“I will not go,” said Blaiman. “I will not leave you where you are; and now keep the window open.”
He stepped back some paces, and went in with one bound through the window, when it came around the second time.
While Hung Up Naked was tied to the tree, the tributes of his kingdom remained uncollected; and when he had the woman he wanted safe in his castle, he went to collect the tributes. She had laid an injunction on him to leave her in freedom for a day and a year. She knew when he would be returning; and when that time was near she hid Blaiman.
“Good, good!” cried Hung Up Naked, when he came. “I smell on this little sod of truth that a man from Erin is here.”
“How could a man from Erin be here?” asked Blaiman’s wife. “The only person from Erin in this place is a robin. I threw a fork at him. There is a drop of blood on the fork now; that is what you smell on the little sod.”
“That may be,” said Hung Up Naked.
Blaiman and the wife were planning to destroy Hung Up Naked; but no one had knowledge how to kill him. At last they made a plan to come at the knowledge.
“It is a wonder,” said the woman to Hung Up Naked, “that a great man like yourself should go travelling alone; my father always takes guards with him.”
“I need no guards; no one can kill me.”