Chapter VIII: Part 8

“Ardan has a good shape and good looks,” he said.

The great hand of Diarmod smote him on the mouth, and the dirk of Diarmod was out.

Conor, the heir-apparent, caught his arm and was flung aside, and Rhudri of O’Faelain stepped between.

“Take time with you in counsel, Diarmod, ere you slay a son for sake of a hostage you will be forced to return.”

“Hostage?” said Diarmod, glowering.

“Is not that word the right word?” asked Rhudri. “It is the only one used for our queen guest in our keep. Connaught and Breffni are moving their troops to win her return, for the loss of Dervail is a greater blow to the pride of O’Ruarc than the loss of Longford and Leitrim. Is not hostage the wise word? Hostages are ever to be given back again, and in safety.”

“She was hostage of Destiny to me, and not to be given back ever in life,” said Diarmod.

Conor got Donall, with his bleeding mouth, out of the hall, and Diarmod sat steeped in gloom, turning over in his mind the attack on the life of Dervail. The word “hostage” as applied to her to cover her flight was a bitter word and—heavier than all—the thought of her going again out of his life, and she the glory of his dream of kingship over Erinn!

He arose, frowning, and with set jaws.

“No other must tell her since it must be told. I ride with you.”

Ardan was first at the castle of O’Faelain, and there was sickness on his soul for what he met in that place.

Herdsmen and kern, ploughman and smith, raged like a sea of storm about the walls of Faelain, and the name of Dervail was shouted in hate heard even at a distance. At times it would die away to a murmur, and then some wild voice would shrill aloud and the wave of sound would again roll upward—“Dervail the Shadow! Dervail of dark crafts! Dervail, the curse of Leinster!”

At sight of the scholar’s robe of Ardan and the foam-wet steed, the mob made way, and held parley.

“Be our spokesman to the white slut who is harlot of two kingdoms,” they said, “and we will let you pass safely. You are of the cells—they will let you speak. Tell the woman, and tell the governor, that none of our men will fight to hold her for Diarmod. The High King of Erinn is against him, and much of Leinster is against him. A free road to her if she takes the Breffni way; and death on her if she makes a stand in Kildare! A holy man is done to death in there by her dark comrade, and the curse of all saints is against her forever for that! Dervail! Dervail, the malediction of men!”

They let him pass, and inside the gates white, stricken faces turned to him. The guard held spear and battle-axe against a rush of the crazed household. They pointed dumbly within when he spoke the name of Dervail. Only one man of the guard led the way, and he halted at the portal of her chamber.

A horrid weeping was heard within, quivering sobbing and choking. It was the woman Kauth, who had seen Duffagan dragged into the court below, and there hung in ghastly manner against the castle wall for the killing of Kieran Dall.

But the more ghastly thing was that Kieran had not yet died. He was coming out of a swoon of pain, and was prodded by Dervail, who sat beside him, dagger in hand, and steadily, in a dull, weary tone, making question.

“You lie, monk, but I would have you damn your soul with other lie at the last breath! What reason to ban my race more than the race of another? What reason to ban my mother? Speak ere I rack your wounds! What reason—blind monk?”

“The reason—the reason—Dyveke—is—proving—itself—in you! Your hand gave death—to him—to the father of your child, ere you went to your lover Thorold, fierce Dyveke!”

“Again you lie yourself to hell! The name Dyveke is a name I never heard; I am a queen—Dervail the queen! Speak again the name of the race of the father of Dervail—speak!”

The woman Kauth never ceased the dreary, smothered keione of despairing, but neither Dervail nor the man with the black wounds gave heed. He had again sunk half out of life, and the breath of him was a hollow rattle.

“Speak, monk!” And again the prick of the knife was in his flesh. “You said it; say it again! The race of ancient kings? The branch sanctified in secret ways? It exalts me, that blood—and you shall speak! I am Dervail—I would know of that race. Speak! Speak again!”

There was a struggle, a twitching of the body, and a whisper.

“The race—dies out! Hark you! I hear wild waves on the shore; they are shouting curses—hark you! Dervail—Dervail! Dervail! The world rocks with that name of evil—

For eric in breaking
- - - -
A thousand years’ yoke
On the bent neck - - of Erinn!
A - - thousand years’ tribute of blood
- - - Inis Fair!”

Then there was only the rattle—and after that no whisper, and his head lolled sideways and was pricked by the dagger to no good. And Ardan made the sign of the cross at sight of the thing she did, and caught her hand in horror.

“Dervail! He has gone to God—and was a holy man!” “He has gone to hell—and was a liar! Also he was a cheat! He died too soon, not telling all—only fragments of his hate for me. He brought death to Duffagan, and he brought that pack of wolves howling below—and without Duffagan the road I crave is a dark way for me! Is Diarmod dead that these things are?”

