passed and not the slightest movement stirred it.
From time to time he made up his fire afresh, and turned his pig from
side to side. The whole air around grew full of the smell of roasting
meat, so savory that, being hungry, it made Dermot's own mouth water;
but still--there lay the lough, quiet and smooth, and undisturbed as
glass, with only the dark shadows of the silent rocks lying across it.

At last the pig was cooked and ready, and Dermot rose and drew it from
the fire.

"I may as well make my own dinner off it," he thought sorrowfully to
himself, "for nobody else will come to have a share of it." So he took
his knife and cut himself a juicy slice, and sat down again, concealing
himself behind the rock, with his bow and arrow by his side, and had
just lifted the first morsel to his lips, when--

Down fell the untasted meat upon the ground, and his heart leaped to his
lips, for surely something at last was stirring the waters! The oily
surface had broken into circles; there was a movement, a little splash,
a sudden vision of something black. A moment or two he sat breathlessly
gazing; and then--was he asleep, or was he waking, and really saw
it?--he saw above the water a black cat's head. Black head, black paws
put out to swim, black back, black tail.

Dermot took his bow up in his hand, and tried to fit an arrow to it; but
his hand shook, and for a few moments he could not draw. Slowly the
creature swam to the water's edge, and, reaching it, planted its feet
upon the earth, and looked warily, with green, watchful eye, all round;
then, shaking itself--and the water seemed to glide off its black fur as
off a duck's back--it licked its lips, and, giving one great sweep into
the air, it bounded forward to where the roasted pig was smoking on the
ground. For a moment Dermot saw it, with its tail high in the air and
its tongue stretched out to lick the crackling; and then, sharp and
sure, whiz! went an arrow from his bow; and the next moment, stretched
flat upon the ground, after one great dismal howl, lay the man-cat, or
cat-man, with an arrow in his heart.

Dermot sprang to his feet, and, rushing to the creature's side, caught
him by the throat; but he was dead already; only the great, wide-opened,
green, fierce eyes seemed to shoot out an almost human look of hatred
and despair, before they closed forever. The young chieftain took up the
beast, looked at it, and with all his might flung it from him into the
lou