ann any more.

To her eye and to the eye of her maid the world was as it always had
been, and the landmarks they knew were about them. But the object for
which they were travelling was different, although unknown, and the
people they passed on the roads were unknown, and were yet people that
they knew.

They set out southwards from Tara into the Duffry of Leinster, and after
some time they came into wild country and went astray. At last Becfola
halted, saying:

"I do not know where we are."

The maid replied that she also did not know.

"Yet," said Becfola, "if we continue to walk straight on we shall arrive
somewhere."

They went on, and the maid watered the road with her tears.

Night drew on them; a grey chill, a grey silence, and they were
enveloped in that chill and silence; and they began to go in expectation
and terror, for they both knew and did not know that which they were
bound for.

As they toiled desolately up the rustling and whispering side of a
low hill the maid chanced to look back, and when she looked back she
screamed and pointed, and clung to Becfola's arm. Becfola followed the
pointing finger, and saw below a large black mass that moved jerkily
forward.

"Wolves!" cried the maid. "Run to the trees yonder," her mistress
ordered. "We will climb them and sit among the branches."

They ran then, the maid moaning and lamenting all the while.

"I cannot climb a tree," she sobbed, "I shall be eaten by the wolves."

And that was true.

But her mistress climbed a tree, and drew by a hand's breadth from the
rap and snap and slaver of those steel jaws. Then, sitting on a branch,
she looked with angry woe at the straining and snarling horde below,
seeing many a white fang in those grinning jowls, and the smouldering,
red blink of those leaping and prowling eyes.

CHAPTER III

But after some time the moon arose and the wolves went away, for their
leader, a sagacious and crafty chief, declared that as long as they
remained where they were, the lady would remain where she was; and so,
with a hearty curse on trees, the troop departed. Becfola had pains in
her legs from the way she had wrapped them about the branch, but there
was no part of her that did not ache, for a lady does not sit with any
ease upon a tree.

For some time she did not care to come down from the branch. "Those
wolves may return," she said, "for their chief is crafty and sagacious,
and it is certain, from the look I caug