Page:Shiana - Peadar Ua Laoghaire.djvu/153

Rh we passed you as we went down the fair-green? Pretending that you didn't notice us! You saw us right well. However cleverly you pretended not to look at us, I saw your baleful eye upon us. Why didn't you speak then? I had not given him my money then. What kept your mouth shut? You had your tongue loose enough when it was too late. It was as easy for you to speak at that time as it was for you to speak afterwards. Whatever infernal hold you have upon Cormac so that you need only give him a whisper to drive him out of his senses, it would have been as well for you to have given him then the whisper that you gave him afterwards, if you had wanted to do the business properly. But you didn't. You let the time go by until I had given away my money and the rogue was gone. No man of his own gang could have arranged the thing more neatly for him than you arranged it. Wherever he is now, he must be very much obliged to you. And people saying that you surpass all the world in shrewdness! Aye, indeed!"

While all this talk was going on, Shiana was standing opposite the pair, with his hands behind his back. He stood gazing over at the wall, so that you would think that he could see through the wall to something that was behind it. His eyes were wide open, and you would think to look at them that they saw some sight that no other human eyes could see. His features never moved, and he never moved a muscle of his limbs, but stood as still as if there were neither life nor breath in him.

When people saw him in that state of rapt meditation, they used to feel a kind of dread and fear of him. Sive looked at him. She fell silent, in spite