position somewhat, he managed to get his back against a wall, and so got his hands to his head. In such fashion he made out that his hair was matted and frozen with blood, and his neck also, where a bullet had plowed through the muscles on the right side. His head-wound was no more than a jagged tear which had split half his scalp, but had not hurt the bone, as he found after some feeling. Then he dropped his hands again, for the chains that bound him to the wall were very heavy. It must be night, for light would come where snow had come, and there was no light. Now, having found that he was not like to die, at least from his wounds, he set about stretching to lie down again, and found some straw on the floor. He drew it up with his feet and gathered it about him; it was dank and smelled vilely, but at the least it gave his frozen body some warmth, so that he fell asleep after a time. When he wakened again, it was to find men around him and a narrow strip of cold sunlight coming through a high slit in the wall of his prison. From the sound of breakers that seemed to roar from below him, he conjectured that he was in a sea-facing tower of the castle, in which he was right. The men, who were led by Red Murrough, gave him bread and meat and wine, but they offered no word and would answer no questions. So he ate and drank, and felt life and strength creeping back into his bones. He concluded that it must be the day after his arrival. Now Red Murrough beckoned to the hoary old seneschal, whose red-rimmed eyes glittered evilly. The old man shook his keys and stooped over Brian, unlocking the hasp which bound him to the wall-ring. The oppressive silence of these men struck a chill through Brian, but he came to his feet readily enough as Murrough jerked his shoulder. He followed out into a corridor, and the men closed around him, going with him down-stairs and along other passageways. Brian wondered as to his fate and what manner of death he was going to die; yet it seemed to him that death was an impossible and far-off thing where he was concerned. He expected no less than death from the Dark Master, but at the same time it was very hard to believe that he was going to that fate. He was by no means afraid to die, but he felt that he would like to see the Bird Daughter once more. Also, he had always thought of fate as coming to him suddenly and swiftly in battle or foray; and to be deliberately done to death in cold blood by hanging or otherwise was not as he would have wished. "At least," he thought without any great comfort, "Cathbarr and Turlough will avenge me on the Dark Master--though I had liefer be living when that was done!" In one of the larger and lower corridors they came on two men bearing a body, sewed for burial. Murrough stopped his party and growled out something.