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In one of the larger and lower corridors they came on two men bearing a body, sewed for burial. Murrough stopped his party and growled out something. "It is the seanachie," answered one of the bearers. "Since the Dark Master struck him yester-morn he has not spoken, and he died last night."
Bear the seanachie to his chamber, and send men to ring in the harbor and build beacons on the headlands. Hasten, you dogs, or I'll strip the flesh from you with whips!" Under his voice and his flaming eyes the hall sprang into life, while the men carried out the blind harper and one of their own number who had been stricken with madness at what he had seen.
"If that Cuculain of whom the seanachie spoke be not the man Brian Buidh, then may I go down to hell alive!" And the men, who feared Red Murrough's heavy hand and hated him, muttered that he would be like to travel that same road whether living or dead, in which there was some truth.
"That is the Bird Daughter," quoth the Dark Master. "Nay, it is an old woman, but she blinds me " And the harper fell silent, writhing, until horror gripped those who looked on. O'Donnell leaned forward, his head sticking straight out and his eyes blazing. "What do you see, seanachie? Speak!" "I see men," and the old harper's voice rose in a great shriek.
"Seanachie," said the Dark Master in a terribly piercing voice, "who is this standing in my way, standing between me and Brian of the hard eyes?" The blind harper began to tremble, but again came the clash and the watcher's voice from the doorway. "Master, there is snow mingled with the fog, and the wind is shifting to the eastward." "Light the beacon and remain on watch," said the Dark Master.
On the other side the table sat the old seanachie, who was blind, and who fingered the strings of his harp with odd twangings and mutterings, but without coherence, for O'Donnell had bade him keep silence. "Go and see what the weather is," commanded the Dark Master. A man rose and ran outside, while other men came in with wood.
But at the watcher's word new terror seized on the men in the hall. "Seanachie, who stands in my way? Speak!" The beard of the blind harper quivered and rose as if the wind lifted it, but men felt no wind through the hall. Then the old man began to writhe in his chair, and twisted to take his hands from the table, but he could not, although only he alone held them there.
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