“Priss on your prisint way, lad, till ye’ve rached the top of the third wooded ridge. There ye’ll see below ye in the moonlight the glimmerin’ surface of a great bog, an’ on the farther side of the same an owld round tower to the right, an’ Concobar Mac Nessa’s ruined castle to the lift. Go straight down to the edge of the bog an’ suddenly ye’ll see that a fine, hard road leads across it. Cross the bog without fear. ’Tis a short cut to Wurra-Wurra over beyond the round tower, an’ ’twill lave ye safe from Lochru an’ all his demon immissaries. Have ye me directions fixed clear in your mind, lad?” [Illustration] “Yis,” said Keth. “An’ may the blissin’s of Patrick an’ all the saints rest on your white head, vinerable owld man, for, thanks to you, Wurra-Wurra is already as good as done for.” The nixt minute Keth’s legs were leadin’ him straight into the trap so cunningly set for him, an’ old Lochru, raysumin’ his own face an’ form, was chucklin’ into his long whiskers. * * * * * Now whin Keth came to the top of the third ridge an’ looked down upon the great bog, ’twas the darkest hour of the night, whin the bad fairies are up to their worst divilmint, an’ the dangerous elves an’ demons attind to the summons of their masters, the Druid wizards. From the top of the ridge there was no sign of any road across the bog; but Keth, full of foolish faith in the words of the false shanachy, stopped only to draw a full breath, an’ was off down the slope at his top speed. An’ sure enough, as he neared the bog’s edge, he saw before him a straight, hard road gleamin’ in the moonlight an’ stretchin’ clear an’ fair to the hill-slope on the farther side. With a shout of triumph, Keth laped forward an’ ran swiftly out upon the road over the bog. An’ thin, all at wance, there was no more road, an’ he found himsilf flounderin’ up to his arm-pits in the quaking mud of the stickiest bog in Ireland. An’ while he floundered he heard a peal of faymiliar, divilish laughter from the bog’s edge. There stood old Lochru, holdin’ his sides an’ waggin’ his head—an’ thin, in a flash, Keth saw it all, how he had been hocus-pocussed by a false shanachy who was none other than Lochru himsilf. ’Twas useless to waste breath lamintin’, or hurlin’ hard names at Lochru; Keth saw that he had nade of it all to extricate himsilf from the bog—which he would have done right speedily but for the trump card the old wizard played thin an’ there. All at wance Keth found himsilf surrounded by a swarm of meisi—which are the most dreadful phantoms that inhabit the World of Darkness—summoned by the incantations of Lochru. The sight of thim froze Keth’s blood in his veins. For a time, so full of terror they filled him, he could nayther speak nor move. Manewhile, ivery minute the bog sucked him down deeper. [Illustration: _Keth Mac Maragh in the bog, beset by the wizard spells of Lochru_]