He listened to the retreating footsteps until they could be heard no more,
and the one sound that came to his tense ears was the beating of his own
heart.
Even the wind had ceased, and there seemed to be nothing in the world but
the darkness and himself. In that gigantic blackness, in that unseen
quietude and vacancy, the mind could cease to be personal to itself. It
could be overwhelmed and merged in space, so that consciousness would be
transferred or dissipated, and one might sleep standing; for the mind
fears loneliness more than all else, and will escape to the moon rather
than be driven inwards on its own being.
But Fionn was not lonely, and he was not afraid when the son of Midna
came.
A long stretch of the silent night had gone by, minute following minute in
a slow sequence, wherein as there was no change there was no time; wherein
there was no past and no future, but a stupefying, endless present which
is almost the annihilation of consciousness. A change came then, for the
clouds had also been moving and the moon at last was sensed behind them—not
as a radiance, but as a percolation of light, a gleam that was strained
through matter after matter and was less than the very wraith or
remembrance of itself; a thing seen so narrowly, so sparsely, that the eye
could doubt if it was or was not seeing, and might conceive that its own
memory was re-creating that which was still absent.
But Fionn’s eye was the eye of a wild creature that spies on darkness and
moves there wittingly. He saw, then, not a thing but a movement; something
that was darker than the darkness it loomed on; not a being but a
presence, and, as it were, impending pressure. And in a little he heard
the deliberate pace of that great being.
Fionn bent to his spear and unloosed its coverings.
Then from the darkness there came another sound; a low, sweet sound;
thrillingly joyous, thrillingly low; so low the ear could scarcely note
it, so sweet the ear wished to catch nothing else and would strive to hear
it rather than all sounds that may be heard by man: the music of another
world! the unearthly, dear melody of the Shi’! So sweet it was that the
sense strained to it, and having reached must follow drowsily in its wake,
and would merge in it, and could not return again to its own place until
that strange harmony was finished and the ear restored to freedom.
But Fionn had taken the covering from his spear, and with his brow pressed
close to it he kept his mind and all his senses engaged on that sizzling,
murderous point.
The music ceased and Aillen hissed a fierce blue flame from his mouth, and
it was as though he hissed lightning.
Here it would seem that Fionn used magic, for spreading out his fringed
mantle he caught the flame. Rather he stopped it, for it slid from the
mantle and sped down into the earth to the depth of twenty-six spans; from
which that slope is still called the Glen of the Mantle, and the rise on
which Aillen stood is known as the Ard of Fire.
One can imagine the surprise of Aillen mac Midna, seeing his fire caught
and quenched by an invisible hand. And one can imagine that at this check
he might be frightened, for who would be more terrified than a magician
who sees his magic fail, and who, knowing of power, will guess at powers
of which he has no conception and may well dread.
Everything had been done by him as it should be done. His pipe had been
played and his timpan, all who heard that music should be asleep, and yet
his fire was caught in full course and was quenched.
Aillen, with all the terrific strength of which he was master, blew again,
and the great jet of blue flame came roaring and whistling from him and
was caught and disappeared.
Panic swirled into the man from Faery; he turned from that terrible spot
and fled, not knowing what might be behind, but dreading it as he had
never before dreaded anything, and the unknown pursued him; that terrible
defence became offence and hung to his heel as a wolf pads by the flank of
a bull.
And Aillen was not in his own world! He was in the world of men, where
movement is not easy and the very air a burden. In his own sphere, in his
own element, he might have outrun Fionn, but this was Fionn’s world,
Fionn’s element, and the flying god was not gross enough to outstrip him.
Yet what a race he gave, for it was but at the entrance to his own Shi’
that the pursuer got close enough. Fionn put a finger into the thong of
the great spear, and at that cast night fell on Aillen mac Midna. His eyes
went black, his mind whirled and ceased, there came nothingness where he
had been, and as the Birgha whistled into his shoulder-blades he withered
away, he tumbled emptily and was dead. Fionn took his lovely head from its
shoulders and went back through the night to Tara.
Triumphant Fionn, who had dealt death to a god, and to whom death would be
dealt, and who is now dead!
He reached the palace at sunrise.
On that morning all were astir early. They wished to see what destruction
had been wrought by the great being, but it was young Fionn they saw and
that redoubtable head swinging by its hair. “What is your demand?” said
the Ard-Ri’. “The thing that it is right I should ask,” said Fionn: “the
command of the Fianna of Ireland.”
“Make your choice,” said Conn to Goll Mor; “you will leave Ireland, or you
will place your hand in the hand of this champion and be his man.”
Goll could do a thing that would be hard for another person, and he could
do it so beautifully that he was not diminished by any action.
“Here is my hand,” said Goll.
And he twinkled at the stern, young eyes that gazed on him as he made his
submission.
