IV

An hour after sunrise there was not a cloud in the sky. The first day of

June came clad in the fullness of summer. Sea and land seemed as though

they had been immersed in that Fount of Life which wells from the hollow

of the Hand which upholdeth Tir-na-h' Oighe, the isle of eternal youth.

The low island-trees had not suffered as had those on the mainland: yet

everywhere were strewn branches, and, on the uplands, boughs wrenched

away, and often hurled far from the parent tree.

But upon all the isle there was now a deep quiescence. In the warm

languor, even the birds sang less wildly clear, though the high, remote,

falling lark-music floated spirally earthward, poignantly sweet. An

indescribably delicate shimmer of haze lay on the heights and pastures,

and where the corries sloped jaggedly seaward, each with a singing burn

splashing or wimpling adown its heart. From the uplands came the lowing

of the kine, the bleating of the ewes and lambs, the rapid whirring

gurgle of the grouse among the heather. The wailing of curlews rose and

fell; the sharp cries of the cliff-hawks beat against Craig-Ruaidh. High

overhead, as motionlessly in motion as the snow-white disc of the moon

lying immeasurably more remote within the vast blue hollow of the sky,

an eagle poised on outspread wings, and then, without visible effort or

movement, drifted slowly out of sight like a cloud blown by the wind.

Only upon the sea was something of the tumult of the past night still a

reality.

Around the isle, and in the wide Sound between it and the mainland, the

"white sheep" moved in endless procession, no longer wildly dispersed

and huddled and torn by the wolves of the tempest. Oceanward the

sea-horses swept onward magnificently, champing and whirling white foam

about their green flanks, and tossing on high their manes of sunlit

rainbow gold, dazzling-white and multitudinous far as sight could reach.

Clamour of gulls, noise of waves, lisp and chime and flute-call of the

shallows among the rock-holes and upon the whispering tongues of the

sea-weed--what joy, and stir, and breath of life!

Hand in hand, in the hot noon, Lora and Alastair went idly along the

sheep-path leading from the clachan to the promontory of Ardgheal. The

smell of the brine from the sea and wrack-strewn shore, the sun-wrought

fragrance of the grass and thyme, of bracken and gale, of birch and

hawthorn and trailing briar, of the whole, beautiful, living, warm body

of the earth so lay upon the tired senses with a healing as of balm,

that even the tears in Lora's eyes ceased to gather, leaving there only

a softness as of twilight-dew in violets.

It was to be their last walk in the sunshine of that day--their last

participance in the sunshine of life.

All the morning had been spent by Alastair in writing and brooding. Once

again he had talked over with Lora that projected deed, which to them

seemed the one right and fitting end to the tragedy of circumstance. She

had promised that even if the darkness came down upon his mind

irretrievably she would fulfill her troth with him. Great love casteth

out fear; but even if this had not been so with her, she bore in mind

the menace of what he had said about the child.

She, too, had spent a little of that last morning in writing, though her

letter was not to go across the sea to the mainland, but to be left with

old Ian to give to Mary on the morrow.

It was close upon noon when she saw that Alastair's gloom was upon him

again, though he was now as quiet as a child. Taking his hand, she led

him forth, heedful to avoid the clachan, and vaguely wishful to visit

once more that little eastern haven of Ardgheal where, but two days ago,

she had longingly awaited Alastair's return, and where, months before,

he had first won her love.

He seemed to take pleasure in the sight of the sea he loved so well, and

in the songs of the birds, and to be vaguely displeased because Ghaoth

would not leap to his caress as usual, or else would crouch at his feet

with startled eyes and low whine.

When Lora spoke, he answered seldom; but when he did, she knew that he

understood. Once or twice he looked at her strangely; and once, with a

thrill of awe and dread, she saw that it was unrecognisingly.

She caught the fragment of an _Eolas_, a spell, as his lips moved; and

the fear was upon her because of the mystery behind the words:

"_'S i'n t-suil a chi,

'S e'en cridhe a smuainicheas,

'S i'n teanga 'labhras:

'S mise'n Triuir qu tilleadh so ortsa,

Lora-mo-bèan,

An ainm an Athar, a Mhic, 's an

Spioraidh Naoimh!_"

'T is the eye that sees,

'T is the heart that thinks,

'T is the tongue that speaks:

I am the Three to turn this off to you,

Lora, my wife:

In the name of the Father, of the Son,

and of the Holy Ghost.

With a sob, she turned and put her arms about him. Never had he seemed

so fair in her sight--tall and comely as a young pine, of a beauty

beyond that of any man she had ever seen. No wonder that her father,

familiar lover of the Ossianic ballads, had been wont, remembering the

beauty of the second son of Usnoth, lord of Etha, to call Alastair

_Ailthos_.

"Dear, my dear one, Ailthos, Alastair!" she cried, clinging close.

"Look at me! Speak to me! Do you not know me?"

Slowly he turned his eyes upon her, and after a brief perplexity the

shadow went out of them, and he smiled gently.

"Let us go home, my fawn," he whispered. "I am tired. It would be too

sad to go down to Ardgheal."

He had already caught sight of the smoke of a steamer beyond Dunmore

Point; and fearing that it might be the _Clansman_--for he thought the

hour much later than it was--he hoped to spare Lora another needless

pang. Moreover, his growing dread of seeing any one was stronger than

ever upon him.

So they turned thus soon even in that last sunshine, and entering the

cottage, sat before the smouldering peat-fire; he brooding darkly, Lora

dreaming through her slow-welling tears, and both ... waiting.

