their white habits stained with blood.  ’Set fire to the house!’ cried Sir Frederick Hamilton, and at his word one went out, and came in again carrying a heap of dry straw, and piled it against the western wall, and, having done this, fell back, for the fear of the crucifix and of the holy candles was still in his heart.  Seeing this, the five troopers who were Sir Frederick Hamilton’s body-guard darted forward, and taking each a holy candle set the straw in a blaze.  The red tongues of fire rushed up and flickered from corbel to corbel and from tablet to tablet, and crept along the floor, setting in a blaze the seats and benches.  The dance of the shadows passed away, and the dance of the fires began.  The troopers fell back towards the door in the southern wall, and watched those yellow dancers springing hither and thither.

For a time the altar stood safe and apart in the midst of its white light; the eyes of the troopers turned upon it.  The abbot whom they had thought dead had risen to his feet and now stood before it with the crucifix lifted in both hands high above his head.  Suddenly he cried with a loud voice, ’Woe unto all who smite those who dwell within the Light of the Lord, for they shall wander among the ungovernable shadows, and follow the ungovernable fires!’ And having so cried he fell on his face dead, and the brazen crucifix rolled down the steps of the altar.  The smoke had now grown very thick, so that it drove the troopers out into the open air.  Before them were burning houses.  Behind them shone the painted windows of the Abbey filled with saints and martyrs, awakened, as from a sacred trance, into an angry and animated life.  The eyes of the troopers were dazzled, and for a while could see nothing but the flaming faces of saints and martyrs.  Presently, however, they saw a man covered with dust who came running towards them.  ‘Two messengers,’ he cried, ’have been sent by the defeated Irish to raise against you the whole country about Manor Hamilton, and if you do not stop them you will be overpowered in the woods before you reach home again!  They ride north-east between Ben Bulben and Cashel-na-Gael.’

Sir Frederick Hamilton called to him the five troopers who had first fired upon the monks and said, ’Mount quickly, and ride through the woods towards the mountain, and get before these men, and kill them.’

In a moment the troopers were gone, and before many moments they had splashed across the river at what is now called Buckley’s Ford, and plunged into the woods.  They followed a beaten track that wound along the northern bank of the river.  The boughs of the birch and quicken trees mingled above, and hid the cloudy moonlight, leaving the pathway in almost complete darkness.  They rode at a rapid trot, now chatting together, now watching some stray weasel or rabbit scuttling away in the darkness.  Gradually, as the gloom and silence of the woods oppressed them, they drew closer together, and began to talk rapidly;