om this minute out."

"Come on, my love," said Fionn, "for I must find out if these whiskers
are true."

He strode resolutely into the cave. He pushed the branches of holly
aside and marched up to Conaran's daughters, with Cona'n behind him.

CHAPTER IV

The instant they passed the holly a strange weakness came over the
heroes. Their fists seemed to grow heavy as lead, and went dingle-dangle
at the ends of their arms; their legs became as light as straws and
began to bend in and out; their necks became too delicate to hold
anything up, so that their heads wibbled and wobbled from side to side.

"What's wrong at all?" said Cona'n, as he tumbled to the ground.

"Everything is," Fionn replied, and he tumbled beside him.

The three sisters then tied the heroes with every kind of loop and twist
and knot that could be thought of.

"Those are whiskers!" said Fionn.

"Alas!" said Conan.

"What a place you must hunt whiskers in?" he mumbled savagely. "Who
wants whiskers?" he groaned.

But Fionn was thinking of other things.

"If there was any way of warning the Fianna not to come here," Fionn
murmured.

"There is no way, my darling," said Caevo'g, and she smiled a smile that
would have killed Fionn, only that he shut his eyes in time.

After a moment he murmured again:

"Cona'n, my dear love, give the warning whistle so that the Fianna will
keep out of this place."

A little whoof, like the sound that would be made by a baby and it
asleep, came from Cona'n.

"Fionn," said he, "there isn't a whistle in me. We are done for," said
he.

"You are done for, indeed," said Cuillen, and she smiled a hairy and
twisty and fangy smile that almost finished Cona'n.

By that time some of the Fianna had returned to the mound to see why
Bran and Sceo'lan were barking so outrageously. They saw the cave and
went into it, but no sooner had they passed the holly branches than
their strength went from them, and they were seized and bound by the
vicious hags. Little by little all the members of the Fianna returned to
the hill, and each of them was drawn into the cave, and each was bound
by the sisters.

Oisi'n and Oscar and mac Lugac came, with the nobles of clann-Baiscne,
and with those of clann-Corcoran and clann-Smo'l; they all came, and
they were all bound.

It was a wonderful sight and a great deed this binding of the Fianna,
and the three sisters laughed with a joy that was terrible to hear and
was almost death t