“‘Therefore I will cry aloud with sorrow and grief. Oh, most goodly, well-beloved brothers and sons, whom I have begotten in Christ, what shall I do for you?’ Listen, beloved!” the priest interposed in words of his own, “if there be any of you within hearing, Patrick weeps for you as his brothers and sisters and sons. ‘What shall I do for you?’ he says. ‘It is written, “Weep with them that do weep;” and again, “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.” The Church weeps and laments her sons and daughters whom the sword of the enemy has not slain, but who have been carried away to far-off lands. These Christian free-men are sold and reduced to slavery. A crime has been committed which is horrible and unspeakable. I grieve, my well-beloved, for you and for myself. But at the same time I rejoice that I have not laboured in vain, and that my pilgrimage has not been in vain. Thanks be to God, ye, O believers and baptized ones, have departed from the world to Paradise. I behold you. Ye have begun your journey to that region where there shall be no night, nor sorrow, nor death any more. Ye therefore shall reign with the apostles and martyrs, and shall receive an everlasting kingdom.’” Then the priest’s voice grew stern again. “‘But where shall they find themselves who distribute among their depraved followers, baptized women and captive orphans, for the sake of a wretched earthly kingdom which passes away in a moment like a cloud, or like smoke scattered by the wind?’” Then his voice changed once more to a tone of appeal. “‘But oh that God would inspire them, that at some time they might return unto Him! They have murdered the brothers of the Lord. But let them repent and release the baptized women whom they have already taken captive, that so they may be worthy to live to God, and be made whole here and for eternity.’” Then with the invocation of the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the voice of Patrick’s ambassador ceased.
An angry murmur rose in the cave, and then there were mocking cries, and spears were pointed at the priest. No captives were allowed to be seen, and at last he turned sorrowfully away. But the message had reached three hearts that were in sore need of it.
“Patrick cares for us! he calls us his brothers and sisters. He is our shepherd, our brother, our father!” said Ethne.
“Patrick also was once a captive and a slave!” murmured Baithene.
“And Patrick,” Ethne replied, “has lived to serve and to liberate those who enslaved him, and to be their saviour and friend, like his Lord.”
And before the sun of that Sunday night had set, their friend the sailor Dewi contrived to get near them, as they strayed with the deer-hound along the little inner cove, now reduced by the high tide to a narrow strip of sand.
“The voice of Patrick has reached one at least of those it was meant to reach,” Dewi said, in a low, tremulous voice. “One of us at least repents at last. Never again will Dewi help to rob and murder the brothers and sisters of Patrick, and of our Lord Christ. Children,” he concluded, “what can I do for you?”
“What can any one do for us?” said Baithene, despondingly.
But Ethne took the sailor’s rough hands and clasped them in her own.
“You can do this for us,” she said, “the best service any can render us now. Go back to Ireland and tell our people, tell Patrick the bishop, we are alive! And find our father, Conan, chief of the O’Neills, and our mother, if they are still alive, and tell them about us.”