* * * * *

Though, at dusk, a heavy sea still ran, it was partly due to the surge

of the ground-swell and to the turbulence of the tide, for there was but

little wind even away from the shelter of the isle, and what there was

came mostly in short, sudden puffs and wandering breaths.

In the quietude of the gloaming, it was as though the sea called all

round Innisròn as a beast of prey stalks about a high sheepfold,

growling, breathing heavily, ravening.

After the supper, eaten frugally and in silence, Lora and Alastair

listened once again to the peat-prayer and the Blessing of Peace of Mrs.

Maclean; then, not daring to say any word to her but that of a husky

farewell for the night, and fearful even of meeting the glance of her

quiet eyes, they went to their room, there to sit silently awhile in the

darkness, hand in hand.

No one saw them leave the cottage an hour later: not a soul heard them

as they passed through the clachan.

The road they chose was that sheep-path through the heather which led to

Ardfeulan by the Glen of the Dark Water. Each knew the way well,

otherwise their faring westward would have been difficult, for the sky

was veiled by a thin mist and the moon was not visible.

They walked in silence; sometimes Lora in advance, but, whenever

practicable, together, and hand in hand.

At last they reached the Glen of the Dark Water, and perceived through

the gloaming the sheiling of Ealasaid MacAodh. This they skirted, and

then entered a sloping hollow, at the base of which was audible the

hoarse murmuring of the sea. Lora knew the place well. A week ago she

had been there with Alastair, and remembered that the whole slope was a

mass of moonflowers, tall, white, and so close-clustered that the green

stems could hardly be seen.[2]

[2] A tall, cream-white marguérite, native to the Outer Isles and

the Hebrides, is known to the Islanders as the Moonflower.

The wan glimmer of them was perceptible now, like the milky way on a

night when a faint frost-mist prevails. Around, there was nothing else

visible. Not a tree grew in that place: not a crag rose out of the sea

of death-white blooms. The low-hanging mist-cloud veiled all things. It

was as though the grave had been passed, and this was the gloom of the

Death-sleep land that lies beyond. Only _there_ is eternal silence:

here, the dull menace of the sea made a ceaseless murmur about the

obscure coasts.

As they entered the valley of moonflowers, dimly seeing their way a few

yards beyond them, and hearkening to the inwash and resurgence of the

tide moving along the extreme frontiers of the land, a sense of

unspeakable dread came over Alastair and Lora.

They stood still, hardly daring to breathe. Both vaguely remembered

something: they knew not what, save that the tragic memory was linked

with reminiscence of a valley of moonflowers seen in a dark twilight.

Was it all a dream, coincident in their minds? Or had life once before,

in some unremembered state, wrought tragic issues for them by a valley

of white flowers seen in the darkness, with a deeper darkness around, a

veiled sky above, and the hoarse, confused prophesying of the sea

beyond?

As they stood, the moon--about an hour risen--glimmered through the veil

of cloud. As with a hand, the rift was slowly made; but though the light

was now clearly visible, it still gleamed through filmy shrouds of

vapour. There was no shape, no central luminous spot even: only a

diffused sheen which spread for a great span northward and southward,

though it illumed nothing beneath save the long sloping hollow filled

with moonflowers. The blooms rose almost to the knees of the two silent

and trembling figures. For some inscrutable reason, the advance of light

had not brought any comfort to either: rather, their vague terror

increased almost unendurably.

The sea called below. Lora shuddered, and drew back a step or two.

A long, wavering, greenish light appeared high above the south-west. As

the sheet-lightning fled shudderingly northward, it lapsed into ashen

tremors before it was swallowed up of the darkness, as a wounded

sea-bird in the deep.

In that brief gleam, Alastair turned and looked into Lora's eyes.

She moved to his side again, and once more took his hand. Then, slowly,

and still without word one to the other, they moved downward through the

hollow.

There was not a sound about them save the susurrus of their feet going

through the moonflowers. From the glen alone came any break in the

inland stillness, the noise of water running swiftly from ledge to

ledge. In the darkness where the sea was, there broke the fluctuating

moan and boom of ocean. From far across the wave came a thin, forlorn

sound that was the crying of the wind.

Minute by minute, as they waded through that death-white wilderness, the

moon wove the cloud-shroud into thinner veils, till at last, as the two

figures emerged upon the shore by the side of a precipitous scaur, they

were of a filmy gossamer that no longer obscured the golden-yellow globe

that wheeled solemnly through the appalling upper solitudes of the

night.

The tide, at the last reach of the ebb for nearly an hour past, was now

on the flood: though the first indeterminate babble of returning waters

was scarce different from the lapsing ebb-music in aught save a gurgling

swiftly repetitive undertone.

The scaur by whose side they stood was hollow, and was known as the Cave

of the Sea-Woman. It could be reached dry-shod, or nearly so, only at

low-water, and even then only during calm, or when the wind did not blow

from the south or west. For years beyond record it had been almost

unvisited, for the cavern was a place of deadly peril except just before

and after the extreme ebb. But after the death of two of his sons--one

in the effort to swim outward against the inrush of the tide; the other

by falling, or being swept backward to the deep chasm that lay at the

far end of the cave--old Macrae, of Ardfeulan Farm near by, had caused

rude steps to be cut in the funnel-like hollow rising sheer up from the

sloping ledge that lipped the chasm and reached the summit of the scaur.

