For Fergus, son of Roeg, former king over Emain, who had stayed behind his charges feasting and banqueting, came presently to Emain, fearing nothing and thinking no evil, but still warm with the reconciliation that he had accomplished; and, coming to Emain of Maca, found the sons of Usnac dead, with the sods still soft on their graves, and his own son also dead, Deirdré in the hands of Concobar, and the plighted word of Fergus and his generous pledge of safety most traitorously and basely broken; broken by Concobar, whom he himself had guarded and set upon the throne. Fergus changed from gladness to fierce wrath, and his countenance was altered with anger, as he uttered his bitter indignation against Concobar to the warriors and heroes of Emain and the men of Ulad. The warriors were parted in two by his words, swaying to the right and to the left, as tall wheat sways before one who passes through it. For some of them sided with Fergus, saying that he had done great wrong to put Concobar on the throne, and that even now he should cast him down again, for the baseness and treachery of his deed; but others took Concobar's part, saying that the first betraying was Naisi's, who stole away Deirdré,--the hostage, as it were, of evil doom, so that he drew the doom upon himself. They further said that Concobar was chief and ruler among them, the strong and masterful leader, able to uphold their cause amongst men. So indeed it befell, for the sedition of Fergus and his fight to avenge his wrong upon Concobar failed, so that he fled defeated to Meave, Queen of Connacht, at her stronghold amid the lakes whence issues forth the Shannon. [Illustration: Honeycomb, Giant's Causeway.] Meave, whose power and genius overtopped her lord Ailill, received the exiled king gladly, and put many honors upon him, holding him as the pillar of her army, with the two thousand men of the Ulaid who came with him;--those who had fought for him against the party of Concobar. At Cruacan, on the hillside, with the lakes of the Great River all around them, with the sun setting red behind the Curlew hills, with green meadows and beech-woods to gladden them, Meave and Ailill kept their court, and thence they sent many forays against Emain of Maca and Concobar, with Fergus the fallen king ever raging in the van, and, for the wrong that was done him, working measureless wrong on his own kingdom and the kingdom of his fathers.