It had been a long night and a morning she had sat there with her blind victim, and she viewed his dead face with disdain. And from weariness she was as in a daze. She looked at the blackened dagger, and again at Kieran Dall.

“Who was he that a place was made for him at the table of a noble?” she asked. “Who was he that he was filled with hate against me in the lands of Leinster?”

“He was a prince whose name was hidden under the robe, Dervail.”

“Learn all for me and tell me! He made speech of things to madden my soul! I want Diarmod, and I want you to go to him! Hearken to the cries down there! It has been since sunrise—and ever more coming. Hearken to my name! Dervail! Dervail!”

“That is the thing prophesied by Duffagan, whom they call your ‘Dark Comrade.’ He told you in Breffni he heard the echoes of your name in countless voices on the winds.”

“That is true,” and she crouched there looking over her shoulder at him in a strange and fearful way; “but—but _Ardan_—this calling is in hate! They are not human beings down there—they are a hunting pack, howling for victim!”

“They are mortals, indeed, Dervail, but they are made mad by fear. An army of men are bearing shields against Leinster for the sake of you, and there is only one road of life and safety open for your feet.”

“And that road, Ardan?”

“That road is north into Breffni.”

“No! Not with Diarmod for my safety; not with his words of bondage still sounding in my ear!”

She rose to her feet as if the very words gave strength to her, and her eyes looked proud even while her face went pale at the louder screams of fierceness down below.

“Dervail, that dream has died with your Dark Comrade; such is my thought. Diarmod is no longer safety for you. His own life he may not be saving. Between you two, all Leinster and Meath can be made desolate.”

“What then? When he is triumphant, more than Leinster may be his. His vows to me were made in Tara, and who more fit than he to rule again in the ancient place of the great kings? No! The dreams did not end with Duffagan—they endure! Beside Diarmod I will ride to find them!”

Ardan turned to Kauth.

“Bring cover for the dead,” he said, “and robe your queen for a dreary journey—and a speedy one.”

Kauth covered the dead face of Kieran and then backed, sullen and defiant, against the wall.

“I have no queen in this place,” she said. “Because of her, Duffagan is beheaded, and his head on a pike below. I saw what I saw done on that holy man who is dead, and I hear what you hear below in the shoutings. I think it is truth they tell down there in their cries—she is a malediction! Death to all is her one thought, so that she walks safe—that is her thought. In thrall to her was held Tiernan and Duffagan—they were a bridge for her feet. But I am no longer in thrall to her! I have seen unholy and unlucky things, and the words of dead Kieran are a curse against Dervail for always. If you, Lord Ardan, are brave to walk beside her now—you are the only man brave enough for it.”

“Madness has fallen on her,” said Dervail. “The death of her man took her little wit.”

“Not all of it,” said Kauth, who had a most evil look with her red eyes and swollen face, and her grin of malice. “This is the one man who never took the gift of you at your offer—and he is the only one of all your lovers to brave your enemies to reach you this day of your days.”

“Go!” screamed Dervail in white fury. “Scullion, whom I lifted and strove to make human! Join your mates below ere I have you thrown to them from the battlements!”

The woman slunk to the far end of the room of shadows, but cowered there, fearful of going down to the screaming mob. Dervail turned away and covered her ears with white, jeweled hands to shut out the clamor.

“Ardan,” she whispered, “it is not all a lie she tells. They _have_ scurried away from me like rats after a singeing! Rhudri of the Faelain has gone, and every woman of them is out of sight.”

“I know the truth of that,” he said, “for the men of the woodland are bearing brush and straw and great timbers. They will smoke you out unless you take the Breffni road with me, and the choice must be now.”

“The choice?” she muttered, and walked wildly from window to window looking down on the horrid, waiting, upturned faces. “The choice? Ardan—soul of me always! Yours was the choice for me, and mine the rebellious heart! Yours was the true vision, for the vision of Duffagan has led me here to this trap! Yours was the hand I should have held to; yours was the white way for me, Ardan, the white way of the sun; and I am at last saying it!”

She flung herself on his shoulder, and her tears of self-pity touched his hand as he took her in gentleness toward the seat by the window.

But the seat was not reached, for the reason that Diarmod and O’Faelain came into the room at that minute, and Diarmod, in a rush of rage, caught the shoulder of Dervail and flung her until she stumbled and fell across the dead body of Kieran.

“The shouts below are the shouts of the prophets,” he said, “O royal harlot, who, in making choice, passes no man by!”

Ardan turned toward the king with lifted hand of protest, and Diarmod whipped out his dirk at that moment and thrust downward a mighty blow.

“You to the white way of your choice!” he said. “You to your white road—the two of you!”

Ardan fell under the weight of the blow, and blood stained his white garment, but a strange thing chanced at his falling, for the dagger was caught and wrested from the king’s hand.

“A deep stroke, Diarmod, and an unlucky one. The youth is under misjudgment; my faith on that!” said O’Faelain, lifting Ardan and tearing open the white undergarment.

