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16 . The rest of their retainers were scattered through the fair.

Eogan O’Niall was conscious of some one coming up beside him while he was watching the princess. Turning to his left he saw a man of most remarkable heroic beauty. The stranger, for such he seemed to be, was attended only by a young harper, whose instrument was of different fashion from that of the Irish bards. The new-comer was of about the age of Eogan, but he was of more stalwart build. While Eogan had the deep blue eyes and rich dark hair of the Celtic type, the stranger had the fair hair and grayer eyes of the Norsemen. Such he proved to be, when turning he saluted Eogan in Celtic with a strong Gothic inflection. The cloak over the stranger’s armor was of heavy, dark, almost black cloth, lined and edged with the fur of the red fox. Over his head, in lieu of helmet, he wore a hood of white beaver fur.

“Thou art of the North?” asked Logan, his greeting a little chilled by the thought of the stranger’s nationality.

“I am, Sir Chief,” the Norseman answered, looking at the red-wreathed shield and helmet that proclaimed Eogan’s knighthood, “but I am not a Dane,” he added, as if glad to throw off that suspicion. “I am from Norway, the great North kingdom.”

“From Norway!” cried Eogan. “Then let me