III.
Dermot was asleep when Finn sounded the horn but the last note of it waked him. He sprang to his feet with a mighty bound that sent showers of rocks and dirt in every direction.
“Great is the trouble of my chief!” he exclaimed. “I have never heard such a blast from his horn.”
He rushed to the shore, found a small boat lying there, hoisted the sail and set off in the direction from whence the sound had come. He was lucky enough to arrive at the same harbor in which was anchored the ship on which Finn had been taken away. Dermot anchored his boat and started up the broad road.
As he went along he found men, women and children hastening in the same direction with all the speed at their command. He asked several of them the reason for their hurry, but all seemed too excited to answer him. Finally Dermot grew angry, so singling out one man who seemed to be in greater haste than the rest, he picked him up and held him off the ground while he repeated his question.
The man was greatly frightened, you may believe, for Dermot was taller and broader than any man of the White Nation and must have seemed quite like a giant to his captive. The man suddenly became very anxious to explain.
“You must not belong to this country, if you do not know where we are going,” he said.
“I am not from this country,” answered Dermot. “I am from Erin.”
“If that is so, you must know Finn MacCool,” said the man.
“I know him well. He is my chief,” replied Dermot.
“Then you had better tell no one that you are from Erin,” said the man. “If you do, you are likely to share the same fate. Finn is to be hanged in the palace courtyard today. The gallows is ready. When he is dead, his body is to be pulled to pieces by wild horses. You had better not acknowledge that you know him.”
Dermot set the fellow on his feet again. The fierce look in his eyes caused the man to step back.
“If you were not so small,” thundered Dermot, “you would never give such advice to another man. Men from Erin never fail to acknowledge their friends. Show me the way to the palace.”
“If you will go up the hill on your right, you can see it in the valley below,” directed the man. He lost no time in getting a safe distance from this mighty stranger. He was so frightened that instead of going on to the hanging, he turned around and made for his home as fast as he could. In the whole White Nation he was the only man traveling away from the palace.
Dermot bounded up the hill with mighty strides. When on top he looked in the direction of the hurrying people. Sure enough, there was the castle with crowds spread out all around it. Dermot dashed down the hill at full speed.
People were crowded so closely together that no ordinary man could possibly have squeezed through them. Each man was elbowing his neighbor so that he might get close enough to see the death of this great Fenian chief. Dermot could have cut his way through with his sword, but it was one of the rules of the Fenians not to harm the common people of a nation. He cleared his way by taking several in his right hand and several in his left and putting them behind him. Then he stepped into the opening and repeated the process until he reached the courtyard. He walked past the gallows and up to the pole of combat before the palace. This he struck a mighty blow with his sword.
The king came to his window and looked out in alarm.
“Who struck that blow?” he asked. “It must have been an enemy.”
If the trouble had not been so serious, Dermot might have laughed at this silly remark. But he was in no humor for laughter.
“If that sounded like the blow of a friend,” he said, “listen to this.”
Once more he swung his sword against the pole. This time his blow was so strong that the pole broke into splinters, which showered over the heads of the people.
“What do you want?” whined the king, who was, and always had been, a fearful coward.
“I want to see my chief, Finn MacCool, or to fight for him,” announced Dermot.
“See him you shall not,” declared the king, keeping well in the protection of his castle. “You are at liberty to fight for him.”
“Very well,” answered Dermot. “Send out seven hundred of your best men on my right hand, seven hundred on my left, seven hundred at my back and as many as you wish in front of me.”
“How many?” demanded the startled king, drawing still further back into his palace.
Dermot repeated his demand. You must remember that Dermot was the son of a god and could not be wounded. It is no wonder the king thought he had misunderstood. It was too good a chance to let go by. The king sent out the men requested, feeling sure that he would soon be rid of this fellow, who had made splinters of the combat pole.
But the king’s men were no match for Dermot even when they pressed against him in such numbers. By nightfall not a man had touched him while hundreds of the warriors of the White Nation were wounded or dead. With the setting of the sun, Dermot put up his sword and called out to the king,
“Do I get shelter for the night?”
It was customary in those days to stop fighting when the sun went down. It was also the custom to furnish food and a bed to a hero who was making a trial at arms. The king pointed to a long, low house a short distance from the courtyard.
“Go in there,” he called. “You are welcome to what shelter you find.”