“ ’Yes,’ said he, and glared at her.
“ ’Ye have chosen,’ said he at length.
“ ’Yes,’ said my mother; and with her eyes fixed on me, she fell beneath the stabs of his dirk; but even as she fell I sprang from the arms of the men who held me, and leapt like a wild cat of Mull straight for his throat, but he caught and crushed me in his grip.
“ ’Remember your oath!’ cried my mother to him, and died.
“Seeing that she was dead he laughed a terrible laugh, so empty of mirth and so full of menace was it.
“ ’Ay, I shall keep my oath,’ said he. ’No drop of his blood shall be shed. But die he too must, and so shall this accursed brood be destroyed from off the face of the earth. Bind him so that he cannot escape,’ he ordered.
“And they bound me with strips of tanned deerskin, even as you saw when I was found in the drifting boat. Then he spoke to two of his men, who carried me down to the beach, and threw me into the bottom of the boat. Getting themselves into another, they towed that which I was in some two or three miles from shore, until, indeed, I could hear the struggling of the waters made by the tide, called the ’Race of Strangers.’ And then they left me to the mercy of the sea.”
“How long ago was that?” asked the maid.
“Two days ago,” I replied. “I drifted, drifted with wave and tide, expecting every moment to be swallowed up; and part of the time, perhaps, I slept, for I cannot remember everything that took place. And then you found the boat, and me in it,” I added simply.
“ ’Tis a strange story,” said the maid’s father; and he turned away to see to the working of the ship, which was straining and plunging heavily in the swell, and left us two children to ourselves.
I looked at the maid, who had been so tender and kind.
“Who are ye?” I asked timidly.
“I am Grace O’Malley,” said she proudly, “the daughter of Owen O’Malley of Erris and of Burrishoole in Connaught—he who has just gone from us.”
And then she told me of herself, of her father, and of her people, and that the ship was now returning to Clare Island, which belonged to them.
“See,” said she, pointing through a window in the stern, “there are the headlands of Achill, only a few miles from Clare Island,” and I looked out and saw those black ramparts of rock upon which the ocean hurls itself in vain.
“Now Clare Island comes into view,” she continued, and peeping out again I beheld the shoulder of the hill of Knockmore looming up, while beyond it lay a mass of islands, and still further away the mountains on the coast.
“All this,” said the maid with a sweep of her hand, “and the mainland beyond, is the Land of the O’Malleys.”
“And is the water also yours?” I asked, attempting a boy’s shy pleasantry, for so had she won me from my grief.
“Yes,” replied the maid, “the water even more than the land is ours.” And she looked—what she was, though but a little maid—the daughter of a king of the sea.
CHAPTER II.
THE PRINCESS BEGINS HER REIGN.
Ten years, swift as the flight of wild swans winging their way southward when the first wind of winter sweeps behind them, passed over our heads in the Land of the O’Malleys; nor did they pass without bringing many changes with them. And yet it so happened that no very startling or determining event occurred till at the very close of this period.
The little maid who had saved me from the sea had grown into a woman, tall of stature and queenly in carriage—in a word, a commanding figure, one to be obeyed, yet also one who had the gifts which made obedience to her pleasant and easy. Already she had proved herself in attack by sea or assault on shore a born leader, brave as the bravest man amongst us all, but with a mind of larger grasp than any of ours.
Yet were there times when she was as one who sees visions and feeds on fantasies; and I was ever afraid for her and us when I saw in her face the strange light shining through the veil of the flesh which spoke of the dreaming soul.
But more than anything else, she possessed in perfection a woman’s power to fascinate and charm. Her smiles were bright and warm as the sunshine, and she seemed to know what she should say or do in order that each man should bring to her service of his best. For this one, the ready jest, the gay retort, the laughing suggestion, the hinted rebuke; for that, plain praise or plain blame, as she thought suited the case. She understood how to manage men. And yet was she at times a very woman—petulant, unreasonable, and capricious. Under the spell of passion she would storm and rage and scold, and then she was ill to cross and hard to hold. For the rest, she was the most fearless creature ever quickened with the breath of life.
I have heard it asserted that Grace O’Malley was wholly wanting in gentleness and tenderness, but I know better. These were no lush days of soft dalliance in the Ireland in which we lived; the days were wine-red with the blood of men, and dark with the blinding tears of widows and orphans. The sword, and the sword alone, kept what the sword had taken. And yet was she of a heart all too tender, not infrequently, for such a time.
Chiefly did she show this gracious side of her nature in her fond care of her foster-sister, Eva O’Malley, who had been entrusted when a child, a year or two after my arrival at Clare Island, to Owen O’Malley by a sub-chief who governed one of the islands lying off the coast of Iar-Connaught.
Never was there a greater contrast between two human beings of the same kin than there was between those two women: Grace—dark, tall, splendid, regal; Eva—fair, tiny, delicate, timid, and utterly unlike any of her own people.
Clay are we all, fashioned by the Potter on His wheel according to His mind, and as we are made so we are. Thus it was that, while I admired, I reverenced and I obeyed Grace O’Malley—God, He knows that I would have died to serve her, and, indeed, never counted the cost if so be I pleased her—I loved, loved, loved this little bit of a woman, who was as frail as a flower, and more lovely in my sight than any.
Men were in two minds—ay, the same man was often in two minds—as to whether Grace O’Malley was beautiful or not; but they were never in any doubt, for there could be none, of Eva’s loveliness. Howbeit, I had said nothing of what was in my thoughts to Eva; that was a secret which I deemed was mine alone.
For myself, I had grown to man’s estate—a big fellow and a strong, who might be depended upon to look after ship or galley with some regard for seamanship, and not to turn my back in the day of battle, unless nothing else were possible.
Owen O’Malley had received me, the outcast of Isla, into his own family, treating me as a son rather than as a stranger, and, although I never ceased to be a Scot, I was proud to be considered one of the Irish also. Under his tuition I learned all the ways and customs of his people—a wild people and a fierce, like my own. So far as Connaught was concerned, these ten years were for the most part a time of peace among its tribes, and thus it was that I came to know like a native its forests and mountains, its rivers and lakes, and the chief men of the O’Flahertys and Burkes and O’Connors, whose territories marched with those of the O’Malleys on the mainland.
But I learned much more, for Owen O’Malley taught me how to steer and handle a ship so that it became a thing of my own—nay, rather a part of myself. He also gave me my knowledge of the coasts of Ireland, and there was scarcely a bay or an inlet or a haven, especially on the western shores, into which I had not sailed. And as he proved me and found me faithful, he himself showed me the Caves of Silence under the Hill of Sorrow—strange, gloomy caverns, partly the work of nature and partly of man, once the homes of a race