Grace O'Malley. Machray Robert. Machray Robert
could have shouted for joy, for I was weary of forced inaction while the fine weather was passing us by, and all the harvest of the sea was waiting to be gathered in by ready hands like ours.
“Glad am I, in truth, to hear it,” said I heartily. I was not fond of Galway, but I was anxious to be again on the waters, and who could tell what might not happen then? There had been no fighting for a long time, and the men were lusting for it, hungering and thirsting for it – only biding, like dogs in the leash, for the word. And I was of the same mind.
“But listen, Ruari,” said Eva. “Is it well that she should go to Galway? To my thinking there is a very good reason against it.”
“Indeed,” said I, surprised. “What is it?” As I have declared already, I had no special liking for Galway – and the sea is wide.
“By going to Galway,” said she, “does she not run the chance of putting herself in the power of the English? Is it not to thrust one’s head into the very jaws of the lion? The English never loved her father, Owen O’Malley, and the merchants of Galway were never done accusing him of supplying himself from their ships at his good pleasure without asking permission from them.”
I smiled, for what she said about the dead chief was true.
“’Tis not well to smile,” said Eva, frowning.
“There is wisdom in your words,” I replied, becoming instantly grave at her rebuke. “But why not say to Grace herself what you have said to me?”
“Oh, you mountain of a man,” she said, “to be so big and to be so – ” and she stopped, but I could fill up the gap for myself.
“What have I said?” demanded I, still more abashed.
“Think you not that I have already spoken to her?” she asked. “But she will not hearken.”
“Why should she,” said I, “care for my opinion?”
“You know she does care,” she said testily. “But there is more to tell you.”
“More?” I asked.
Her manner now showed the utmost dejection. Her eyes were downcast, and as I regarded her I asked myself why it was that one so fair should have dark, almost black eyelashes – eyelashes which gave a strange shadow to her eyes. Her next words brought me quickly out of this musing.
“The ’Wise Man’” said she, “is set against her going. His words are of darkness and blood, and he declares that he sees danger for us all in the near future. I’m afraid – you know he sees with other eyes than ours.”
And she said this with such evident terror that inwardly, but not without some dread, I cursed the “Wise Man,” – a certain Teige O’Toole, called “Teige of the Open Vision” by the people, who counted him to be a seer and a prophet. He was certainly skilled in many things, and his knowledge was not as the knowledge of other men.
As she stood beside me, wistfully, entreatingly, and fearfully, I pondered for a brief space and then I said —
“I will go and speak with Teige O’Toole, and will return anon,” and forthwith went in search of him.
I found him sitting on a rock, looking out to sea, murmuring disconsolately to himself. Straightway I asked him what it was that he had to say against Grace O’Malley’s intended visit to Galway, but he would vouchsafe no reply other than the awesome words which he kept on repeating and repeating —
“Darkness and blood; then a little light; blood and darkness, then again light – but darkness were better.”
Whereat I shuddered, feeling an inward chill; yet I begged of him not once, nor twice, to make plain his meaning to me. He would not answer, so that I lost patience with him, and had he not been an aged man and an uncanny I would have shaken the explanation of his mysterious words out of his lips, and, as it was, was near doing so.
Rising quickly from the stone whereon he had been sitting, he moved away with incredible swiftness as if he had read my thoughts, leaving me staring blankly after him.
What was it he had said?
“Darkness and blood; and then a little light!”
Well, darkness and blood were no strangers to me.
“Blood and darkness; then again light – but darkness were better!”
I could make no manner of sense of it at all; but I saw the meaning of it plainly enough in the years that followed.
I felt a gentle touch upon my arm, and Eva was by my side.
“Grace wishes you to go to her at once,” she said. “O Ruari, Ruari, dissuade her from going.”
“I will do what I can,” I replied; but I knew beforehand that if Grace O’Malley had settled what she was to do, nothing I could urge was likely to change her purpose.
Slowly I went into her presence.
“Eva has told you,” she said, “that we set out at once for Galway.”
“Yes,” I answered, “but I pray you to consider the matter well.”
“I have considered it well,” she replied; “but say on.”
“Is it a necessity,” I asked, “that you should go to Galway? Are there not many more places in Ireland for us to go to? Is not the north open to us, and the west, with plenty of Spanish merchantmen and English trading on the broad waters?”
“All in good time,” said she, smiling at my eloquence.
“Here,” said I, emboldened to proceed, “here you are among your own people, on your own land, and no one will seek to molest us. But in Galway – everything is different.”
“That is it,” she said earnestly. “That is the very reason – everything is different there.”
She stopped as if in thought.
“Listen, Ruari! My mind,” said she, “is made up to go to Galway to talk over our affairs with the English governor.”
So this was the reason.
“You say I am safe here,” she continued, “but am I? Word was brought me only yesterday by a trusty messenger from Richard Burke, the MacWilliam, that my father’s old-time enemy, Murrough O’Flaherty, is whispering in the ear of Sir Nicholas Malby, the Colonel of Connaught – perhaps into the ear of the Lord Deputy himself, for I hear he is expected about this time in the city – that my father was an enemy of the Queen, Elizabeth, and that I, his daughter, am sure to follow in his steps.”
“Murrough O’Flaherty!” cried I, “is he not content with his own wide lands of Aughnanure?”
“Content,” said she. “Such a man is never content! Then this insidious whisperer goes on to hint that I am only a young woman, and that my father has left no heir. It is plain enough, is it not, what he means?”
“Sir Nicholas Malby,” said I, “is reputed to be a just man and a good soldier.”
“A just man – perhaps, who knows! That is why I am going to Galway. I must make clear my right and title to my father’s possessions.”
“Right and title,” I exclaimed, and unconsciously I placed my hand on the hilt of my sword.
She saw and interpreted the action.
“Our title-deed,” said she, “has been that of the sword – ”
“And so shall it always be,” I broke in.
“In one sense, yes,” she assented; “but we live in times of change, and things are not as they were. All the chiefs and lords of Ireland are now getting a title for their lands from the queen. Even my father did something of the sort. If I go not to Galway to put forward my claims it will be said that I am disloyal and a traitress.”
“So,” I said, “it may be an evil to go, but it is a worse thing to stay here.”
“Yes,”