eye was the eye of a wild creature that spies on darkness
and moves there wittingly. He saw, then, not a thing but a movement;
something that was darker than the darkness it loomed on; not a being
but a presence, and, as it were, impending pressure. And in a little he
heard the deliberate pace of that great being.

Fionn bent to his spear and unloosed its coverings.

Then from the darkness there came another sound; a low, sweet sound;
thrillingly joyous, thrillingly low; so low the ear could scarcely note
it, so sweet the ear wished to catch nothing else and would strive to
hear it rather than all sounds that may be heard by man: the music of
another world! the unearthly, dear melody of the Shi'! So sweet it was
that the sense strained to it, and having reached must follow drowsily
in its wake, and would merge in it, and could not return again to its
own place until that strange harmony was finished and the ear restored
to freedom.

But Fionn had taken the covering from his spear, and with his brow
pressed close to it he kept his mind and all his senses engaged on that
sizzling, murderous point.

The music ceased and Aillen hissed a fierce blue flame from his mouth,
and it was as though he hissed lightning.

Here it would seem that Fionn used magic, for spreading out his fringed
mantle he caught the flame. Rather he stopped it, for it slid from the
mantle and sped down into the earth to the depth of twenty-six spans;
from which that slope is still called the Glen of the Mantle, and the
rise on which Aillen stood is known as the Ard of Fire.

One can imagine the surprise of Aillen mac Midna, seeing his fire caught
and quenched by an invisible hand. And one can imagine that at this
check he might be frightened, for who would be more terrified than a
magician who sees his magic fail, and who, knowing of power, will guess
at powers of which he has no conception and may well dread.

Everything had been done by him as it should be done. His pipe had been
played and his timpan, all who heard that music should be asleep, and
yet his fire was caught in full course and was quenched.

Aillen, with all the terrific strength of which he was master, blew
again, and the great jet of blue flame came roaring and whistling from
him and was caught and disappeared.

Panic swirled into the man from Faery; he turned from that terrible spot
and fled, not knowing what might be behind, but dreading it as he
had never before dreaded a