“She is my spoil. But, man out of Eirèann—for so I know you to be, because of the manner of your speech—tell me this: Of what clan and what place are you, and whence is Urla come; and by what shore was it that the men of Lochlin whom we slew took you and her out of the sea, as you swam against the sun, with waving swords upon the strand when the viking-boat carried you away?”
“How know you these things?” asked Ula, that had been Isla, son of the king of Islay.
“One of the sea-rovers spake before he died.”
“Then let the viking speak again. I have nought to say.”
With that the Maormor frowned, but said no more. That eve Ula was seized, as he walked in the dusk by the sea, singing low to himself an ancient song.
“Is it death?” he said, remembering another day when he and Eilidh, that they called Urla, had the same asking upon their lips.
“It is death.”
Ula frowned, but spake no word for a time. Then he spake.
“Let me say one word with Urla.”
“No word canst thou have. She, too, must die.”