He crossed himself at what he saw there—and it was strange enough.

The slender blade of the king did not go deep for the reason that the point was bedded in a golden ring, and the ring on a golden flat chain fastened around the neck of Ardan.

O’Faelain undid the chain and handed it to Diarmod with the dagger pendant.

“God and Mary have no wish that you do murder or vengeance for this woman—and the sign of it is here,” he said.

Ardan struggled to his feet—bloodstained and pale, his hand staunching the wound.

“You have robbed me of a thing precious,” he said. “To a king and a lord of Erinn it can have little worth, but as for me, if it is my time to die, I would wish to go into death with that token.”

Diarmod looked from the gold ring on which there was graven a circled star and words in _ogham_ and as his eyes met Ardan’s eyes, he was more blanched than Ardan, and his voice was husky and strange.

“How is this precious to you—this thing more ancient than you can know?” he asked.

“It was on the breast of my mother at her death, and more than that I do not know. Dall Clairineach bade me use it as a token to any king of Leith Mogh if danger threatened me. For myself I would not use it—but if it has virtue I will use it that Dervail the queen rides safe.”

“She will ride free,” said Diarmod in a dull, strange way. “Look, Rhudri—see my punishment.”

O’Faelain looked, and crossed himself, and lifted the hand of Ardan to his lips.

“O perfect prince—and the first born,” he said, “you are a grace, and no punishment.”

Dervail leaned forward, breathless at the words and at the look of Diarmod: she was forgotten by him and by O’Faelain. Their eyes saw only Ardan.

“You knew your mother?” asked Diarmod.

“I did not know her. Death took her. Dall Clairineach alone knew my blood, and he gave me no word. I am of his clan—so I am thinking.”

“You are of the race of Conaire Mor, and your mother was Dhira of the Dark Hair whom they forced from me and hid away—a veiled woman! None told me there was a son, but her son could be only mine. You are the heir of my youth.”

“Dhira!” said Dervail, her head thrust forward like a golden-headed serpent with its stroke of poison. “_That_, Ardan, was the nun he took from sanctuary—that was the thing of which I told—and the thing you would not give your faith to—and you the living witness!”

Ardan looked at Diarmod in frowning question, and it was the eyes of Diarmod that wavered and fell.

“This is between these walls,” said Ardan, and reached his hand for ring and chain. “Beyond the portal it is never to be spoke. If the token brings me fealty of a guard I will make use of it to lead this queen back in safety to her kingdom.”

“See to it, Rhudri,” said Diarmod. “All that he asks of Leinster is his. You had my love, boy, and today I am knowing that her eyes were ever looking out on me from your own.”

Ardan made no reply. He was staunching the blood with linen torn in strips by O’Faelain.

“Diarmod,” spoke Dervail, “has an old love weakened you to pleading for crumbs? Is it true that Turlough O’Conor and Tiernan of Breffni have cast the shadow of their spears against you and weakened your courage? You hear Ardan say he will guard me out of your kingdom, and you speak no word of protest? Did I then ride south beside you for only a holiday or a fair?”

“You came, a stolen queen as hostage,” said Diarmod, “that is the tale to tell. The hours are past for words of that: you must go with the prince if you would keep life in you; the spears of two armies are already across our border to force your return to Breffni. I will have vengeance for the loss of you but that will be on another day—on this one there is only flight in all haste for you.”

Thus he spoke, but his eyes were on Ardan and she saw it.

“You are not Diarmod the king this day,” she said. “You are only a man in a trance who has the looks of Diarmod. This dead monk had devil’s words of you, and of me. He called me ‘Dyveke the Dove’ and said you were under _geis_ to hold no white birds under snare. He had lies of old magic, and a curse for me in all of them. Are you knowing that baleful rune he mouthed? Know you that he met his death striving to do murder on me?”

“It is known, and it is a sorrow,” said Diarmod, “and his is the first death of the many ere the end comes; thus has his life paid for his prophecy. Ulster will join me to war against Turlough and O’Ruarc; in another year Leinster will have allies and strength, and you will again ride south to rule.”

“Your lips speak,” said Dervail coldly. “You are not the king of the night on Tara.”

Rhudri returned with a frightened maid and the cloak of Dervail.

“I pledge myself to send your goods on a morrow,” he said; “it cannot be now. While the humor of the mob gives sanction to your going, is the time to go.”

The smile of Dervail was bitter and dreary as she looked at the three men. She was no longer the first thought in any mind there. Ardan the prince, and the first-born of Diarmod, was suddenly most wonderful and pleasing in the eyes of the two men. Even the disdain of Ardan gave them pride in him.

“You to have royal rule when it means naught to you!” she said, looking at him, “and I to be robbed of it when it is breath of life to me!”

