and behind it, the old baronial castle, time-honored home of the O'Briens, glorious in the red lustre of the dying sunset. The banner of the king waved high above its topmost tower; and higher, higher yet, above the banner-staff and glittering blazonry-above the misty pinnacles of the huge hill-yea! and almost above the golden clouds, which hovered like a glory round its peak, there soared on balanced wings, distinctly seen, although so far aloof against the glowing sky, a solitary eagle. O'Brien's quick eye caught it on the instant, and pointing upward with his right hand, a proud gesture, and a flashing eye, as the majestic bird rose higher yet and higher, he exclaimed, as if in allusion to the last words of O'Neil: "Is that too an omen ?" Even as he spoke, the sun sank behind the western hill, the royal banner fluttered for an instant, and was slowly lowered, while the evening gun boomed from the battlements; and in that very point of time the eagle swooped, plunged like an arrow downward through pure air and cold grey mist, and was lost to the sight in less than a second, amid the purple shadows which enwrapped the colossal outlines of Slievh Buy. Alas! for the self-deceiving heart of man!—whether of these two was the omen-whether the lie of the false prophet! No word more spake O'Brien. Perhaps the contrast touched his imaginative mind. He gave his horse the spur, and galloped down into the smooth valley at the top of his pace, followed by all his train, eager to gain the castle, or ere the last glimpse of daylight should desert them. CHAPTER IV. "A perfect woman nobly planned, WORDSWORTH. THE sun had long set before the little cavalcade, crossing the valley and the broad river by the old stone bridge, arrived at the base of the main mountain of Slievh-Buy. After passing the great stream, two several glens, each with its foaming tributary, had been traversed; and now a third, darker, deeper, and more difficult than any which had yet been encountered; and as they descended into its black and abrupt ravine, the waning light which was fast fading in the western sky deserted them entirely, and it was only by the deep and angry roar of waters that they could judge of the force and volume of the torrent into which they were about to plunge. The road leading downward into this darksome gulf was scarped and hewn by the pick and chisel, out of the solid rock which walled the chasm, and descended by three steep traverses from the summit of the crags to the level of the stream; but its soil, which was evidently artificial, was soft though firm, and afforded a good foot-hold to the hoofs of the active and surefooted Irish horses. As they rode down into the lower gloom, it grew not only palpably obscure at every step, but so damp and cold from the thick mist-wreaths and spray of the torrent, that O'Neil's teeth chattered audibly in his jaws, and his hand shivered, so that he could scarcely hold his horse. They reached the bottom, and a broad black pool lay before them, with a few wreaths of foam floating round and round in its whirling eddies, and embossing its dark surface, like spume flakes on the glossy hide of a coal-black charger; while at a short distance upward, to the right hand, stood erect, though wavering to and fro in the darkness, and momently changing its aspect, what looked at first like a gigantic sheeted phantom, but what was in reality the great descending column of the mountain cataract, whose roar they had heard for the last half-hour. Downward to the left hand, nothing could be perceived, but the salient angles of the perpendicular walls of the ravine -their bases lost in the blackness of what seemed a fathomless abyss, whence rose the hoarse voice of the tortured river raving in impotent rage against the obstacles which barred its headlong way. Even by day it was a fearful pass; at night it was most perilous; and unable to judge the depth of the sullen forward, or even to distinguish the mouth of the mountain road on the farther brink, he must have been a rash and reckless man who would have attempted to ride it at that hour, and in that fading light. Dermot O'Brien himself, to whom every turn and pass in those hills was familiar from his boyhood, drew his rein doubtfully, and paused at the brink of the ford; until one or two of the kernes, who had ridden in the rear with the hounds, dismounted, and came running down the road to the master's stirrup. "Torlogh," said he, addressing the first comer, a wild, shockheaded varlet, having his hair hanging in glibbes or knotted elf-locks over his shoulders—and wearing the old national costume of the shirt of saffron-dyed linen, with a coarse scarf or mantle of green woollen stuff above it-" Torlogh, the waters are up, I think, since morning. There must have been rain in the hills since we crossed at daybreak. I cannot see the guidestone on the other side, and I doubt it is not passable !" He spoke in the Erse tongue, and in the same his vassal answered him, in a few brief accents, during the utterance of which, he cast off his cloak and his brogues of untanned hide, and made himself ready to plunge into the stream. O'Brien remonstrated and half forbade him, but the wild vassal would hear no denial, but stepped fearlessly into the water, which, before he was ten feet distant from the bank, took him up nearly to the arm-pits. "It has risen!" he exclaimed. very strong-it is Hold back, my lord, it is But ere he had completed the sentence, he was swept off his legs by the force of the stream, and whirled down the channel, striking out powerfully, and swimming high and strongly, till they lost sight of him in the deep shadows. "Come back!" shouted O'Brien, greatly moved at his peril. "Come back, I command you, Torlogh! You were insane to try it and I scarce less so to permit the trial. Come back, I say! I will not have head-and you my foster brother!” blood on my your But the other man, who had accompanied Torlogh to the brink, and had been carefully examining the state of the water, now raised his voice and shouted as loudly as he could: "Hold over, Torlogh, boy-hold over!" Four stout strokes more will stem it!" And then turning to the earl, who was not 'well pleased at hearing his orders countermanded thus,-" To turn back would be sure death, if it please you!" he said. "Before he could face the eddy he would be swept over the black boar's back, and plunged into the hell-kettle, down below there! The current is strongest on this bank, and will set him over!" The earl made no reply; but his heart was very full, and his anxiety was almost irrepressible; for the man was a favorite, both as a faithful and favored follower, and as the son of the woman by whom he had been himself nursed-a connection which was considered at that time, and in that country, as second only to a close blood relationship. To all it was a minute of extreme and torturing suspense, and every one listened as if his life depended on his ears, for the least sign that should tell of the swimmer's whereabout. It was but a minute, however; for the stream was not twenty-five yards over, although the peculiarity of its scenery, the indis tinctness of the light, and the exaggerated idea of its importance derived from its arrowy rush, and deep melancholy roar, caused the bystanders-even those who knew the placeto over-estimate the time, and perhaps the peril. Within a minute, however, a wild, cheery shout was raised on the other verge, announcing the safe landing of the hardy clansman, at a point some twenty or thirty paces lower down the stream than that where they stood, and a second or two afterwards, a bright spark of light was seen opposite, and then a clear glancing blaze as he kindled a splinter of dry bog pinestores of which lay piled in the clefts of the ravine-and waved it above his head. "Here is the white mark stone!" he shouted, "but its head only is above the foam. Tarry, awhile, and stir not for your lives, until I light a beacon up that shall guide you. I think too," he added, "that the stream is lowering even now." "That is good counsel, anywise!" said the old man who had shouted before, and who was no other than the O'Brien's chief huntsman, and Torlogh's paternal uncle. "He will soon build a pile of bog pine, that will make the pass as light as noonday; and the stream is lowering too, for a certainty. It has shrunk half a foot since I stood here. Look you, my lord !—this black stone was covered but now!"—and with the word he struck the massy top of a black boulder with his hunting pole," and now the water is six inches below it!" By this time the light on the farther shore began to increase in size and volume, and to send up long wavering gleams which kindled all the fantastic crags, and the wreathed roots of the old fir trees, which grasped their flanks in coils like those of giant serpents, and showed the dark figure of the clansman flitting about his pyre, collecting fuel, and heaping it with an unsparing hand, until the strong glow rushed up, roaring and shooting out strange rocket-like jets of flame, and bright flakes of fire among the volumes of white smoke. Then a broad wake of light furrowed the ripples of the stream to the yery |