f all at once the knight had not bent forward and taken her by
her hand.

"Eileen," said the knight, holding her fast and looking into her face,
"Eileen, will you be my wife?"

"I would sooner die!" cried Eileen.

"Eileen," cried the knight passionately, "I love you! Do not break your
promise to me. Forget what you have seen. I am a powerful magician. I
will make you happy. I will give you all you want. Be my wife."

"Never!" cried Eileen.

"Then you have sealed your fate!" exclaimed the knight fiercely; and
suddenly he rose and extended his arms, and said some strange words that
Eileen did not understand; and all at once it appeared to her as if some
thick white pall were spreading over her, and her eyelids began to
close, and involuntarily she sank back.

Once more, but as if in a dream, she heard the knight's voice.

"If you do not become my wife," he said, "you shall never be the wife of
any living man. The black cat can hold his own. Sleep here till another
lover comes to woo you."

A mocking laugh rang through the room--and then Eileen heard no more. It
seemed to her that her life was passing away. A strange feeling came to
her, as if she were sinking through the air; there was a sound in her
ears of rushing water; and then all recollection and all consciousness
ceased.

Some travelers passing that evening by the lough gazed at the spot on
which the castle had stood, and rubbed their eyes in wild surprise, for
there was no castle there, but only a bare tract of desolate, waste
ground. The prophecy had been fulfilled; the castle had been lifted up
from its foundation and sunk in the waters of the lough.

This was the story that Dermot used to listen to as he sat in his
father's hall on winter nights--a wild old story, very strange, and
sweet too, as well as strange. For they were living still, the legend
always said--the chief and his household, and beautiful Eileen; not dead
at all, but only sleeping an enchanted sleep, till some one of the
M'Swynes should come and kill the black cat who guarded them, and set
them free. Under those dark, deep waters, asleep for three hundred
years, lay Eileen, with all her massive ornaments on her neck and arms,
and red-gold Irish hair. How often did the boy think of her, and picture
to himself the motionless face, with its closed, waiting eyes, and yearn
to see it. Asleep there for three hundred years! His heart used to burn
at the imagination. In all these centuries