“I claim no rule—nor will I,” said Ardan. “My mother died in sanctuary, and thus will I. Enough sons are in Leinster to divide the spoils. Cover well your head in the veil, for rain is falling. Give extra cloak to the maid, and I ask grace for her, and comfort if her courage lasts through the trials of the way.”

“She shall have honor that she heeds your word, and the children of her shall have honor after her, O prince,” said Rhudri O’Faelain.

It was an awkward moment and strange, as Dervail stood, veiled and gray, beside the body of Kieran, waiting to go.

“The curse came when he came,” she said, looking down on him. “It seems a thousand years past—and it was but yesternight.”

Smoke drifted up on the heavy air, and curled blue-white through the windows. Some of the mob, impatient of delays, had fired brush, and the falling rain drowned it, yet it bore its warning!

There was a lull in the shouting as the guard of the king formed without—and then the great gate of the castle opened and a horse was seen with woman’s furnishings, and a roar went up.

“Dervail! Dervail! Dervail, the accursed of Leinster!”

Dervail stooped and picked up the dagger let fall when she ceased the torture of Kieran.

“Dervail, there will be another day for us,” said Diarmod the king.

“Your lips speak, O king!” said Dervail.

She felt sullenly that the dark-eyed nun—long dead—had thrust herself between them at the end—and in a strange way she felt that the monk who had saved his last breath for curses had some way brought all this evil to be when he sunk his knife in Duffagan: that, and his words of mystic things, had changed the world for her.

He had caught her imagination and enthralled her soul by the mystic things he left in shadow, and the shadow and fear remained on her like a heavy cloak of gray.

Suddenly she turned to Ardan.

“Use your new strength—do not let the king show himself beside me. I do not choose he should hear the wild beasts and their hate of me.”

“It is their fear of you, Dervail.”

“To the blind monk the thanks for that; but do not let him come.”

So, in the gray rain, drearily falling, she rode out beside Ardan in the center of twice sixty of the king’s guard. Her name was echoed by them a thousand times with all the terms of evil they could invent or remember, and more than once a bowman sent an arrow hurtling overhead as a warning to haste.

Once she looked back, thinking to see Diarmod on the wall, but she saw only Kauth staring down over the gateway on which the head of Duffagan was spiked.

It was the first day of the deaths of the prophecy, the “thousand years’ tribute of blood,” for Dervail of the Shadow!

Many souls were sent for judgment in the slaughter done by Diarmod—and done against him in his revenges for the shame of losing her again to Breffni.

So great was the rage against her that even the castle of O’Ruarc was no safety. Widows and the children of slaughtered soldiery cried out against the curse of her beauty for which men died, and she became a secret woman in the sanctuary of Cluain-mac-noise from which great wealth went out through her hands for holy walls and holy vessels, and endless prayer.

And ever, for the rest of her life, on the sweet spring nights of Beltain, she knelt on the cold stone of the chapel floor to undo the false magic of Duffagan on the hill of the druids. He had seen truly there, yet his reading of what he saw was not true; and the proof of it was the bridge she had built for evil to cross on.

It was not that she doubted the magic of druidcraft, but it is an ill and unlucky thing to go to the old gods after the saints have rung bells against them. Even the true things are twisted after that.

Her beauty was still on her, and the dreams of Tara were not dead.

But the fear of the words of Kieran remained as the shadow of a gray ghost, sending her to frightened prayer.

The curse of the blind monk was too heavy to be cast aside even by penance, and she walked veiled and dreamed of a day when Diarmod would again be chief of victories and change the gray cloak of dread to the royal robe of seven colors.

When the word came of his solemn banishing out of Erinn by vote of the Irish nobles, she brooded, and reckoned the wealth still hers, and waited message.

When he came again, with his English allies and the curst name “Diarmod of the Foreigners” on him, her step was light with hope, for the soldiers out of England would make him king indeed over all the proud nobles who had banished him away! The dream of Tara was still a sweet, yet fearful dream.

But when the death of Diarmod was come to him in horror, and the head of Tiernan O’Ruarc was sent to England, while his body was hung by the feet on the north wall of Dublin, then again did wild rage of the Irish burn high against the name of Dervail of the Shadow.

It was sung in songs linking her ever with the hated invaders. Even through convent walls that hatred came—hatred against her and against the arch-traitor who had brought the English enemy to help win the throne of Erinn, because of her beauty and her daring dream.

In secret and in darkness, she was guarded to Mellifont and a new name given her for safety, and among the nuns she was never known to have worn the royal colors of a queen. And the dream of Tara was a gray horror—yet it had been told by Duffagan that kings who battled for her would sink in death, while she alone survived—and it was so.

But a monk whispered her name in the sunny walk of the garden one day in spring, and she looked again into the dark eyes of Ardan, who should be King of Leinster.

He held out to her a pearl and a ring she knew.