The smell of the brine from the dripping boulders smote shrewdly upon

Alastair and Lora as they stood at the weedy mouth of the cavern. Then

for the first time that night they turned their backs upon the sea, and

moved slowly across the long, flat slabs of rock.

It was not dark at the entrance to the Cavern of the Sea-Woman, for the

moonlight moved within it as the hand of a blind man groping blankly in

an unfamiliar place. The arch of the rock was clear, and even the

frondage of fern and sea-plants suspended from its lower curve; also,

beneath, a mass of mossed crag, just beyond the highest reach of the

tides. Among this dark crag-vegetation grew strange plants; but none

stranger or so rare as the sea-grape, or mermaid's-fruit of the

islanders. No one on Innisròn knew its proper designation, and it had

become known at all as the sea-grape only because some student of rare

things discovered and wrote about it under that name, as perhaps the

culminating treasure-trove of the botanist in the Scottish West. It is a

plant which clings as a tendril, choosing only the summit of high rocks

or boulders in some sunless place where it can breathe the ooze from

dead or dying sea-weed, and can feel the salt air reach it with a chilly

touch. It lies low, with its thin, moist, ash-grey stems; its round,

pale-green, transparent leaves faintly spotted with livid blotches; and

its infrequent clusters of small, juicy berries of a hue of dusky

yellow.

The isle-folk regard it with awe. Though the fruit is poisonous, and a

deadly draught can be distilled from the leaves, a few berries would

not suffice to kill. To eat sparingly of the sea-grape is not to invite

death necessarily, but to bring about a stupor so deep that for an hour

or more no familiar sound can reach the ear, no ordinary shock vibrate

along the nerves, no common pain affect the body. If the eater of the

mermaid's-fruit be left undisturbed, he will not stir for twelve or even

fifteen hours, though the first death-like trance does not prevail

beyond an hour, or at most two: while, if forcibly aroused, he is so

weak in body and so dazed in mind that he cannot long be kept awake

without peril to the brain, and indeed to life itself.

It was because of this fruit of oblivion that Alastair and Lora had

sought the Cave of the Sea-Woman.

They had feared not so much their own instinctive evasion of death as

that, in the final struggle, they might not go down into the shadow

together.

The idea that the Silence should come upon them unawares--that, arms

about each other in a last embrace, the wave should encroach upon their

deep unheeding slumber--had given them a strange elation. The thought

was Alastair's. Though he was not a native of Innisròn, he had often

visited it from Dunvrechan even before he had come to love Lora, and

was familiar with each of the treacherous caves and all the desolate,

boulder-strewn, uninhabited south-western side of the island, as well as

with everything in animate or inanimate nature which was to be found

therein. Not only had he often heard of the sea-grape which grew almost

inaccessibly in some of the caverns on the western side, but he knew

where in the Cave of the Sea-Woman it was to be obtained with little

difficulty.

Letting Lora's hand drop gently to her side, he climbed the rough,

broken ledges to the right, and swiftly returned holding in his hand a

cluster of limp leaves from which hung snakily several stems of the

dusky-yellow fruit.

Lora looked at the berries curiously, and yet with a strange

indifference. With that awful menacing sound of the sea beyond, with

that more awful murmur of dread in her heart, with that rising tide of

death all about them, it mattered little to her that Alastair laid such

stress on those small, poisonous things, those petty messengers of a

mere oblivion of the senses.

Just beyond where they stood, and at the beginning of those long, flat,

inward-sloping ledges which formed the floor of the cavern till the

abrupt ending over the dark chasm at the extreme end, was a bed of soft

white sand, shelving from one of the ledges past and underneath another,

and then among rocks covered with bladder-wrack and adder's-tongues and

other sea-weed, with tangled masses of the long, trailing

dead-man's-hair.

Still without speech, here Alastair and Lora lay down, side by side.

There is an ebb in the tide of human hope that must reach a limit. When

this limit is attained there is too great weariness for any further

revolt, for any protest, for anything but dull acquiescence.

Slowly Alastair stripped a few of the dusky berries from the plant and

held them in the hollow of his hand to Lora.

Taking them, she leaned forward, looking intently upon his face, but

failing to see into his eyes, because of a deeper shadow therein than

that which environed them.

"_Alastair_," she whispered.

He made no answer; but wearily raised his hand to his mouth, and with

his tongue crushed against his palate the acrid juice of the sea-grapes.

"O Alastair! speak to me! speak to me!"

He turned slowly. Then suddenly he put out his arms, and gathered her to

his breast.

"My beautiful gloom--Lora--my Rest--my Joy--O you who are my

Pharais--all the Pharais I care for now or dream of--if there be indeed

a pitiful God, He will have mercy upon us. If we do wrong, we sin

believing that we are doing the right, the sole right thing. But sweet

it is--O Lora, sweet and dear at the last, after all our dark bewildered

pain, to be here and know that all is over now, and that we two go into

the Silence together: and if there be any waking, that together we shall

wake. _Mo ghràidh, mo mùirnean_, my dear one, what peace there is for

you and me that I die thus: free from that crushing, crushing pain and

darkness that has filled my brain."

"Alastair! O my dear love--dearest--shall we--shall we meet again after

this dreadful night? Shall there be any day for us? I cannot die--oh, I

cannot die in this awful darkness ... thus.... We are both so young ...

and I...."

She ceased abruptly.

A low splashing sound, with long-drawn suffocating surge and susurrus,

told that the sea had begun to creep forward with stealthy swiftness.

It was not the menace of the tide, however, that froze the words upon

her lips.

Alastair had begun to croon, in a drowsy, yet strained, uncertain

voice, a snatch of fisher-lore.

