that was commander-in-chief over them, 'you saw him not with your two
eyes, and though I have but one eye, there's the rascal up in the
tree.' When he had said that, one of them went up in the tree, and as
he was coming where I was, I drew a weapon that I had and I killed him.
'Be this from me!' said the one-eyed one--'I must not be losing my
company thus; gather round the root of the tree and dig about it, and
let down that villain to earth.' On this they gathered about the tree,
and they dug about the root, and the first branching root that they
cut, she gave a shiver to fall, and I myself gave a shout, and it was
not to be wondered at.

"There was in the neighbourhood of the wood a priest, and he had ten
men with him delving, and he said, 'There is a shout of a man in
extremity and I must not be without replying to it.' And the wisest of
the men said, 'Let it alone till we hear it again.' The cats began
again digging wildly, and they broke the next root; and I myself gave
the next shout, and in very deed it was not a weak one. 'Certainly,'
said the priest, 'it is a man in extremity--let us move.' They set
themselves in order for moving. And the cats arose on the tree, and
they broke the third root, and the tree fell on her elbow. Then I gave
the third shout. The stalwart men hastened, and when they saw how the
cats served the tree, they began at them with the spades; and they
themselves and the cats began at each other, till the cats ran away.
And surely, oh king, I did not move till I saw the last one of them
off. And then I came home. And there's the hardest case in which I ever
was; and it seems to me that tearing by the cats were harder than
hanging to-morrow by the king of Lochlann."

"Och! Conall," said the king, "you are full of words. You have freed
the soul of your son with your tale; and if you tell me a harder case
than that you will get your second youngest son, and then you will have
two sons."

"Well then," said Conall, "on condition that thou dost that, I will
tell thee how I was once in a harder case than to be in thy power in
prison to-night."

"Let's hear," said the king.

"I was then," said Conall, "quite a young lad, and I went out hunting,
and my father's land was beside the sea, and it was rough with rocks,
caves, and rifts. When I was going on the top of the shore, I saw as if
there were a smoke coming up between two rocks, and I began to look
what might be the meaning of the smoke coming