“These were to go back to you, and I made promise,” he said. “I was with him at the last, when no one else was with him.”

“Did his blessing come with them?” she asked. “It is said he died as Kieran died—cursing Dervail.”

“They should not have told you that.”

“Nay, none are telling me; it is on the air wherever the invading enemy are known and hated—Diarmod and Dervail, Dervail and Diarmod of the Foreigners! In my dreams I am hearing the curses on the two names!”

“Duffagan made such prophecy of your name and its echoes in the druid circle.”

“He did. Give the pearl to some altar and wear you the ring of your father. They are tokens of fear to me—fear of what I dared in my days of daring.”

“There are other sons to wear the ring. Mine is now the monk’s robe. I am a builder and a carver of stone. If the churches rise against the invading English, I will be a soldier to help undo the curse of Diarmod.”

“And the curse of Dervail,” she said, and wept.

He made no answer.

“Ardan,” she said, “Kieran the monk said, a thousand years’ bondage on Erinn for me, a thousand years of the yoke—the yoke on the bent neck of Erinn! You have had the true vision all our lives; you were the only true thing, Ardan. Can you read the days to come, and tell me the end of that curse? For the yoke is on Erinn, Ardan.”

“I dare not read, or make prophecy, Dervail.”

“A white road to you! The bell of vesper sounds, and it is Beltain—and a time of fear to me! Ardan, I have long had a thought unspoken. A tomb will be mine some restful night. I would that your hand had the carving of that bed. Your hand, comrade, will carve the tomb? It will be the end of the flight of the bird, Ardan.”

“I will do that: I saw the form of it when we rode out through the smoke and the furious pack there at the castle in Kildare.”

“And it will be—?”

“The circled cross—and a gray falcon there with broken, trailing wings, Dervail.”

[Music: _Fourteenth Century._]

RANDUFF OF CUMANAC

Such is the record of Kearmit;
—Kearmit the holy of Cumanac,
Truthful the word he has written
Truthful the warning.
This is the warning to pass through all lives to our people:
Leave all unchristened the axe arm of Erinn forever!

From Archibald T. De Nise, Attorney-at-Law.
To Major Matthew Forbes.

_My dear Major_:—A week ago when we ended our after-dinner talk (in the small hours of the morning), I little thought that I should so soon have evidence on your side of the argument concerning the shadowy other life in our midst. I can’t say that the new evidence has convinced me, but it certainly has me rattled.

I am sending you brief excerpts from a curious old Irish volume I am eager to have you see, and also, a verbatim copy of the letter which came with it. I recall that your family was of the last hereditary historians of Ireland in the seventeenth century, and with your bookish tendencies, added to your predisposition to delve into the uncanny, it gives me a hope that your inheritance of knowledge may help me to a glimmer of light in this case.

I am sure that in reading the letter I enclose, you will not fail to recollect the statement of your friend Dartan, whose portrait of “Girl with the Hound,” was in the spring exhibition. He told us that the addition of the hound to that picture was at his suggestion, and that it required considerable time and trouble to find the right type of hound for the desired composition. By this you will note that the hound did not enter that family through any special desire of any member of that family.

It is easy to decide that an impressionable mind, under the influence of powerful inherited tradition of brutal ages, could work itself into a state of self-hypnosis wherein the dream became the fact. I tell myself that such is the reasonable solution of the mystery.

I work it out beautifully along those lines as I would a theoretical game of chess—and then that red-eyed hound of the picture walks across the board, and makes chaos of my chess men!

You know how much the unusual personality of the boy has interested me from the beginning. The excitement over him has been tremendous—the absolute lack of motive—her beauty, and his youth (he is not yet twenty-three)—all this would be enough to make the affair celebrated even without the very important financial position held by his brother.

I have begged the boy to help me clear up the mystery of it all, and he evidently thinks he has really given me that help in the letter I enclose, but to my mind it furnishes two mysteries instead of one.

When you have read it I want you to call me up, no matter what hour of the day or night it is, and then come and talk it over—if ever a friend needed a lifeline in the strange sea of the uncanny, I am that friend. I worked personally all night on the copy I send you—it could not be given to a copyist.

There are many who are confident that he is not the guilty one, but that his finding her there, in that condition, shocked him out of sanity. He gave himself up at once and accused himself without any excitement whatever. He has steadily refused to tell his motive for the act, and has made not the slightest attempt to vindicate himself at any time—not even soliciting the help of an attorney.

When I offered him the services of my office he only said: “It is a kindness of you to give help at this time, and there is money in plenty to pay you, Mr. De Nise, but the work is not worth the doing, and it is I am telling you it.”