"Alastair! Alastair! Alastair!"

He gave a low laugh, as he turned on his side, and with wandering

fingers played idly with the sand.

"Alastair!... my husband!... Beloved ... Alastair!... Oh, say farewell

to me at the least.... Do not turn from me!"

"It called--called--called: and she cried to me, Come, my Belovèd: and

then I knew Lora was dead. Why do you laugh at me? She is dead, I tell

you: _dead, dead, dead_! She, my beautiful Lora--my dream--my joy--she

who to me was Pharais itself: she is _dead_!"

In the grip of supreme woe, a woman has a heroism of abnegation beyond

all words to tell of it.

Her grief rose within Lora as a phantom, and chilled her to the very

heart and to the very brain. But with a great effort she stirred, leaned

over and plucked some of the fatal fruit and swallowed it: for she had

crushed in her hand the berries he had given her.

Then, having risen, with deft hands she pulled toward her some long

strings of dead-man's-hair and rope-weed; and, with those which were

firmly affixed to rocks or heavy stones, she wove a girdle about the

waist of Alastair, and so round her own.

She could scarce see to finish her task, for the moon had passed upward

into the denser cloud, and the faintly luminous veils of vapour beneath

it were now scarce distinguishable from the obscurity all around.

The insistent wash of the tide was coming steadily nearer. She could

feel the cold breath of its moving lip.

Absolute darkness prevailed; while, with shaking hands, having unloosed

her long, black hair, she tied it firmly in two places with the curly

tangle of him whom she loved so passing well in death as in life.

Not a gleam fell from the veiled moon. Not a thing was visible save a

faint phosphorescent line that moved slowly inward. Lora could not see

Alastair's face, not even his body, not even the two shaking hands she

held over him while she prayed inaudibly, and with a suffocating,

bewildering pain at her heart, at her lungs, in her head.

No sound came from the isle. The noise of the falling stream in the glen

was merged in the confused clamour of the tide-race. Shoreward, there

was that awful tidal whisper. Seaward, the march of wave after wave, of

billow after billow, in vast processional array; squadron after

squadron, battalion after battalion, of the innumerable army of the

deep: and among them all, over them all, beneath them all, a Voice,

loud, reverberant, menacing, awful as brooding thunder, terrible as the

quaking of the dry land when the hills o'er-topple the cities of the

plain: a Voice as of the majesty of Death, swelling through the night

with all the eternal pain, the forlorn travail, the incommunicable ache

of all the weary, weary World.

Then, ere all remembrance died for her, Lora knew that Alastair slept

and was at peace.

She stole her arm round his neck and held him close, but was too weak

now to lean over and kiss those white lips, parted as a child's in

dreamless slumber.

It was her last pain: the last unavailing bitterness of woman's woe.

Thereafter she lay still, vaguely hearkening the tide run up the deep

channel beyond the little isle of sand, already damp with the underooze.

She listened to the slipping of the water along the ledges. A wave came

out of the darkness and stalked through the gloom as a wild beast to its

lair. Ledge over ledge she heard it swiftly move: then suddenly there

was a blank ... a hoarse muffled noise ... the hollow reverberation of

the billow as it fell heavily into the black unfathomed gulf wherein at

the flood was swept all that drifted into the cave.

A windy sigh arose in the cavern. The tide moved upward, feeling along

the walls with stealthy, groping hands. A faint phosphorescence appeared

momently, now here, now there.

The second channel, to the left, suddenly brimmed. The water spilled

over upon the sandy tract beyond. Then a long rolling wave raced inward,

leaped along one of its ledges, poised a moment, and, breaking into a

seething foam in its fall, tore this away and that the weedy bonds which

bound the sleepers.

Beyond, in the darkness, the loud moan, the deep, monotonous boom of the

sea filled the whole vast void of the night.

V

The loud and terrifying violence of the sea throughout that day; the

oppressive gloom of that night; the weight of undischarged electricity

which everywhere brooded; all made sleep impossible for Ealasaid

MacAodh.

So ill was she when evening set in, that she had moved her things from

the bed in the second of the two rooms of which the sheiling consisted,

so as to sleep in the box-bed in the larger, within sight and feel of

the fire-glow.

She had not slept there since her husband died. Perhaps this was because

that, even after the lapse of years, she could not endure the solitudes

of memory. They had been lovers in their youth, she and her Hebridean:

they had been lovers during their brief married life, ere he, after the

too frequent wont of the islesmen, found death in the wave wherein he

sought the means of life: and when his drifted body had been recovered,

and laid in the island soil, she had remained his lover still.

Doubtless, she thought of him even yet with his yellow hair and laughing

eyes; perhaps of herself, too, as lithe of limb and with soft, fair skin

as unwrinkled and hair as brown and supple as when he had first caused

the trouble of a new and strange tide in the calm waters of her girl's

heart.

To sleep in the bed where she had lain by his side, where a child had

been born to her and had died just as with glad pain she had recognised

in the little one the eyes of its father, may have seemed to her a

cross of suffering which she was unable to take up and bear.

Or, it may be, there lurked darkly in her mind the ancient secret Celtic

dread of sleeping in the bed where any of one's own bloodkin has died:

the dread of the whisper that is on the pillow in the dark hours, of the

hand that gropes along the coverlet, of the chill breath that comes

without cause and stirs the hair as it falls suddenly upon the cheek of

the awakened sleeper.

