'll have
killed the Beggarman of the King of Sweden."

"That you never will, you miserable object," says the beggarman.
"You're going to die now, and I'll give you your choice to die either
by a hard squeeze of wrestling, or a stroke of the sword."

"Well," says the Amadan, "if I have to die, I'd sooner die by a stroke
of the sword."

"All right," says the beggarman, and drew his sword.

But the Amadan drew his sword at the same time, and both went at it.
And if his fights before had been hard, this one was harder and
greater and more terrible than the others put together. They made the
hard ground into soft, and the soft into spring wells; they made the
rocks into pebbles, and the pebbles into gravel, and the gravel fell
over the country like hailstones. All the birds of the air from the
lower end of the world to the upper end of the world, and all the wild
beasts and tame from the four ends of the earth, came flocking to see
the fight. And at length the fight was putting so hard upon the
beggarman, and he was getting so weak, that he whistled, and the mist
came around him, and he went up into the sky before the Amadan knew.
He remained there until he refreshed himself, and then came down
again, and at it again he went for the Amadan, and fought harder and
harder than before, and again it was putting too hard upon him, and he
whistled as before for the mist to come down and take him up.

But the Amadan remembered what the red woman had warned him; he gave
one leap into the air, and coming down, drove his sword through the
beggarman's heart, and the beggarman fell dead. But before he died he
put geasa on the Amadan to meet and fight the Silver Cat of the Seven
Glens.

The Amadan rubbed his wounds with the iocshlainte, and he was as fresh
and hale as when he began the fight; and then he set out, and when
night was falling, he reached the hut that had no shelter within or
without, only one feather over it, and the rough, red woman was
standing in the door.

Right glad she was to see the Amadan coming back alive, and she
welcomed him right heartily, and asked him the news.

He told her that he had killed the beggarman, and said he was now
under geasa to meet and fight the Silver Cat of the Seven Glens.

"Well," she said, "I'm sorry for you, for no one ever before went to
meet the Silver Cat and came back alive. But," she says, "you're both
tired and hungry; come in and rest and sleep."

So in the Amadan went,