At the last, Lavarcam was filled with fear, for she saw that her words had awakened the flaming lion that lies hid in the heart. And truly it was not long till Darthool spoke to her of her longing and deep desire, and how that without Nathos she did not care to live.
For a time Lavarcam smiled; but when she saw that the king’s beautiful ward was ever growing more and more wrought, her heart smote her.
One day, as she was returning from Emain Macha, she met a swineherd, clad roughly in the fell of a deer, and with him were two men, rude, dishevelled hillmen, bondagers to the Ultonians.
These, notwithstanding the law of Concobar, she took with her into the forest, and bade them await at a well that was there, until they heard the cry of a jay and the bark of a hill-fox, when they were to move slowly on their way, but to speak to no one whom they might meet, and above all to be silent after they left the shadow of the wood.
Having done this, she entered the lios, and asked Darthool to come forth with her into the woods.
When they drew near to the well, Lavarcam moved aside to look for some rare herb, as she said. Soon the cry of the jay and the bark of the hill-fox were in the air.
“That is a strange thing,” Darthool said to her, when she was by her side again; “for that cry of the jay was the cry it gives in April, at the nesting time, and the bark of that hill-fox was the bark it gives in the season of the rut, many months agone.”
“Hush,” said Lavarcam, “and look.”
They stood still, as they saw the swineherd and the two hillmen rise from near the well, and move slowly across the glade.
“Who are these, Lavarcam?” asked Darthool, with wonder in her eyes.