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 "You have come at the right time, Diarmuid," said Fionn; "in another few hours we should all have been searching for you. But who are the people with you, and tell me have you any news of your comrades?"

"I have news, O chief, and it was told me by this Druid, who by his magic art has discovered where the Fians are. The man who carried them off—he who called himself the Gilla Decair—is Abartach, a prince in the Land of Promise; and how you will get them away from that country I do not know," said Diarmuid.

Fionn sat still, pondering what course to pursue now, then suddenly he rose up from the banquet, and went to a lonely place in a wood near by, where in secrecy and with words of power he invoked the aid of Manannan, supreme lord of the Hidden Lands in the western sea. When he had ended his invocation he heard a sound like the rumbling of sea-waves in hollow places, and a shimmering many-coloured mist gathered about him; then in the midst of this mist the sea-god, covered with a blue mantle, in which glittered a myriad