Dermot took his bow up in his hand, and tried to fit an arrow to it; but
his hand shook, and for a few moments he could not draw. Slowly the
creature swam to the water's edge, and, reaching it, planted its feet
upon the earth, and looked warily, with green, watchful eye, all round;
then, shaking itself--and the water seemed to glide off its black fur as
off a duck's back--it licked its lips, and, giving one great sweep into
the air, it bounded forward to where the roasted pig was smoking on the
ground. For a moment Dermot saw it, with its tail high in the air and
its tongue stretched out to lick the crackling; and then, sharp and
sure, whiz! went an arrow from his bow; and the next moment, stretched
flat upon the ground, after one great dismal howl, lay the man-cat, or
cat-man, with an arrow in his heart.
Dermot sprang to his feet, and, rushing to the creature's side, caught
him by the throat; but he was dead already; only the great, wide-opened,
green, fierce eyes seemed to shoot out an almost human look of hatred
and despair, before they closed forever. The young chieftain took up the
beast, looked at it, and with all his might flung it from him into the
lough; then turning round, he stretched his arms out passionately.
"Eileen! Eileen!" he cried aloud; and as though that word had broken the
spell, all at once--oh, wonderful sight!--the enchanted castle began to
rise. Higher it rose and higher; one little turret first; then
pinnacles and tower and roof; then strong stone walls; until, complete,
it stood upon the surface of the lough like a strange floating ship. And
then slowly and gently it drifted to the shore and, rising at the
water's edge, glided a little through the air, and sank at last upon the
earth, fixing itself firmly down once more where it had stood of old, as
if its foundations never had been stirred through the whole of those
three hundred years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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