Page:Heroes of the dawn.djvu/157

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PURSUIT OF GILLA DECAIR
125

away on the demon horse, and often they had feared they would never see their country or their friends again.

"I bring you your men, Fionn," said the man, "and of them all there isn't a man I wouldn't like for my own, except Conan mac Morna, who night and day unceasingly abuses and reviles every one near him. And sorry I am, Fionn, that a gentle and generous man like you should have such a scurrilous and loud-voiced person as that son of Morna in your Fianna, for his tongue is like the clapper of a bell that is constantly blown by the wind."

The Fians laughed, and Fionn looked intently at the speaker, but failed to recognise him. Then he said:

"Tell me now who you are, for surely if I had met you before I should remember that meeting?"

Hefore the stranger could speak Conan said, scornfully:

"He was the Gilla Decair once, and well was he named that. Now he calls himself the Prince Abartach. Prince indeed! In that