More than that he has not said, and his speech has the unusual quality of fineness in it, at the same time that he uses curious phrasing suggestive of a brogue, though it is not a brogue. Perhaps it is that Irish music in his voice makes him fascinating. I have heard nothing quite like it. I hope you remember that in our former talk I spoke to you of it, and you said that prior to Elizabethan days, much learning and most of the music of England had been borrowed from the Irish scholars who took the brogue with them across the Irish Sea and made it fashionable. I assure you this lad’s manner would become fashionable if it could be easily imitated. It belongs to a world older than our day. That is the baffling impression given when he speaks. It is not the words alone—it is a certain lilt in intonation as if he had been trained in rhythmic chants. Strangely enough his half-brother, who is old enough to be his father, and has had much the same educational advantages, has not a particle of this manner. He is a plain, practical, very well-to-do Anglo-Irishman, interested in certain American mines, and is a local bank director.

You will think me obsessed by this matter of a personality individual and strange—but I am only impressing on you the fact that I spoke to you a week ago of that baffling fascination in him. I want you to remember it, otherwise we should both fancy that my present impressions are merely borrowed from the book and letter I send you.

Yesterday, in desperation over having the case called for next week and not a single word or suggestion of help from him, I repeated what I have said to him so often:

“Fergal, since you have promptly accused yourself and implicated no one but yourself, why—why in the name of all that’s holy, do you not tell to me, your lawyer, and your friend, at least the cause of the crime you have confessed? Why will you not give me something substantial to work on? As it is, I have nothing but absurd theories—shadows to pit against a prosecution.”

He looked at me with the quiet, unyouthful gray eyes, which look black under jet lashes. Then he stretched his arms drowsily as if I had fairly beaten him into speech.

“Aye, Mr. De Nise,” he said, and shook his head with its purple-black wave of hair, like nothing so much as a crow’s wing, except that a crow has no curls to its feathers. “Mr. De Nise, the wonder is on me, sir, as to what you would be saying if you heard in truth of the shadow I have fought in this—and the shadow I feared long—and the shadow by which I was overcome. I am not the one saying to you that shadows are little things to fight.”

“You try me and see what I would say,” I suggested. “Tell me every word and every thought you have on this matter; that is the right thing to do for me as well as for you.” I was only too keen to encourage him, for it was the first time he had shown even a sign of sympathy toward my solicitations.

“And you would not be thinking it moonshine from some Irish rath of the fairies? And you will not be having your laugh with the councilors and the judges over the crazed Irish head of me, after I have gone the Way?” he asked.

I assured him it was too weighty an affair for laughter, and that I was convinced that his head had the usual requisites for a head. He appeared to consider that statement thoughtfully, but finally he said:

“No—no, it has lived with me so long in silence that no words come to me for the telling. No—it will not be spoken.”

I saw that he was actually striving to nerve himself for some ordeal, and I kept silence, looking over some notes I had made for the defense: few and shadowy they are, too! My presence without speech must have got on his nerves, for as if to get rid of me he spoke at last.

“I may write it as the other records of our home were written—I—may do that. Yes—that is where it would be having the right place—in the record of the clan, for it is the ending of it—yes—and the right ending.”

I knew I could make nothing for his defense out of that sort of statement, so I ignored it, and left the jail after sending for paper, pen, and ink. I looked back through the bars and he was seated again, his head on his hands. I should not have been surprised to learn that he had forgotten the pen and paper were there. I have not seen him since.

But this morning there came to the office his half-brother, Raymond E. Brennan, from whom this crime has separated him beyond hope of reconciliation. Now that I think of it, they are not exactly half-brothers but by courtesy, since Brennan’s father married the mother of Fergal some years after he was born, and she a widow.

In his hand he carried a small square package.

“It is the book—” he said, “the book done by Kearmit the monk in a past century. I brought it myself, for the boy asked that you be let read it. It is a treasure of his house. He knew it by heart, and thought it a great treasure—as I fancy it may be, as such things go.”

His tone indicated that such things did not go far with him, though he was tolerant.

“Is it something concerning the case?” I asked.

“Not at all,” he said. “It is a collection of legends and songs of his mother’s house, done by a kinsman of theirs who was a monk. It is a very ancient house, Mr. De Nise. According to the records, there were princes and abbots among them when Ireland was in her glory. The work on the book is of the finest and worth seeing.”

“But I have made no request for the book, nor ever heard of it,” I said, for as the wrapper was taken off and I saw the richness and value of it, I hesitated to keep it. He looked at me in surprise.

“No? That is strange,” he said. “Ah, the poor lad; his head is wrong; that is it.”

“Did he tell you I wanted it?” I asked. “Please repeat to me exactly what he said; I am much interested in his case, and he speaks so little that every word is precious, as it may help to reveal hidden things.”

“I know that, and am glad he has a good friend in you. I cannot be that. I feel that it is his head is wrong, for he was ever a strange lad, delving in ancient records, and at home with thoughts too old for his years. His mother was a safe, natural woman and there were times he seemed ‘fey’ to her. He was born the night his father died, but he was like neither father nor mother. She told me that when she followed my father, and asked me to care for the lad. I did my best while I could, but I do not want ever to hear the old Irish of his voice again, or touch his hand again while I live.”

