‘Then let it be now and without delay, or it may never be,’ and as Nathos uttered these words Deirdre saw a strange look in his eyes, and in a moment he had flung his javelin among the bracken but a few paces apart.
‘What beast wouldst thou slay?’ cried Deirdre, affrighted.
‘It was no beast,’ said Nathos, ‘but yonder among the bracken lieth a dead man, if my javelin missed not its mark.’
In fear and wonder Deirdre ran to the spot. No man lay there, but she saw on the bracken the form of a crouching man. She saw, too, the tracks that marked his escape.
Nathos followed her, and stooped to take his javelin from the ground. And there, beside it, lay a wooden-hilted knife.
‘It is as I thought,’ he said. ‘This knife is used but by the hillmen who are in bondage to Concobar. The King seeketh my life. Go thou, then, back to thy lonely cottage, and await that day when he shall make thee his Queen.’
‘Ask me not to turn from following thee, O Nathos, for thy way must be mine, this day and ever.’
‘Come, then,’ and Nathos took her by the hand.
Through the shadowy forest they walked swiftly, until of a sudden he bade her rest among the bracken. Then went he forward and told his waiting huntsmen to return by a long and winding path to the castle of the sons of Usna.
Three days would it thus take them to reach it, and Nathos with Deirdre would be there on the morrow, if, tarrying not, they walked on through the dark night. But Concobar’s messengers would follow the hounds, thinking so to capture Nathos.