Shawn’s opponent was the stronger of the two, but Shawn possessed in activity what the other possessed in strength.  The waters of the lake were agitated by their struggles and foamed white about them, whilst, at the same time, the four bloodhounds tearing each other beside them added to the agitation.  Shawn and his opponent clasped each other and frequently disappeared for a very brief space, but the necessity to breathe and rise to the air forced them to relax the grasps and seek the surface of the water; so was it with the dogs.  At length, Shawn, feeling that his middogue had got entangled in his dress, which the water had closely contracted about it, rendering it difficult, distracted as he was by the contest, to extricate it, turned round and swam several strokes from his enemy, who, however, pursued him with the ferocity of one of the bloodhounds beside them.  This ruse was to enable Shawn to disengage his middogue, which he did.  In the meantime this expedient of Shawn’s afforded his opponent time to bring out his skean,—­two weapons which differed very little except in name.  They once more approached one another, each with the armed hand up,—­the left,—­and a fiercer and more terrible contest was renewed.  The instability of the element, however, on which they fought, prevented them from using their weapons with effect.  At all events they played about each other, offering and warding off the blows, when Shawn exclaimed,—­having grasped his opponent with his right arm,—­

“I am tired of this; it must be now sink or swim between us.  To die here is better than to die on the gallows.”

As he spoke both sank, and for about half a minute became invisible.  The spectators from the shore now gave them both over for lost; one of them only emerged with the fatal middogue in his hand, but his opponent appeared not, and for the best reason in the world:  he was on his way to the bottom of the lake.  Shawn’s exhaustion after such a struggle now rendered his situation hopeless.  He was on the point of going down when he exclaimed: 

“It is all in vain now; I am sinking, and me so near the only slip that is in the lake.  Finn and Oonah, save me; I am drowning.”

The words were scarcely out of his lips when he felt the two faithful, powerful, and noble animals, one at each side of him—­seeing as they did, his sinking state—­seizing him by his dress, and dragging him forward to the slip we have mentioned.  With great difficulty he got upon land, but, having done so, he sat down; and when his dogs, in the gambols of their joy at his safety, caressed him, he wept like an infant—­this proscribed outlaw and tory.  He was now safe, however, and his pursuers returned in a spirit of sullen and bitter disappointment, finding that it was useless to continue the hunt any longer.

CHAPTER XIX.  Plans and Negotiations.