O’Niall; but their smiles are dangerous lights to young warriors. Dost thou not remember the tale that Lurgha hath sung to thee, of how thy forefather, Cealchan, the bravest young chieftain of his day, was entrapped and betrayed by the wiles of a Danish maiden? Dost thou not remember”—his temper rising at the recollection—“that this same maiden’s favor cost Cealchan such degradation as rarely an Irish knight hath been called upon to endure? When he ventured too near to win the Danish maiden, she betrayed him to her countrymen in Dublin. Ah! he was a brave youth, thy kinsman Cealchan, but his promise was blighted for a maiden’s smile!”
“Blighted, my father?” exclaimed the young man, with the reckless energy of five and twenty, and the fervor of a sentiment that last year’s gazing into Gyda’s blue eyes had awakened. “Was there ever a nobler fight than our Munster chieftains fought to rescue Cealchan from the ship of the Danes? The sight of him lashed to the mast before their eyes gave such strength to their arms that the Danes could not withstand them, even had they been led, as they say they are, by their war god, Odin. And did not a woman, our own Irish princess, through the wife of Sitric the Dane, did she not, my father, warn Cealchan and seek to rescue him?”
“True! true!” replied the older man, and was unwilling to argue further.
They were entering the city. Crossing the River
