the prisoners and their guide plodded their way. After
a weary tramp they at length sunk down overwhelmed with
fatigue. In this condition they were found insensible
by a party despatched by Feagh O'Byrne; Art O'Neil, on
being raised up, fell backward and expired; O'Donnell
was so severely frost-bitten that he did not recover for
many months the free use of his limbs. With his remaining
companion he was nursed in the recesses of Glenmalure,
until he became able to sit a horse, when he set out for
home. Although the utmost vigilance was exercised by all
the warders of the Pale, he crossed the Liffey and the
Boyne undiscovered, rode boldly through the streets of
Dundalk, and found an enthusiastic welcome, first from
Tyrone in Dungannon, and soon after from the aged chief,
his father, in the Castle of Ballyshannon. Early in the
following year, the elder O'Donnell resigned the chieftaincy
in favour of his popular son, who was, on the 3rd of May,
duly proclaimed the O'Donnell, from the ancient mound of
Kilmacrenan.

The Ulster Confederacy, of which, for ten years, O'Neil
and O'Donnell were the joint and inseparable leaders,
was now imminent. Tyrone, by carrying off, the year
previous to O'Donnell's escape, the beautiful sister of
Marshal Bagnal, whom he married, had still further inflamed
the hatred borne to him by that officer. Bagnal complained
bitterly of the abduction to the Queen, charging, among
other things, that O'Neil had a divorced wife still alive.
A challenge was in consequence sent him by his new
brother-in-law, but the cartel was not accepted. Every