Page:The Celtic Review volume 3.djvu/194

Rh black, sleek-piled, long-horned giant from his confinement to do battle. She stood at a short distance while her favourite grazed quietly by the brink of the lake. He was not long engaged in this peaceful pastime when he was disturbed by a commotion of the waters beside him. Nic Leoid no sooner observed him begin to exhibit signs of fury than she commenced to urge him on, as she knew well how to do. As the enemy was emerging out of the water covered with weeds and mud, the champion, unaccustomed as he was to the sight of any living creature except that of his nurse, as Nic Leoid might be called, began to tear up the ground with his hoofs and horns and to utter fearful roarings and bellowings. The combat was not long in commencing—a combat not to be described. The marks of it are to be traced upon the ground on the margin of the lake till this day. For a long time victory could not be observed to incline to either side. At length signs of exhaustion began to betray themselves in both, and the Each-Uisge, cunning by nature and finding that he had met with too powerful an antagonist, was seen to begin a retrograde movement towards the element which was natural to him. This seemed to inspire additional courage in the bull, who followed him closely, but, unfortunately for himself, followed him too far. By this stratagem the Each-Uisge got upon vantage ground. He was at home in his own element, but the bull was out of his. The combat raged, however, with the greatest fury. They so dashed the water about and raised it in such splashes into the air that they could only be seen occasionally, and at last they disappeared altogether. For a short while, however, the water was in the most awful commotion, an occasional glimpse of a foot or a horn appearing for an instant above the troubled waters until, after the whole lake had been turned into one thick mixture of mud, sand, and weeds, all became silent, and it was evident that all was over. Nothing more was seen of either the bull or the Each-Uisge. A pair of lungs floated ashore the following day; but they were so mangled that it could not be conjectured whether they belonged to the bull or not.