And
then Diarmuid took up his arms and his battle clothes, and put his
narrow-topped finger into the silken string of the Gae Dearg, and he
made a good cast at the young man of the green cloak that was at the
head of the troop that killed him. Then he made another cast at the
second man and killed him, and the third man in the same way. And as it
is not the custom to stand after leaders are fallen, the strangers when
they saw what had happened took to flight.
And Diarmuid followed after them, killing and scattering, so that unless
any man of them got away over the forests, or into the green earth, or
under the waters, there was not a man or messenger of them left to tell
the news, but only the Woman-messenger of the Black Mountain, that kept
moving around about when Diarmuid was putting down the strangers.
And it was not long till Finn saw her coming towards him where he was,
her legs failing, and her tongue muttering, and her eyes drooping, and
he asked news of her. "It is very bad news I have to tell you," she
said; "and it is what I think, that it is a person without a lord I am."
Then she told Finn the whole story from beginning to end, of the
destruction Diarmuid had done, and how the three deadly hounds had
fallen by him. "And it is hardly I myself got away," she said. "What
place did the grandson of Duibhne go to?" said Finn. "I do not know
that," she said.
And when Finn heard of the Kings of the Green Champions that were bound
by Diarmuid, he called his men to him, and they went by every short way
and every straight path till they reached the hill, and it was torment
to the heart of Finn to see the way they were.
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