or utter a word on
any subject.

Yet the thought did come into her head as she stretched in the warm
gloom that Crimthann the son of Ae must be now attending her at
Cluain da chaillech, and she thought of that young man as of something
wonderful and very ridiculous, and the fact that he was waiting for
her troubled her no more than if a sheep had been waiting for her or a
roadside bush.

She fell asleep.

CHAPTER V

In the morning as they sat at breakfast four clerics were announced, and
when they entered the king looked on them with stern disapproval.

"What is the meaning of this journey on Sunday?" he demanded.

A lank-jawed, thin-browed brother, with uneasy, intertwining fingers,
and a deep-set, venomous eye, was the spokesman of those four.

"Indeed," he said, and the fingers of his right hand strangled and did
to death the fingers of his left hand, "indeed, we have transgressed by
order."

"Explain that."

"We have been sent to you hurriedly by our master, Molasius of
Devenish."

"A pious, a saintly man," the king interrupted, "and one who does not
countenance transgressions of the Sunday."

"We were ordered to tell you as follows," said the grim cleric, and he
buried the fingers of his right hand in his left fist, so that one could
not hope to see them resurrected again. "It was the duty of one of
the Brothers of Devenish," he continued, "to turn out the cattle this
morning before the dawn of day, and that Brother, while in his duty, saw
eight comely young men who fought together."

"On the morning of Sunday," Dermod exploded.

The cleric nodded with savage emphasis.

"On the morning of this self-same and instant sacred day."

"Tell on," said the king wrathfully.

But terror gripped with sudden fingers at Becfola's heart.

"Do not tell horrid stories on the Sunday," she pleaded. "No good can
come to any one from such a tale."

"Nay, this must be told, sweet lady," said the king. But the cleric
stared at her glumly, forbiddingly, and resumed his story at a gesture.

"Of these eight men, seven were killed."

"They are in hell," the king said gloomily.

"In hell they are," the cleric replied with enthusiasm.

"And the one that was not killed?"

"He is alive," that cleric responded.

"He would be," the monarch assented. "Tell your tale."

"Molasius had those seven miscreants buried, and he took from their
unhallowed necks and from their lewd arms and from their unblessed
weapons