“I will watch for you to-morrow,” said Dyeermud to himself; so he waited near the spring until morning.
The gruagach stood before him next day more threatening to look at than ever, and said, “It seems you hadn’t fighting enough from me yesterday.”
“I told you that I would not go,” answered Dyeermud, “till I had knocked satisfaction out of you for your ugly speech.”
They went at each other then, and fought fiercely till very near evening. Dyeermud watched the spring closely, and when the gruagach leaped in, he was with him. In the side of the spring was a passage; the two walked through that passage, and came out in a kingdom where there was a grand castle, and seven men at each side of the door. When Dyeermud went toward the castle, the fourteen rushed against him. He slew these, and all others who faced him till nightfall. He would not enter the castle, but stretched himself on the ground, and fell fast asleep. Soon a champion came, tapped him lightly with a sword, and said, “Rise now, and speak to me.”
Dyeermud sprang up, and grasped his sword.
“I am not an enemy, but a friend,” said the champion. “It is not proper for you to be sleeping in the midst of your enemies. Come to my castle; I will entertain you, and give you good keeping.”
Dyeermud went with the stranger; and they became faithful friends. “The king of this country, which is called Tir Fohin [Land Under the Wave], is my brother,” said the champion. “The kingdom is rightfully mine, and ’tis I that should be King of Tir Fohin; but my brother corrupted my warriors with promises, so that all except thirty men of them left me.”
This champion was called the Knight of Valor. Dyeermud told this knight his whole story,—told of the Hard Gilla, and his long-legged, scrawny, thin-maned, ugly old horse.
“I am the man,” said the knight, “that will find out the Hard Gilla for you. That Gilla is the best swordsman and champion in this land, and the greatest enchanter. Your men, brought away by him, are as safe and as sound as when they left Erin. He is a good friend of mine.”