I could understand Ludar's excitement as he stood there and gazed at this old fortress of his fathers, with the standard of the foreign invader floating above its top-mast tower. He said nothing; yet, I could tell by the heaving of his chest, what thoughts were passing in his mind, what hatred of the usurper, what impatience to stand once more on those battlements and fling open the gate to his noble father. The light faded from the sky as we stood there, until turrets and rock and flag melted away into a common blackness, and left us only the thunder of the waves in the hollows below, to tell us where Dunluce stood. Then Ludar led me quickly back to his men. We found no little stir afoot. For the McDonnells' scouts had come in with a man of the English garrison whom they had found foraging for meat; while, almost at the same moment, a herdsman from Ramore (which was a district westward of us), had come to tell us news of the enemy. Ludar heard the soldier first. "We be but thirty men in yonder hold," said he. "For so soon as the alarm spread that Castleroe and the town of Coleraine were to be attacked, fifty of our guard and three cannon were drawn away thither this very morning. I know it, for I stood sentinel when Captain Merriman--" "He! is he there?" demanded Ludar. "No, in truth," said the soldier, "'twas he rode over from Castleroe and took away half our men, leaving us, in place, a parcel of puling women to mind, whom he might have kept with better grace at Castleroe." "And who are these women?" asked Ludar with heightened colour. "They say the fair one is a sweetheart of his own--a straight enough lass, but not of the sort I would willingly undertake myself. Some say she is kinswoman to the O'Neill or his lady, whom the captain was sent to guard hither; but, to my thinking, he was on his own business more than Turlogh's, and when this fighting be over we shall see him come back for his ladybird. I pray you, gentles," continued this man, who was of a careless sort, and distressed by no mischance, "permit me to return to the castle with this brace of birds. They are, in fact, for this same young lady, to whom our coarse fare hath little to recommend it, and who, being sickly, needs a dainty. I stand a fair chance to be shot for a truant when I get back; yet I may as well be that as hanged here by your worships. The only difference will be that the maiden will get her supper in one case, and miss it in the other." "Go back," said Ludar. "If you be a liar, you are a rare one; if you be not, you are an honest fellow, and can be trusted to report nothing of what you have seen here." "That will I not," said the man. "But when I see thee on the drawbridge, I shall let fly at thee, by your leave, as at an enemy of my Queen."