Deirdre

Cathfa had gone away, and Conachúr strode to his prisoners.

“So! Naoise,” he said.

“So! uncle,” said Naoise.

“I win in the end. I always win at last,” said Conachúr.

He looked at each with his stern smile, and when he spoke again it was to Deirdre.

“Little fawn! you have run wild for a long time. You shall rest at last.”

But she made only the reply that a fawn makes, the reply of parted lips and terror-stricken eyes.

“You shall come to me,” he said.

Then she moistened her trembling lips and looked at Naoise.

“Do not look at him,” said Conachúr. “He is already a dead man; let him be forgotten. All tricks and troubles are ended for you, sweet bird; you shall have peace.”

“Will you have peace to-morrow, Conachúr?” said Naoise. “Fergus is marching on you.”

“Be at ease, nephew,” and the king smiled grimly. “I shall take care of Fergus when he comes. For long I have wanted to take care of Fergus. But, first, I shall take care of you, Naoise, and of your traitor brothers. Your hour is on you,” he said, “and you die now.”

“Churl and rogue——!” said Ainnle.

But a gesture from his brother stopped him.

“Let this king do his business,” he said.

“That must be done,” said Conachúr.

He turned briskly and moved away.

Now the day was at hand, and these four looked on a world that was spectral and misshapen, but which was yet the world. On high the clouds could be seen, a grey immensity, stony as the face of Conachúr, and a chill wind moaned thinly about them. But far away the grey misery of morn had lightened, and a silver gleam, slender as a rod, crept up the east.

To that gleam their eyes turned, and from it to each other’s faces.

At the guards who ringed them in they did not look, or they looked unseeingly. But those gaunt apparitions stared like statues on the four and did not move a lip.

“The sun will rise in a little,” said Ardan.... “That magician has gone,” he whispered. “If we leaped at the guards——!”

“No good, brother, they are too many and we have no arms.”

“We should have one merry minute,” said Ardan.

“We have had a merry night,” said Ainnle, “be contented, babe.”

Naoise looked lovingly on his brothers.

“We were always together,” he said. “We shall always be together.”

“And I ...!” said Deirdre, “am I to be left out at last?”

“Sweet girl,” said Naoise, “he will kill us, but you will be spared. You shall see that sun come up. You shall look at it for us.”

“Dear husband,” she said, “do you still love me? Do you truly love me?”

His eyes gave her answer.

“Here comes Conachúr,” said Ainnle.

“And a large person with him,” said Ardan.

It was Mainè Rough-Hand, son of the King of the Fair Norwegians, they say; but others think it was Eogan, son of Durthacht, the prince of Ferney.

“You shall die at the hand of a gentleman as befits your rank,” said Conachúr.

“I shall be the first,” said Ardan briskly. “I am first in every great deed,” he explained to Conachúr.

“Hark to him!” Ainnle laughed. “Respect your elders, young person, and the heads of your family.”

But Ardan appealed to Mainè.

“Let me be first, sweet sir,” he pleaded. He turned confidingly to Conachúr. “I cannot bear to see my brothers killed,” he said....

Deirdre knelt by the bodies, and she sang their keen, beginning:

When she had finished the poem she bowed over her husband’s body: she sipped of his blood, and she died there upon his body.

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