"Thy news?" demanded Malachi.
He whom he accosted tried to find utterance, but could not. He had come in speed; his strength and breath were exhausted. He stood for a minute or two, tottering; then staggered towards a seat.
"A friend is coming," said the bard; "but he wears the face of a foe. Nor does he come alone; but prepared to demand what was forbidden;—to take what was withheld. Niall, with a host of warriors, is at thy gate. Thy bands that watch thy foe have left thy friend free to approach thee; but he comes in the form of the avenger."
Scarcely had the bard pronounced the last word when the hall was half filled with armed men; Niall at their head. Jaded, yet fierce, were his looks. He strode at once up to the king, and stood silent for a time, confronting him.
"Niall!" said the king, confounded; and paused.
"Yes," said Niall, "it is I! the son-in-law of thy own election, come to demand his rights! Where is my bride, king of Meath? Where is thy daughter? the wedded maid who, denied to the arms of her bridegroom, has consented to surrender herself to unhallowed embraces! O, Malachi! accursed was the day when thou gavest welcome to the stranger, whose summons at thy gate was the knock which he gave with the hilt of his sword,—was the blast of the horn of war! Low lies the glory of thy race! From the king of a people art thou shrunk into the minion of a robber, who, not content with making a mockery of thy crown, brings openly pollution to thy blood! Where is thy child? Does the roof of her father still shelter her head? or does she hang it in shame beneath that of Turgesius? Where is she? Reply, O king, and promptly! for desperation grasps the weapons that we bring, and which we have sworn shall receive no sheaths at our hands but the breasts of those who dishonour us!"
So spake the youth, his glaive in his hand, his frame trembling with high-wrought passion, his eye flashing, and his cheek on fire with the hectic of rage, when Glorvina entered the hall.
She did not hang her head; she bore it proudly erect. A tiara of gems encircled her brow; fair fell a robe of green from her graceful shoulders. A girdle of gold round her waist confined the folds of her under-dress, swelling luxuriantly upwards and downwards, and falling to within an inch of her ankles, each of which a palm of a moderate span might encircle. She advanced three or four paces into the apartment, right in the direction of Niall, and then stood still; still fixing her eyes steadily upon her bridegroom with an expression in which neither defiance nor deprecation, neither reproach nor fear, neither recklessness nor shame, but love—all love—was apparent. Niall scarcely breathed! An awe came over his chafed spirit as he surveyed his bride. The more he looked, the more the clouds of wrath rolled away from his soul, until not a vestige of tempest remained. He uttered tenderly the name of Glorvina. He cast down his eyes in repentant humility; he approached her, half hesitating, without raising them. He sank on his knee at her feet; Glorvina recoiled at the posture of her lover. She extended her shining arms; she caught his hands in hers; she almost raised him herself from the earth, and vanished with him from the hall.
The Dane looked from the ramparts at his castle. Twenty of his chiefs—the choicest—were about him. Expectation was painted in the looks of all. Their eyes were directed towards the same quarter.