"Then you'll not catch it at all now, for he has dived into the wood through which the road runs."
"Was it a single person?"—"Yes."
"Then we have nothing to care for; so don't interrupt me in my dream again."
"Go on with it," said the other.
"Well; we were sitting, as I said, at the bridal feast, when, turning to speak to my father, the fiery eyes of one I hope never to see again were glaring on me, and my father was gone; and fierce men, with gleaming weapons waving above their heads, surrounded him to whom I had just pledged my troth, and bore him, in spite of his struggles and my screams, away: leaving me to the mercy of the spoiler, who straight, methought, started up with the intent of dragging me to the couch which had been prepared for another!"
"Do you mark," interrupted the friend, "as you increase in loudness, the echoes waken? I heard the last word repeated as distinctly as you yourself uttered it. But go on. Yet beware these echoes; they may be tell-tales. What followed?"
"Oh, what harrows my soul even now! Thither, where I told you, did he try to force me, struggling with all my might to resist him. I called on my father,—I called on my bridegroom,—I called on every one I could think of; but no one came to me, and fast we approached the door, on the threshold of which to have died, I thought in my dream, would be bliss to the horror of crossing it, and there at last we stood: but it was shut. Yet soon it moved; and who think you it was that opened it? Niall!—Niall himself! and no resistance did he offer to him that forced me onward,—none, though I called to him by his name, shrieking it louder than I am speaking now, 'Niall!—Niall!' He spoke not,—he moved not; and I was within a foot of the very couch, when I awoke, my face bathed in the dew of terror. 'Niall!—Niall!' did I cry, did I shriek; and Niall was there, and I shrieked in vain—'Niall!—Niall!'——"
"Here!" cried Niall himself, springing from a copse, out of which led a path that made a short cut across an angle of the road, and throwing himself breathless at the feet of Glorvina.
The astonished maid stood motionless, gazing on the young man, who remained kneeling, until her companion, taking her hand, and calling her by her name, aroused her from the trance of astonishment.
"Come," said Myra, "let us return;" and, motioning to the young man to follow them, she led her passive companion back to the lonely retreat whither Malachi had transported his fair child.