r admitted.

"Then I need not be more careful than usual," Art replied, and he made
his move.

"It is a move of banishment," said Cromdes.

"As I will not banish myself, I suppose my father will do it, but I do
not know why he should."

"Your father will not banish you."

"Who then?" "Your mother."

"My mother is dead."

"You have a new one," said the magician.

"Here is news," said Art. "I think I shall not love my new mother."

"You will yet love her better than she loves you," said Cromdes, meaning
thereby that they would hate each other.

While they spoke the king and Becuma entered the palace.

"I had better go to greet my father," said the young man.

"You had better wait until he sends for you," his companion advised, and
they returned to their game.

In due time a messenger came from the king directing Art to leave Tara
instantly, and to leave Ireland for one full year.

He left Tara that night, and for the space of a year he was not seen
again in Ireland. But during that period things did not go well with the
king nor with Ireland. Every year before that time three crops of corn
used to be lifted off the land, but during Art's absence there was no
corn in Ireland and there was no milk. The whole land went hungry.

Lean people were in every house, lean cattle in every field; the bushes
did not swing out their timely berries or seasonable nuts; the bees went
abroad as busily as ever, but each night they returned languidly, with
empty pouches, and there was no honey in their hives when the honey
season came. People began to look at each other questioningly,
meaningly, and dark remarks passed between them, for they knew that a
bad harvest means, somehow, a bad king, and, although this belief can be
combated, it is too firmly rooted in wisdom to be dismissed.

The poets and magicians met to consider why this disaster should have
befallen the country and by their arts they discovered the truth about
the king's wife, and that she was Becuma of the White Skin, and they
discovered also the cause of her banishment from the Many-Coloured Land
that is beyond the sea, which is beyond even the grave.

They told the truth to the king, but he could not bear to be parted from
that slender-handed, gold-haired, thin-lipped, blithe enchantress, and
he required them to discover some means whereby he might retain his wife
and his crown. There was a way and the magicians told him of it.

"If the son of a sinless