who was still sitting on
the spike, and was not half dead, "it was Mongan."

"Why did you let him near you?" said the king to Duv Laca.

"There is no one has a better right to be near me than Mongan has," said
Duv Laca, "he is my own husband," said she.

And then the king cried out in dismay: "I have beaten Tibraide''s
people." He rushed from the room.

"Send for Tibraide' till I apologise," he cried. "Tell him it was all a
mistake. Tell him it was Mongan."

CHAPTER XVIII

Mongan and his servant went home, and (for what pleasure is greater than
that of memory exercised in conversation?) for a time the feeling of an
adventure well accomplished kept him in some contentment. But at the
end of a time that pleasure was worn out, and Mongan grew at first
dispirited and then sullen, and after that as ill as he had been on the
previous occasion. For he could not forget Duv Laca of the White Hand,
and he could not remember her without longing and despair.

It was in the illness which comes from longing and despair that he sat
one day looking on a world that was black although the sun shone, and
that was lean and unwholesome although autumn fruits were heavy on the
earth and the joys of harvest were about him.

"Winter is in my heart," quoth he, "and I am cold already."

He thought too that some day he would die, and the thought was not
unpleasant, for one half of his life was away in the territories of the
King of Leinster, and the half that he kept in himself had no spice in
it.

He was thinking in this way when mac an Da'v came towards him over the
lawn, and he noticed that mac an Da'v was walking like an old man.

He took little slow steps, and he did not loosen his knees when he
walked, so he went stiffly. One of his feet turned pitifully outwards,
and the other turned lamentably in. His chest was pulled inwards, and
his head was stuck outwards and hung down in the place where his chest
should have been, and his arms were crooked in front of him with the
hands turned wrongly, so that one palm was shown to the east of the
world and the other one was turned to the west.

"How goes it, mac an Da'v?" said the king.

"Bad," said mac an Da'v.

"Is that the sun I see shining, my friend?" the king asked.

"It may be the sun," replied mac an Da'v, peering curiously at the
golden radiance that dozed about them, "but maybe it's a yellow fog."

"What is life at all?" said the king.

"It is a weariness and a tire