“What do you mean by the ‘old’ Irish of his voice?” I asked, and he looked at me with a little frown of perplexity.

“Do you know, Mr. De Nise, that is a hard question to answer to a man who has not heard the Gaelic about him. That lad was not brought up to the Gaelic speech, nor his parents before him, nor their parents, yet when he spoke first—English words, mind you—he spoke it with the sound on his tongue of the old Irish. That is not because he has not gone about and heard other speech: three years he was in France and in Spain. There was an old branch of his people came to Galway from Spain in the very old times. His mother said he came by the blackness of his hair from the Spanish kindred, for her people were fair always. But, as I was saying, no travel took the touch of the old tongue off him. You must have noticed, sir, yourself; it is as if he speaks in English but thinks in the old Irish.”

Now that explained exactly that baffling music of his intonation, and I was glad to have it cleared up for me; if cleared up it is!

“Yes—he has always been strange, but he was a lovable lad at that,” said Brennan. “I know it was his head went wrong all in a flash, and I hope the court so decides. But when I try to think kindly of him, there comes again before my eyes that awful sight of—ah—I cannot even speak of it yet.”

He walked to the window and stood with his back to me. I could see he was much agitated.

“Do not try to speak of it,” I said, “only try to tell me the word he sent concerning the book.”

Brennan gave me a letter from his pocket and walked again to the window while I read it.

There was no heading to the letter; it began abruptly in clear, decided penmanship.

“I know the sorrow of you—yet it may be there is a deeper sorrow
I am now hiding. I know the hate of your heart for me—and all the
world is with you in that.

“I am not sending to you in any complaining, for things are
written, and the reasons are not shown to mortals, yet we must
abide by that writing.

“I am sending to ask a favor for the man who would save—if he
can—the last of my family, which he cannot. I would have lent to
him for his reading, the book of the annals of our house. Not the
genealogy in Gaelic with its translation, but the smaller book
with the ivory cover and the silver clasps. It is the legends and
songs of our bards in the other days before the harps of Ireland
were broken by the mailed fist of the enemy. The man I want to
have read it is a lover of books, and nothing like the ‘Book of
Kearmit’ has he seen; not but what kindred clans had jewels of
books, and more of them than in other lands, but the Saxon, like
the Dane, in their plunderings, stripped them of the precious
coverings, and left the vellum to rot or burn. They are few and
rare at this day.

“The sorrow is with me for the reason that your life is in
shadow. Always first in my heart was held my love of you. I am
proud now to be knowing that, and on a day to be ... you will
know it!

“On that day I may again call you brother—and the waiting for it
is long to me.

“FERGAL.”

“That is the first word he has ever sent me, since that night,” said Brennan, “so I brought the book at once. I would do much more to be of use to any mortal in misery, but hear him, or see him, I hope I shall never.”

While he spoke a messenger came in with a package for me. I still held Brennan’s letter in my hand. As I glanced at the envelope just received I saw that the writing was the same—it was the first communication I had ever received from Fergal.

I opened it quickly, and found many large pages closely written; folded around them was a note. It said:

“Good Friend—

“A book of old Irish legends will be brought to your hand this
day. Before reading the letter I send in this, I will ask you to
read the book. There is one tale of the olden days I would have
you reading. It is called _Randuff and White Enora_.”

I turned to Brennan. “I should like after all to look at the book,” I said. “Fergal will no doubt tell me why he wishes me to see it.”

Then thanking him for coming with it personally, I let him out as expeditiously as possible in my eagerness to see what the boy had sent me. It was a great temptation to read the letter first, but I put it aside and opened the book.

It is a curiosity in book-making and binding. The ivory panels of the back with their scroll work of silver were done by no prentice hand, and the lettering on the vellum is so fine I had to use a magnifying glass to get all the beauty of line in the illuminated initials. How the deuce did those Irish monks of the old days do such work with quill pens and no glasses? Whoever “Kearmit of Clan Cumanac” might have been, his work was that of an artist, as you will see when you come.

I did not linger long over the artistic binding or ornamental pen work, but turned at once to the story Fergal had mentioned. It was called _The Sad Tale of Randuff and White Enora_. It was written in verse, as many others were. I find that Randuff means “The Dark, Handsome One.”

In Tormond, north of the Shannon, dwelt the clans of Cumanac before the foot of the invader brought the curse on the land, and sent westward their mercenaries to wall themselves in, and to carve prayers in the stone over the gates, that the sons of the land might not rise in their vengeance and make ashes of their women and children as have the Saxons with the “mere Irish.”

But Brian is dust in Dunpatrick, and Cormac the wise has been dust a thousand years in Rosnaree, and besides them no king has arisen in strength to hold together the tribes, and strong to do righteousness on the adventurers who have their hirelings in mail to help them make profits off the land.