On this night, however, she dreaded not only her own weakness, but the

dark. Vaguely, she wondered how she had for so long a time slept away

from the comforting light and warmth of her peat-fire.

She was so old, so weary, she thought pitifully. Would Duncan be sure to

know her again? Why was she kept so long there, waiting for the summons

that never came? Had God forgotten her? No kin had she: not one to claim

her body for the place of sleep when her dark hour came. Useless were

her days to all: to herself, each day a rising sorrow; each night a

setting grief.

Yet that infinite patience of the poor was hers, that poignant pathos of

womanhood in childless and husbandless old age, which to the very end

endures--till the last thread has been used in the weaving of the Crown

of Sorrow.

Beautiful this austere Diadem worn by aged and lonely women: sweet-eyed

bearers of crowns among the myriad procession of the weary poor of all

the world, all going gloriously apparelled and wreathed with green

garlands which fade not in the sight of Him who leadeth His feeble folk

to kingship and honour.

For a brief while she lay brooding, with dull old eyes fixed upon the

red heart of the peats. Then the gaze withdrew slowly, and the lids

closed; as though a bird, flying softly through the twilight, had passed

beneath the low-hung leaves over its nest.

She could not have been long asleep, for the glow was still ruddy upon

the floor, when she was startled by a sudden barking and whining. She

sat up, listening intently. She could hear no step, no voice. The

whining terrified her. If the noise were that of a dog at all, and not

of Luath or some other phantom hound, whose dog was it, and why its

sudden appearance at her door at that hour of night--its eager,

unceasing clamour?

But when, with louder and louder barks and an impatient scraping, the

unwelcome visitor showed he was not to be denied, she rose, put on her

things, and then, having wrapped a shawl about her head and lit a

lantern which she lifted from a hook, opened the door.

For a moment, she thought that nothing was there. Then her ears caught

the sound of panting breath, and something wet and warm touched her

suspended left hand.

With timid, yet caressing voice, she lured the dog across the threshold.

The moment she could see clearly, she recognised him as Ghaoth, the

white-breasted, tawny-haired, amber-eyed collie that belonged to

Alastair Macleod.

The dog would not bide. His whining never ceased, save when it was

interrupted by loud, eager barks. To and fro he ran, and at last sprang

out into the night again, only to return a few moments later in a state

of excitement bordering on frenzy.

"Some evil must have happened to Alastair Macleod," Ealasaid muttered,

as after a brief hesitation she took the lantern and followed Ghaoth.

To her dismay, the dog tried to lead her toward the hollow of the

moonflowers. Could Alastair possibly be there, or on the shore beyond?

Why, if he were down there, lying helpless, the tide would be upon him

shortly, and then his doom would be certain. Again, of what avail was

she, so old and frail, and now with some new weakness upon her? She

feared she had not the strength to move downward in the dark through

that dense jungle of white blooms: still less to climb homeward again.

But while she pondered, she saw that Ghaoth leaped no more in the

direction of the valley, but along the grassy ridge which led to the

summit of Craig-Geal, so perilous by night because of the sloping,

precipitous hole which gave entrance to the funnel-like passage issuing

from the Cave of the Sea-Woman.

"Ah," she cried, as it flashed upon her that Alastair had fallen, or

been hemmed in in the cavern by the tide, "God help him if he is

_there_!"

With panting breath she hurried along the ridge, heedless now of Ghaoth,

who had suddenly darted off to the left and disappeared among the

moonflowers. She had not gone far, however, before she stopped. What use

to hurry onward, if all she could do was to shout down into the

darkness--a cry that would likely never be heard, and if heard would be

of no avail to the hearer?

No sooner did she realise the uselessness of her errand than she turned,

and, with shaking limbs and labouring breath, made her way along a

sheep-path which led to the opposite brae of Craig-Ruaidh, where Angus

Macrae and his son Ranald lived.

So exhausted was the old woman by the time she had reached the farm and

aroused the inmates, that two or three minutes passed before she could

explain.

Ranald Macrae saw at once that one of two things had happened: either

that Alastair had wandered to the cave in his madness, and there,

ignorant or oblivious of the steps cut in the hollow columnar passage at

the far end, been cut off by the sea; or else that he had wittingly made

his way there, with intent to drown himself in the Kelpie's Pool--an

abyss that never gave back what it swallowed.

It was during this hurried explanation to his father that Ealasaid

learned for the first time the truth of what had reached her as a vague

rumour in the mouth of a herd-boy. Eager as she was to be of help, she

was now too weak to accompany the men, even if it were possible for her

to keep pace with them, which it was not, as they had started off at a

run.

She knew that old Macrae's advice was right: that she could best help by

going home at once, and making preparation to receive Alastair if he

were still alive. There was no room for him at the farm, where Ranald's

wife had given birth to a child two days before. So with little Pòl,

the herd-boy, she set out once more, leaning often upon the lad's

shoulder; and wondering if, after all, God were going to let her be of

some service before he led her through the blind way till her hand

should slip into that of her husband. As she went, she muttered to

herself part of a rune now almost lost among the people, an ancient

_sian_--that part of the _Tuaitheal_, beginning _Clogaid na salainte mu

d'cheann_:

"The helmet of Salvation about your head,

The ring of the Covenant about your neck,

The priest's breastplate about your breast;

If it be rout on the rear,

The shoes of the Virgin to take you swiftly away.

Charm of the Three in one on you

From crown of head to sole of foot,

And the charm of the pater of the seven paters

A-going anti-sunwise and sunwise, sunwise and anti-sunwise,

To protect you from behind,

From wound and from slaying,

Till the hour and time of your death."

