“‘Is that what you’re going to be afther?’ said I, feeling uncomfortable on the top of me head. ‘Keep off, me beauties, till I give you another tune.’ And putting up me fiddle to me chin—for I had let it drop, and small blame to me!—I began scraping away as if I would be afther shaking me arm off.
“‘Whaugh!’ says they again, beginning to skip and leap about.
“On this I played faster and faster; and the faster I played, the higher they bounded. ‘It’s all right,’ thinks I to meself; ‘they will not be doing me any harm if I can keep them at that game.’ So I thought I had best give them a tune with me voice into the bargain; and I sang, and scraped, and shook me head, till they all burst out into fits of laughter.
“On this I got up and made them a low bow; though I clapped my hat on again pretty quick, in case of accidents. And says I—‘If you will all sit down, and behave yourselves like dacent men, I’ll tell you a tale which will astonish you.’
“Whether or not they understood me, I could not for the life of me tell; but, sure enough, down they all squatted. And I began to recount to them how Daniel O’Rourke one night, returning from waking Widow Casey at Ballybotherem, and having taken a drop more than usual of the ‘crayther,’ saw the fairies come dancing round him; and I went on to describe what Daniel said, and what the fairies did. ‘And now,’ says I, ‘just sit quiet where you are till I come back and finish me story.’ And on this, giving another whoop, and a hop, skip, and a jump, I was making me way back to the river, when up sprang the Ridskins and came bounding afther me. ‘Sure, thin,’ says I, stopping short, and beginning to scrape away as before on me fiddle, ‘you don’t understand me.’ And, by me faith, indade they did not; for without more ado they got round me, and suspecting that I had been bamboozling them, began to prick me with their spears behind, as a gentle hint that I was to march forward.
“Seeing that there was no use trying to make me escape—for, of course, six men can run faster than one—I took their hints, which were not to be mistaken, and stepped out in the direction they pointed, now and then playing a tune to keep up me spirits and put them in good-humour.
“The long and the short of it is, that they made me prisoner, and brought me along with them; until we found some horses, on which—stopping a night or two on the way—we galloped along till we reached this place.
“And here I am, Masther Roger! well pleased to find that you’re alive, and to bear you company.”
And so Mike concluded his story.
The Indians allowed Mike and me to talk together without interfering with us. I told him that I would try to escape as soon as I could.