the load of two men in gold and silver treasure."

"Two men's load!" said Dermod thoughtfully.

"That much," said the lean cleric. "No more, no less. And he has sent us
to find out what part of that hellish treasure belongs to the Brothers
of Devenish and how much is the property of the king."

Becfola again broke in, speaking graciously, regally, hastily: "Let
those Brothers have the entire of the treasure, for it is Sunday
treasure, and as such it will bring no luck to any one."

The cleric again looked at her coldly, with a harsh-lidded, small-set,
grey-eyed glare, and waited for the king's reply.

Dermod pondered, shaking his head as to an argument on his left side,
and then nodding it again as to an argument on his right.

"It shall be done as this sweet queen advises. Let a reliquary be formed
with cunning workmanship of that gold and silver, dated with my date and
signed with my name, to be in memory of my grandmother who gave birth to
a lamb, to a salmon, and then to my father, the Ard-Ri'. And, as to the
treasure that remains over, a pastoral staff may be beaten from it in
honour of Molasius, the pious man."

"The story is not ended," said that glum, spike-chinned cleric.

The king moved with jovial impatience.

"If you continue it," he said, "it will surely come to an end some time.
A stone on a stone makes a house, dear heart, and a word on a word tells
a tale."

The cleric wrapped himself into himself, and became lean and menacing.
He whispered: "Besides the young man, named Flann, who was not slain,
there was another person present at the scene and the combat and the
transgression of Sunday."

"Who was that person?" said the alarmed monarch.

The cleric spiked forward his chin, and then butted forward his brow.

"It was the wife of the king," he shouted. "It was the woman called
Becfola. It was that woman," he roared, and he extended a lean,
inflexible, unending first finger at the queen.

"Dog!" the king stammered, starting up.

"If that be in truth a woman," the cleric screamed.

"What do you mean?" the king demanded in wrath and terror.

"Either she is a woman of this world to be punished, or she is a woman
of the Shi' to be banished, but this holy morning she was in the Shi',
and her arms were about the neck of Flann."

The king sank back in his chair stupefied, gazing from one to the other,
and then turned an unseeing, fear-dimmed eye towards Becfola.

"Is this true, my pulse?" he