Before they left the farmstead, the Macraes had provided themselves

with lanterns, a long rope, and a pine torch dipped in tar.

As they neared the summit of Craig-Geal, they could hear the frenzied

barking of Ghaoth in the darkness down by the sea--loud when caught on

an eddy of wind and borne upward, scarce audible when overborne by the

moan and boom and ever recurrent breaking surge of the advancing tide.

At the dark circular exit of the cavern, they waved lanterns and shouted

themselves hoarse: but without seeing aught, or winning response.

Angus Macrae silently drew back, rose, and lit the pine torch. Flaring

abruptly into the dark before a gust of wind, it was like a blood-red

wound in the flank of some vast black creature of night.

Having fastened the torch to the rope, he swung it far down the narrow

funnel, up which came the smell of wrack and sea-damp and an obscure,

muffled sound.

Still there was nothing visible. No shout followed the sudden glare.

The old man stood silent, craning forward with brooding eyes; for now he

was thinking of the two sons he had lost. With a shudder, he moved

slowly back and turned to Ranald.

"Will you go down?"

"Ay, father, that I will: if you will breathe the holy word before me

and after me. The kelpie ... the Sea-Woman ... won't catch _me_, for I

am sure of hand and foot."

"So your brother Seumas thought."

Ranald hesitated, looked at the cave-mouth, then at his father.

"Is it true Seumas died in _that_ way?"

"It is true. The tide hemmed him in, and a heavy sea foamed at the mouth

of the cavern. There was no chance but to gain some ledge high above the

Sea-Woman's Pool. He did gain a hold on a ledge, for long afterward we

found his knife on it. Then the accursed kelpie rose out of her lair and

took him by the legs, and pulled him down, and tore him, and broke the

bones of him--my son, my son, my beautiful Seumas!"

As the old man spoke, his voice had grown louder, his tone more intense;

and at the last the memory of his loss so wrought upon him that, with a

sudden cry, he dashed forward and whirled one of the lanterns into the

dark, echoing chasm.

"Let me go, let me go," he cried, as his son tried to withhold him. "If

she must have one of us again, let it be me! Let go, boy! You have your

wife and child: and I am old, and have lost Seumas and Andras and the

mother who bore them!"

Without a word, Ranald desisted. The old man went on his knees, crawled

forward, and pulled up the flaming torch. Then, having fastened the rope

round his waist and secured a lantern to his belt, he slipped over the

edge and began the descent, cautiously feeling his way with his feet as

he went.

As he reached further and further into the darkness, he wondered why he

heard no more the barking of Ghaoth. A grim thought came into his mind:

the dog had been caught by the Sea-Woman, and was even now drifting

round and round in her pool, strangled, with glazed, protruding eyes.

At last, both sight and sound told him that he was nearly over the

abyss--sight and sound, and his careful counting of the steps in his

descent.

The tidal wash, the heavy lapse and then heavier resurge, with the rush

and cataract-roar of the seas as they fell far down into the chasm,

assailed his ears continuously. Peering down, he could see the foam upon

the flood, as it swept ravening round the cave and then fell headlong

into the abyss, above which was a misty pulsating whiteness, the send

and spray of tons of whirled water.

There was almost no need to descend further, he thought. The strongest

swimmer, if caught in that inrush, would be swept irresistibly into the

horrible caldron where the Sea-Woman brewed her spells of storm and

disaster.

There was but one chance for Alastair; if, in truth, he were in the cave

at all and still alive. A little way below where the islesman stood,

there were three or four broad ledges of which even the lowest would

still be unswept by the sea. He dreaded to descend; for it was on the

first of those ledges that his son, Seumas, had been dragged, screaming,

into the abyss. With a muttered prayer, however--a prayer that was half

an incantation--he once more slowly crawled downward.

When he came to the third ledge, he stopped, crouched, and peered

downward and forward.

For a moment his brain swung.

What was it that he saw? What fantasy was this? What horrible caprice of

his eyes? Had Ghaoth slain the kelpie, and was he now perishing there

with his teeth fixed in the neck of the Sea-Woman?

For Ghaoth, and no other, was the dog that crouched on the lowest ledge;

and a woman it was who lay beside him, upheld at the neck by his strong

teeth.

He saw the gleam in the dog's eyes, fixed upon him unwaveringly. He

understood their appeal. Slowly he unfastened and raised his lantern.

When he recognised Lora, he knew intuitively what had happened. With

uplifted arm, he let the light fall all around--above weedy, sea-swept

boulders, and the dark, inward-moving flood, broken here and there into

a seethe of foam that shone ghastly white in the lantern-glow.

There was no sign of Alastair.

It was clear he was either already swept into the chasm, or had been

sucked seaward in the undertow.

With utmost care, Macrae stepped on to the lowest ledge.

Stooping, he looked intently in Lora's white face. Then he put his hand

to her heart. He fancied he felt it beat, but could not be sure. Drawing

a flask from his pocket, he poured some of the contents down her throat,

then upon her temples and breast, with rough hand laving the spirit

across the bosom, which, cold as it was, had not the unmistakable chill

of death. A new strength came to the old man. He had lost all fear now,

and had no other thought but to save this poor creature who had already

looked on the face of Death, and nigh perished with the horror of it.

Taking her in his arms, he was swiftly securing her to his body by the

rope, when he was startled to see Ghaoth, who had at once let go his

hold, leap into the surge and swim seaward.

The dog went to its doom, he knew, in a vain quest for Alastair. With a

moment's sigh, he turned to what he had to do.

An arduous and perilous climb it was ere the old islesman at last neared

the summit, and felt Ranald grasp him by the shoulder and help him and

his burden over the edge.

He would have swooned from the long strain upon him, had not his son

hastily put the flask of whisky to his mouth and imperatively bid him

drink.

As soon as he could breathe freely once more, he recounted what had

happened. The young man wanted to go down at once into the cave and seek

for Alastair, in the hope that he might still be swimming in the open,

or be somewhere afloat, and that Ghaoth might reach him and bring him to

the spot where the dog had guarded Lora--almost from the moment, though

of course neither Macrae nor his son knew aught of this, when the first

ledge-sweeping wave broke upon the sleepers and reft asunder their

impotent weedy bonds.

But of this project Angus Macrae would hear nothing further. Was his son

mad, he asked him, to believe that Alastair could still be alive, since,

he was visible nowhere?

"No," he added, "he is in the deep sea by now, or lies gripped by the

Woman in her hole. But, Ranald, if to search for his body you are so

fain, you can go down later. Maybe you will find the dog, though I think

neither you, nor I, nor any one else will ever see dog or man again.

Meanwhile, take up this poor soul and carry her to Widow Ealasaid's.

"She is big with child," whispered the young man, as, awe-struck, he

wrapped Lora in his warm plaid and raised her in his arms.

"Ay: God have pity on this lost ewe and her poor, wee lammie. Be

careful, Ranald, be tender--ay, as tender as if she were your own

Cairistine, and the babe that is now moving within her were blood of

your blood and bone of your bone."

In silence, and as swiftly as possible, the two men, with their still

more silent burden, crossed the slopes of the ridge and ascended the

grassy, boulder-strewn brae. In due time, they were met at the door by

Ealasaid.

With a low, crooning wail, the old woman helped to lay Lora on the bed

in the inner room. She had already warmed the clothes, and had poured

boiling water in a tub, with hot flannels for swathing. All island-women

act thus on any hint of accident, for the hunger of the sea is the cause

of nearly every disaster for them and their loved ones. Besides--had not

Duncan Bàn once been brought home, and all this and more done for him,

though the chill upon him was not that of the sea only?

Suddenly she saw there was no time to lose.

"Quick, quick, Pòl," she cried: "take a lantern and run like the wind

across to the clachan, and tell Mrs. Mary Maclean that she is to come

here at once, for Alastair Macleod is dead, and his wife is lying here

in labour, and that the last pains may come upon her speedily."

The boy hesitated a moment, glanced at his grandfather, and then fled

into the night, heedless of any lantern, and sure-footed as a goat.

Finding that he could be of no use, and that Mrs. MacAodh wished only

his father to remain, Ranald Macrae slipped quietly away: and in a brief

while had reached the cave entrance, descended, and searched vainly for

any trace of either Alastair or the dog.

To Ealasaid's unceasing care Lora owed her life. The old woman seemed to

have grown years younger. A new strength was in her arm, a new light in

her worn eyes, a new spirit in her frail body. With deft hands, she

rubbed the skin aglow, wrapped warm flannels about the limbs, breathed

into breast and back, soothed the convulsive strainings of the sides and

heavy womb, fed the unconscious sufferer with sips of broth and warmed

spirit, and often the while kissed the poor faintly quivering lips. It

seemed to her as if her heart swam in tears; but with the unnoticed

heroism of women, she let no grief overmaster her, no flagging of mind

or body usurp her will.

In the outer room Angus Macrae sat, intent at first upon the keeping up

of the fire and the fulfilment of Ealasaid's divers commands. Then, nigh

an hour later, when through the open doorway he heard a strange moaning

from the inner room, he sat down by the low, rude table and, taking the

Gaelic Bible which lay there, began in a slow, monotonous voice to read

from the page which caught his eye as he opened the book:

"I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the

swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise,

nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of

skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. For man also

knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net,

and as the birds that are caught in the snare, even so are the sons

of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them."

As he read steadfastly onward through this moving last chapter of

Ecclesiastes, his voice rose, and took a rhythmic chant, and filled the

room, as a rising wind fills a valley set among the hills.

But when he read:

"As thou knowest not what is the way of the wind, nor how the bones

do grow in the womb of her that is with child; even so thou knowest

not the work of God who doeth all----"

he stopped abruptly, for he heard a sound at the outer door, and

guessed, even before he saw her, that the comer was Mrs. Maclean.

Angus rose, and took her hand. Then, seeing the speechless sorrow in her

eyes, he let go his hold of her, and, bowing his head, did not lift up

his eyes again till Mary had entered the inner room.

He knew that, with those two women there, all would go well with Lora,

if it were ordained that she was to live. But he feared that death was

already entered in at the door; and he knew not what passionate sorrow

might come upon and undo those who ministered to the woman, who even now

was in those pains of labour that ere morn should end in the birth of a

child. Long he sat brooding. Then, weary of his vigil, once more he

began to read, resuming with the verse where he had been interrupted:

"Even so, thou knowest not the work of God who doeth all.

"In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine

hand: for thou knowest not which shall prosper, whether this or

that, or whether they both shall be alike good."

Looking up, he saw Ealasaid standing at the door, a wonderful light on

her old face.

"It lives," she said simply. "Mary said that the child would certainly

be born dead; but it lives. She says now it has the shadow upon it, and

must die ere long; but they told me that my own little blossom was

strong, and would live: ... and even as they were wrong, wrong also may

Mary Maclean be."

