When their town was become very populous, there lived in it a youth of superior strength and agility, who was remarked for being particularly expert with the bow, and so swift that few could outstrip him in the race. At feats of strength or skill, he was ever foremost: and, in attacking the wolf, or the wild cow, few possessed so daring a soul. It is an old maxim, with few exceptions, that love is the companion of bravery--and Mudor loved the gentle Ella. They had retired, at an early age, to a grove farther up the river, where stood the image of their God Mogan, which had been purchased of some Phenician merchants, along with some iron hatchets, in exchange for the skins of beasts, slain in the chase. Before this rude representation of the Deity they mutually pledged their vows; and to render those pledges more binding, they each stained a blue sun on their breasts, as a memorial that their faith should be as durable as the light of that luminary. No one felt so proud on hearing the praise of Mudor as Ella did--no one hailed his return from the chase, loaded with spoils, with the warmth of Ella--nor did any one so much admire the elegance of the blue symbols of his prowess and his faith, which were painted on his skin, as did the faithful Ella. Reared in two adjoining cabins, their infant sports had been together. For her he had plunged into the morass to procure the richest and sweetest water-lilies--he had climbed the loftiest oak to gain the cushat eggs--and the scarf of squirrel skins which screened her from the cold, was the produce of his most early adventures in the chase. Thus circumstanced, their hearts were knit together by those ties which bind the savage as well as the civilized; for the heart of the naked Indian who treads the burning sands of the desert is as warm to the tender impressions of love as the prince who stretches his limbs on a silken couch, or reposes on a bed of down. These faithful lovers dreamt of no unkindly fate interfering, when a fever broke out in the town, and swept away a number of its inhabitants. Application was made to the priest of Mogan to avert the awful visitation by prayer; but he returned for answer, that the wickedness of the people had offended the Great Invisible, and the fever was sent as a just punishment. The Druids, therefore, who resided in the neighbourhood, made a pilgrimage to one of their largest temples, situated among the mountains, in the midst of a vast forest. The Arch-Druid, having gathered the mistletoe, just as the rising sun licked the dew from its berries, and performed a number of other rites, to obtain answer from the Great Spirit, informed them that Heaven would not be appeased unless a young virgin was immolated as a sacrifice for the sins of the inhabitants. When this intelligence was announced, the utmost dismay seized on every heart. Parents trembled for their daughters, and the daughters trembled for themselves; for no one knew on whom the lot would fall.