those who listened, and Conor, glad at heart, said,
"My three best champions shall go to bring them back from their
exile," and he named Conall the Victorious, Cuchulainn, and Fergus,
the son of Rossa the Red. Then secretly he called Conall to him and
asked him what he would do if he were sent to fetch the Sons of Usna,
and, in spite of his safe-conduct, they were slain when they reached
the land of the Ultonians. And Conall made answer that should such a
shameful thing come to pass he would slay with his own hand all the
traitor dogs. Then he sent for Cuchulainn, and to him put the same
question, and, in angry scorn, the young hero replied that even Conor
himself would not be safe from his vengeance were such a deed of black
treachery to be performed.

"Well did I know thou didst bear me no love," said Conor, and black
was his brow.

He called for Fergus then, and Fergus, sore troubled, made answer that
were there to be such a betrayal, the king alone would be held sacred
from his vengeance.

Then Conor gladly gave Fergus command to go to Alba as his emissary,
and to fetch back with him the three brothers and Deirdre the
Beautiful.

"Thy name of old was Honeymouth," he said, "so I know well that with
guile thou canst bring them to Erin. And when thou shalt have returned
with them, send them forward, but stay thyself at the house of
Borrach. Borrach shall have warning of thy coming."

This he said, because to Fergus and to all the other of the Red
Branch, a _geasa_, or pledge, was sacrosanct. And well he knew that
Fergus had as one of his _geasa_ that he would never refuse an
invitation to a feast.

Next day Fergus and his two sons, Illann the Fair and Buinne the Red,
set out in their galley for the dun of the Sons of Usna on Loch Etive.

The day before their hurried flight from Erin, Ainle and Ardan had
been playing chess in their dun with Conor, the king. The board was of
fair ivory, and the chessmen were of red-gold, wrought in strange
devices. It had come from the mysterious East in years far beyond the
memory of any living man, and was one of the dearest of Conor's
possessions. Thus, when Ainle and Ardan carried off the chess-board
with them in their flight, after the loss of Deirdre, that was the
loss that gave the king the greatest bitterness. Now it came to pass
that as Naoise and Deirdre were sitting in front of their dun, the
little waves of Loch Etive lapping up on the seaweed, yellow as the
hair of