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 off Crookhaven and the Cape, which in those lawless waters might signify nothing friendly. Has the country been more quiet and better ordered in these later times?"

"It has never been more undisturbed than at this moment," replied Turlogh, stealing another furtive glance backward at the priests. They smiled grimly at him, and nodded their heads.

The Bishop had closed his eyes, and his head drooped again upon his breast. Thus he passed unheeding through the broken postern, and saw nothing of the blackened havoc inside, where once the pleasant grassy bawn had been.

In the castle urgent shift had been made to render certain lower rooms once more habitable. The Bishop, when the tired men placed him upon the chair drawn forth with cushions by his servants, lacked the will to look about him. Turlogh, standing behind those who bore the lights, gazed, marvelling, at the huge girth of the man, whose trunk strained to bursting the black robe with purple buttons in which it was encased. The swollen face, hanging in the shadow, was more a death's head than ever. Still he held the casket upon his knees. The priest signed to Turlogh to go out, and he did so. When he sent his physician to them, they more curtly bade him also to leave them.

When the morrow came, no one in Dunbeekin found it strange that the Bishop did not set forth on his journey. The most simple had seen death writ large upon him. The story that he knew nothing of the terrible devastation that had swept the land bare, passed vaguely from mouth to mouth. It was not easy to understand that so lofty and pious an ecclesiastic, standing at the head of all men in the South for learning, should be in darkness in this matter, which was known to the very horse-boys. They dwelt curiously upon the thought of him—the high prelate with the marvellous relic, coming to shattered and spoilt Dunbeekin to die,