Then the Ravens flapped away and Mananaun came to where the King was standing. "You have asked me for a gift," said Mananaun, "think now of what you desire before I take you back to your own island." Then said Branduv, "What I ask is that you bestow upon me the Sea-maiden who was dancing here, Eevil." [Illustration] Mananaun in anger lifted his spear. But then he remembered he was bound by a promise to Branduv. He lowered the spear he had raised. "I will give you any other gift you ask," said he, "even my own boat 'The Ocean Sweeper.'" "I hold you to your promise," said Branduv, "and I declare to you that I shall take no other gift unless it be the maiden who was here dancing by the sea." "It must be then that I give her you," said Mananaun, and his face was dark. [Illustration] Down he went to the Kingdom-Under-Wave and he came to the black mansion where lived the Seven Spinning Women of the Sea. He spoke as speaks a King who has a hard thing to do. "A law has to be broken," said he. "What law, Lord?" said the Spinning Women. "The law that saves our Maidens from taking part in the stormy lives of men." "We would rather that anything else but this should happen, Lord," said the Seven Spinning Women. "This thing must happen," said Mananaun, "and the Maiden Eevil must go to Branduv the King." "She must be prepared for this," said the Seven Spinning Women. They came to me and they told me that the man whose shadow I had seen on the rock now claimed me for his wife and that Mananaun would not gainsay him. When I heard this, O my listeners, the life nearly left me. This comfort the Seven Spinning Women gave me: I was to stay on his island so that I might become used to the earthly kingdom, but that I was not to see Branduv until the green had left my hair and the brown that the sun makes had come into my cheeks. So I came to Branduv's island. I lived by the sea-shore and the women of the island attended me. How different was this earthly land from the Kingdom-Under-Wave. With us there was but the one mild season, the one mild light. Here there was glaring day and terrible darkness, bitter winds and hot beams of the sun. With us there were songs and tales, but the songs were about love or about the beautiful things we had seen. Here the tales and songs were about battles and forays and slaying with the sword. What they told of their loves was terrible, so much violence and unfaithfulness was in them. The soft green tints were going out of my hair and the sun was putting brownness in my cheeks. Soon my hair would be wheaten-colored like the hair of the women of the islands and my cheeks would be brown like theirs. And then the day would come when I should have to be with the man whom I looked upon as my enemy.