Page:Shiana - Peadar Ua Laoghaire.djvu/269

Rh "Patience, patience!" said Shiana. "There is nothing better than patience. 'Patience conquers fate.'"

"Oh!" said the Black Man, wriggling and grunting, "this fate beats all the patience that was ever practised. This fate belies the proverb. Let me go from you, Shiana, and I will not come until the right time."

"Yes, and you will come then!" said Shiana. "I am in no such hurry. You will go soon enough for me. The time you will spend in that nice soogaun chair is not going into the account between us. Whatever is wanting of the thirteen years, that want will not become less until you leave that place. If I wished to keep you there for ever, the end of the time would not come for ever."

"Right well you know," said the Black Man, "that if you were to consent to that wish, you would have broken the contract at once, and that I would have the same grip of you then that you have of me now."

"I need not consent to it, and at the same time I need not be in too great a hurry about letting you go. If it were you that had the upper hand and an opportunity of using those claws upon me, you would let me go, wouldn't you? You would, indeed!" said Shiana, and he drew a chair to him and sat down in it, opposite the Black Man.

"How long will you keep me here?" said the Black Man, looking as if he were at the last gasp.

"Answer, you, a few questions for me first," said Shiana, calmly and quietly.

"Ask me them! Ask me them!" said the Black Man.