One evening they were seated in this cave by a large blazing fire of turf which cast its lurid light to the high arched roof and illuminated the tall and stately pillars cut by the hand of nature out the stony rock with a cheerful and red glare that appeared strange in this desolate land, which no fires had ever before visited except those fierce flames of death, which flash from the heavens when robed in the dreadful majesty of thunder. They were seated in this cave then listening to the howling night wind as it swept in mournful cadences through the trees of the forest, which encircled the foot of the mount and bordered the stream which flowed round it. They were quite silent and their thoughts were occupied by those that were afar off and whom it was their fate most likely never more to behold. O'Donell was thinking of his noble master and his young Princes, of the thousands of miles which intervened between him and them, and the sad silent tear gushed forth as he ruminated on the happiness of those times: when his master frowned, not when the gloom of care gave place to the smile of friendship; when he would talk to him and laugh with him and be to him not as a brother, no no, but as a mighty warrior, who relaxing from his haughtiness would now and then converse with his high officers in a strain of vivacity and playful humour not to be equalled. Next he viewed him in his mind's eye at the head of his army. He heard in the ears of his imagination the buzz of expectation of hope and supposition which hummed round him as his penetrating eye with a still keenness of expression was fixed on the distant ranks of the enemy, then he heard his authoritative voice exclaim, "Onward brave sons of freedom, onward to the battle," and lastly his parting words to him, "In prosperity or in misery, in sorrow or in joy, in populous cities or in desolate wildernesses my prayer shall go with you," darted across his mind with such painful distinctness that he at length gave way to his uncontrollable grief at the thought that he should never behold his beloved and mighty commander more and burst into a flood of tears. "What is the matter, Henry?" exclaimed Delancy. "O nothing, nothing," was the reply, and they were resuming their tacit thinking, when a voice was heard outside the cavern which broke strangely upon the desolate silence of that land which for thousands of years had heard no sound save the howling of the wind through the forest, the echoing of the thunder among mountains or the solitary murmuring of the river if we except the presence of O'Donell and Delancy. "Listen!" cried Alexander, "listen! What is that?" "It is the sound of a man's voice," replied Henry and then snatching up a burning torch, he rushed to the mouth of the cave followed by Delancy. When they had got there they saw the figure of a very old man, sitting on the damp wet ground moaning and complaining bitterly. They went up to him.