And of the last law of Edward’s councilors has come the evil of the death of Randuff—the sweetly dark one, cried now by the woman, and mourned by the very trees of the forests he had love for! Randuff of the princes of Cumanac, Randuff of the sweet voice, and that voice chanting the glories above all sweetness of mortal: Grief on the loss of that one!

Her name was Enora of the Saxons, and when she spread her net, and looked on him, it was a drug to his soul. The robe of a scholar he forgot, and holiness he forgot, and only marriage with her was the dream walking with him all the night. To his brothers in kindred he told his love and it needed not the telling, for all could read the wonder of it in his eyes—shadowed eyes the women of Cumanac are wailing!

The new law of the invader forbids bonds of marriage between their Saxon men and our Irish women—and much more is the strength of the law against daughters of English taking a name from an Irish clan, even though it be a princely clan. Grief on that day!

So it stands, and what is one man, even the youth Randuff, to do against that? What is one man to do with the pride of his clan like a black rage back of him? And their friendship and their love hidden from him? And their rule hard against him for that he would not tear the face of her out of his breast; and would not forget the White Enora of the sea-blue eyes?

Sons of lords of Spain sailed into the Shannon mouth. In their own ship they came, and young they came, and they were his kindred. Love in their own hearts made them brothers to Randuff, and they alone knew of the stolen nights of him in her secret chamber. Only they knew that he fared forth as a _duine_—leading the steed of her father ... as a servant unknown walked Randuff, son of princes, to follow the white feet of the woman of the other shore. Grief on that day! None but the sons of the lords of Spain knew it, and they knew it.

Sweet the plot for love was the plot of Randuff and the sons of the lords of Spain—and sweet the sailing to be when the bird of love flew south with them, for that was their dream!

But the maid of the secret nights had a long look in the blue eyes of her, and the look was long for a man who could put her near to the throne in the court of Edward. Such was her look, and such was the hope, and that was not in power of Randuff, son of prince of Cumanac, nor of any other of Erinn’s princes, and she grew in fear of the love-nights she had loved so rashly, and in fear of the lover who had dared much, and would dare more.

The Night of nights came when the sails were loosed, and horses were under the wall, and the lover in the secret door for the last time. And in fear of his wrath when she should say to him “No,” and in fear of her own kindred if they thought the truth of her—she took by her side a wolfhound of her knowing, and a keen knife to give help to the last. Grief on the night!

With fair treacherous words, and sad words, she told him the will of her kinsmen was heavy on her, and the fear on her was a great fear, and never again could the moon light their love-nights. Her beauty had been coveted by an earl of England, and her parting from wild Ireland would be a long parting.

So it was, and when in love his arms went around her, the wolfhound leaped to his throat, and her knife found the way to his heart. Grief on that night!

The cries of her were the cries of a child in fright, and her words were of terror, and these were her words: That to save herself pure from a man of the Irish wilds, she had used the knife, and she stood there holding back the hound from the blood of Randuff, and told this thing, and the eyes of Randuff on her, and the breath of life going from him!

Her kinsmen came there—and their rage was a great and terrible rage, and above all the rage was that of Alwynn, a priest of her blood, and it may be he is druid, too, for he is not christian surely; and it was the curse of curses he put on the youth there, not alone that he should die unshriven, but that no sons should ever again be born to the name, and the pride of the race, and its fruitfulness should die out even as the youth’s blood was flowing from the heart of him. Grief on that night!

And the strength of that hate, and the words of it, wakened Randuff out of the death spell, and in a great slowness he spoke again, and the people who heard it went cold, and the wanton white thing fell swooning, and none of them are forgetting it, and this is what he said there:

“When the last of our clan’s blood is gone from this life,
Will but be when Enora finds death by this knife.
If no sons shall be born to keep honored our name,
From the grave one will rise to give death for this shame.
And you err, White Enora, at thought that the moon
Will no more light our meetings: a vision—a swoon
Comes gray on my senses, yet through it I see
Another life living for you—and for me!”

Death took him, and no mortal is knowing what meaning was in his words. The Spanish kinsmen told their tale, and sailed for the south, and earth glory and sinful glory are the portion of Enora of the wolfhound. She is near the throne surely, and the children of her are honored by her own name forever by the royal will.

This is the tale of Randuff and White Enora. It is put down by the hand of Kearmit of Cumanac as a sign against that family forever. No honor, no friendship, is ever to be taken by gift or grace of the people of her blood, and no other thing forever but war should be with that people. As White Enora with her wolfhound, and her knife for the lover, so is that blood to the blood of the tribes whose land they have coveted, and have left ravaged. May memory be with our people in the Day of days!

“By the Elements, and the Father, and Son, and Sanctified Spirit.”

In a different but clear hand two pages were added: