“Nay, go to your bed also, sweet king,” said Lavarcham. “You shall rest to-night, for that bad dream is ended. You will be troubled no more. To-morrow will be a new day, and all that the world has is for the king.”
“It is so,” said Conachúr. “This will be the last of those nights. Go to your bed, good soul, and I shall go to mine in a moment.”
Lavarcham left the palace with her mind in a turmoil of weariness and fear, but with hope dawning in her soul. She sent secret runners to the men of Uisneac and to those of Fergus mac Roy, warning them that their chiefs were in urgent danger; and when she slept she was too happy even to remember what the king might do when he discovered her treachery. That memory would be for the morrow.
But the king did not sleep.
“I shall wait the report of that guard,” he said, “and then I will be able to sleep.”
The guard came moaning and limping.
“What ails you, man?” said the astonished king.
“Naoise,” the guard stammered. “He has knocked out my eye.”
He removed his hand from his face, and there was one eye there, and a bloody mess where the other should have been.