“Take me from this place. I know the dancers; they are dead. Why have
you brought them up from their graves?”
But the host only laughed and said, “You must take more wine to keep
up your courage.” And he poured him out a goblet of wine redder than
rubies.
And when he drank it, all the pageant and the music and the crowd faded
away from before his eyes, and he fell into a profound sleep, and knew
no more till he found himself at home, laid on his bed. And the servant
told him that a strange horseman had accompanied him to the door late
in the night, who had charged them to lay the master gently in his bed
and by no means to awake him till noon next day, for he was weary after
the race; and he bade them take the hunter to the stables and tend him
carefully, for the animal was covered with foam, and all trembling.
At noon Mr. Kirwan awoke, and rose up as well as ever: but of all the
fairy revels nothing remained to him but the mark round his wrist of
the clasp of a woman’s hand, that seemed burned into his flesh.
So he knew the night’s adventure was no mere dream of the fancy, and
the mark of the dead hand remained with him to his last hour, and the
form of the young girl with her necklace of pearls often came before
him in a vision of the night; but he never again visited the fairy
palace, and never saw the dark horseman any more. As to the silver cup,
he flung it into the lake, for he thought it had come to him by devil’s
magic and would bring no good luck to him or to his race. So it sank
beneath the waves, and the silver cup was seen no more.