Page:Shiana - Peadar Ua Laoghaire.djvu/254

240 consolation of heart, that he could have wished that neither he nor she should leave that place for ever. The longer and the more intently he looked, the more the brow became brighter, and the eyes nobler and more loving, and the mouth sweeter and gentler and more smiling, and her face shone with increasing light, and inspired increasing joy and increasing gladness, as she seemed to be just going to open her mouth to speak to him: until he thought his heart was going out of his breast to her, by the intensity of his happiness and bliss, and love for her.

At last she spoke.

"He is coming to you, Shiana!" said she. "The enemy is almost close to you," said she. And if it was a great gladness and delight to look at her beautiful, noble countenance, even greater was the gladness and delight of listening to the sound of her speech.

Shiana had not a care in the world as to who was coming to him or where the enemy was, so long as he was looking up at her, and listening to her, with her hand upon his head, and, to crown all the happiness, realising in his own mind that it was through regard and sympathy and love for himself that she had come to him and had appeared to him.

"Shiana," said she, "the foe is coming to you, full of rage and malice. Your foe is coming to take vengeance upon you for all the evil you have inflicted upon him during those thirteen years. To-morrow night he will come. He has made a slight mistake. He thinks that it is at midnight to-morrow night the time will be spent. The time will not be spent for four hours after that. The bargain was, under the