broke and fled; the enemy was
behind them, the river was in front; and when the Irish battle cries
had died away over moor and mountain, but 200 survived of those fierce
troopers, who were to have cleared Ireland for ever from the presence
of the Saxons. For the rest, the wolves were snarling over their
bodies, and the seagulls whirling over them with scream and cry, as
they floated down to their last resting-place beneath the quiet waters
of Lough Foyle. Shane's foster-brethren, faithful to the last, were
all killed; he himself with half-a-dozen comrades rode for his life,
pursued by the avenging furies. His first desperate intention was to
throw himself at Sidney's feet, _with a slave's collar upon his neck_;
but his secretary, Neil M'Kevin, persuaded him that his cause was not
yet absolutely without hope. Sorleyboy was still a prisoner in the
castle at Lough Neagh, the Countess of Argyle had remained with her
ravisher through his shifting fortunes, had continued to bear him
children, and notwithstanding his many infidelities, was still
attached to him. M'Kevin told him that for their sakes, or at their
intercession, he might find shelter and perhaps help among the kindred
of the M'Connells.'

Acting on this advice, O'Neill took his prisoner, 'the countess, his
secretary, and fifty men to the camp of Allaster M'Connell, in the
far extremity of Antrim. He was received with dissembled gratulatory
words.' For two days all went on well, and an alliance was talked of.
But the vengeance of his hosts was with difficulty suppressed. The
great chief who was now in their power, had slain their leaders in the
field, had divorced James M'Connell's daughter, had kept a high-born
Scottish lady as his mistress, and had asked Argyle to give him for a
wife M'Connell's widow, who, to escape the dishonour, had remained in
concealment at Edinburgh. On the third evening, Monday June 2, when
the wine and the whiskey had gone freely round, and the blood in
Shane's veins had warmed, Gilespie M'Connell, who had watched him from
the first with an ill-boding eye, turned round upon M'Kevin, and asked
scornfully, 'whether it was he who had bruited abroad that the lady
his aunt did offer to come from Scotland to Ireland to marry with his
master?'

M'Kevin meeting scorn with scorn said, that if his aunt was Queen of
Scotland she might be proud to match with the O'Neill. 'It is false,'
the fierce Scot shouted; 'my aunt is too honest a woman to ma