He was conscious that the attack he was leading was weak; that his followers fought badly; that Ethne, wildly and angrily, was calling upon them to do better--to be men, not cowards! Then he knew that disaster had befallen them, because his men were fleeing. Afterwards, in trying to recall the swift attack and defeat, he could remember nothing clearly, except the strange shock and tumult of the moment when he saw his bards put to flight by warriors in monkish dress! Long afterwards, in his life, he was haunted by vague memories of that disastrous flight--that proof of his bards’ cowardice--that end of his hopes and dreams. For long it would suddenly come on him at times as a nightmare of shame. The greater number of his Druid followers were taken prisoners; some were killed, a few escaped to the sea-shore. Cormac fought on bravely, determined to die rather than yield. A sword-gash across his temples filled his eyes with blood; he dashed his hand across them; and saw, before him, a tall figure mounted on one of the half-tamed Hibernian horses, so numerous everywhere. The animal had met its master now, for it tried in vain to unseat the man who rode without saddle and with only a rough bridle of hemp about the creature’s head; he urged it forward to meet Cormac; it advanced, rearing on its hindquarters. Cormac saw the face of the rider towering above him--a beautiful face, pale as marble with large, flashing brown eyes. Cormac advanced also holding his sword ready to strike. He had a sudden strange presentiment that his life was within the power of the man before him, who had the invincible air belonging to one of Nature’s own warriors. Suddenly the untrained horse swerved to one side and bounded away. In an instant its rider had slipped from its back and advanced towards Cormac, a tall thin figure in the dress of a monk, with the front of the head shaven after the manner of the Hibernian tonsure. Then the blood from the young warrior’s wound came and blinded his eyes once more. All was darkness. He felt sick and giddy from pain and confusion of thought--why was he fighting against the Ionian monks? A hand closed on his like a vice of iron--a strong arm was thrown about him. He was dragged from his saddle and forced to render up his sword. Someone wiped the blood from his eyes. He looked up and saw again the white, beautiful face and flashing eyes that had faced him on the battle field. “Who are you?” he asked. “I am Columba!” CHAPTER XI. SAINT COLUMBA. “Treachery somewhere,” said Columba, when he had heard Cormac’s story. “Treachery that has brought bloodshed and loss upon them and well-nigh cost them their leader.” The holy man had borne Cormac tenderly from the battlefield to the little wattled cote in which he preferred to live rather than in the great hall King Aedh had prepared for him. He had washed the wounds of the youth, and kept constant watch by his bedside.