ight from overhead his face stood out in all its ghastly
pallor, accentuated by the dead black hair and mustache. But his eyes
were burning strangely, and when they saw it the men drew back, and more
than one sought the outer chill in preference to staying.

Now O'Donnell Dubh stared into the embers and muttered below his breath,
while, as if in response, a little flickering whirlwind of gray ash rose
up and fell back again, so that it blew over the embers and deadened
them. The muscles of the Dark Master's face contracted until his teeth
flashed out in a silent snarl.

"I could have slain, and I did not," he whispered as if to himself. "But
there is still time, and I will not be a fool again!"

The watching men shivered, for it seemed that the wind scurried down the
wide chimney and again blew up the gray ash until the embers glowed
through a white coating. But the wind wrought more than this, for it
brought down from the gray clouds a whispering murmur that drifted
through the hall, and in that murmur were mingled the sounds of beating
hoofs and ringing steel and shrieking men.

"Are watchers posted over the hills and the paths and the Galway roads?"
spoke out the Dark Master as he gazed into the ashes.

"They are watching, master," answered a deep voice from the darkness.

Suddenly the wolfhound raised its head and stared into the ashes also,
as if it saw something there that no man saw, for the bristles lifted on
its neck, and it whined a little. O'Donnell dropped his hand to the thin
muzzle, and the dog was quiet again. But after that the men stared at
the fireplace with frightened eyes.

"There is still time, though one has escaped me," said the Dark Master,
looking up suddenly at his sightless harper, who seemed to fall
atrembling beneath the look. "The one who has escaped matters not, for
his bane comes not at my hands. It is the other whom I shall slay--Brian
Buidh of the hard eyes. Then the Bird Daughter. But it seems to me that
one stands in my path of whom I do not know."

He brooded over the ashes as his head sank between his shoulders like a
turtle's head. Then once again the wind swooped down on the castle, and
whistled down the chimney, and filled the great hall with a thin noise
like the death-rattle of men. The cresset wavered and fell to smoking
overhead.

The Dark Master reached his hand across the table and caught the hand of
the blind harper and spread it out on the oak. A little shudder s