Hearing a call, she turned, and went within.

The old islesman muttered for a while, with bent head and closed eyes.

Then he began to read again:

"Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes

to behold the sun."

"Hush!"

It was Mary who spoke. She had that in her face which made him rise.

"Hush, Angus Macrae. Truly, the eyes are the delight of the body, but

this is not the time for the bitterness of that saying. Never for this

child, that is born in the shadow of death, and can itself live but a

brief while, shall there be the sweet light of which you speak, nor the

pleasantness of beholding the sun, nor the way of the day betwixt rise

and set."

"Is the child blind?"

"Ay ... blind ... blind."

"And weakling?"

"Ay."

"And she?"

"God hath given her strength to endure."

"Does she know all that has happened?"

"If she did, she would be with Alastair. Her mind is dazed. She is as

one distraught. My friend, read no more to-night. Go home now, and God

be with you. Bring on the morrow what tidings you have."

Soon after the departure of the old man, a great stillness fell upon the

house. Lora slept in a stupor like unto death. The child lay upon her

breast, as a frail flower drifted there by a chance wind. Ealasaid sat

by the bed watching. Mary knelt against it, crying silently.

Toward dawn, Mrs. Maclean rose, and looked out upon the chill dusk. When

she came back, she kneeled again; and, in a low voice, repeated a

strange Celtic "Prayer of Women":

O Spirit, that broods upon the hills

And moves upon the face of the deep,

And is heard in the wind,

Save us from the desire of men's eyes,

And the cruel lust of them,

And the springing of the cruel seed

In that narrow house which is as the grave

For darkness and loneliness ...

That women carry with them with shame, and weariness, and long pain,

Only for the laughter of man's heart,

And the joy that triumphs therein,

And the sport that is in his heart,

Wherewith he mocketh us,

Wherewith he playeth with us,

Wherewith he trampleth upon us.

Us, who conceive and bear him;

Us, who bring him forth;

Who feed him in the womb, and at the breast and at the knee:

Whom he calleth Mother,

And Mother again of his wife and children:

When he looks at our hair, and sees it is white;

And at our eyes, and sees they are dim;

And at our lips, straitened out with long pain;

And at our breasts, fallen and seared as a barren hill;

And at our hands, worn with toil;

And, seeing, seeth all the bitter ruin and wreck of us--

All save the violated womb that curses him--

All save the heart that forbeareth ... for pity--

All save the living brain that condemneth him--

All save the spirit that shall not mate with him--

All save the soul he shall never see

Till he be one with it, and equal;

He who hath the bridle, but guideth not;

He who hath the whip, yet is driven;

He who as a shepherd calleth upon us,

But is himself a lost sheep, crying among the hills!

O Spirit, and the Nine Angels who watch us,

And Thy Son, and Mary Virgin,

Heal us of the Wrong of Man:

We, whose breasts are weary with milk,

Cry, cry to Thee, O Compassionate!

Ealasaid trembled. She had never heard words such as these before, and

was afraid; yet even more of the strange intensity in the voice of Mrs.

Maclean, in the shine of her usually quiet eyes.

"God be with you, Mary Maclean."

"And with you, Ealasaid MacAodh."

Therewith Mrs. Maclean arose, looked at Lora to see if she still slept,

and then went into the adjoining room, where she seated herself before

the hot glow of the peats; and, as the day broke, read below her breath

in the third chapter of the Book of Job.

* * * * *

Weeks passed, and there was no word of Alastair. For twenty days after

the coming of the child, Lora lay distraught, knowing no one about her,

though oftentimes looking long and lovingly in the eyes of Mary, whose

face had won again an exceeding peace, and who went, as of yore, girt

about with a beautiful silence as with a garment.

But on the last day of the third week, Lora awoke in her right mind.

Mary had given the frail, blind babe to young Cairistine Macrae to

suckle. This was well; for had Lora looked upon it on that day, she

would have died.

Nevertheless, in a brief while thereafter she knew all. It seemed

strange, both to Mary and Ealasaid, that she did not appear greatly to

care. She had that in her heart which would have enlightened them; but

grief, as well as madness or evil, has its cunning, and so she veiled

her purpose in absolute secrecy.

Not a sign of Alastair! This was what she could not accept. Till his

body, or some trace of it, were found, she said she would not return

with Mary to her home. Nothing, however, repaid the most scrupulous

search: no clew was gained--unless the discovery of the body of Ghaoth,

caught in a trawling net one night a mile seaward, could be called a

clew.

On that day of agony when she had at last looked on the face of her

child, and knew it stricken with frailty and blind for all its days, and

heritor perhaps of that curse which had caused her to sin and incur this

punishment, she had made a covenant with herself to go down as soon as

she could to the shore, at low tide, and with her child follow Alastair

into that abyss in the cavern where she felt assured he had been swept

by the sea.

Two weary weeks passed before an opportunity came. One afternoon Mary

went across Innisròn, so as to reach the clachan and meet the _Clansman_

for somewhat she expected: and as she was to come back with Ranald

Macrae, and he was not to return till after dark, Lora felt secure.

Early in the evening, she sent Ealasaid on a message to Parlan

Macalister's wife, who lived in a cottage about a mile along the shore

beyond the promontory of Ardfeulan.

It was a lovely evening in mid-July. The moon was at the full, and made

a golden dust upon the isle and a glory of pale gold upon the sea.

As she went once more down the hollow of the moonflowers--not so dense

now as then, and many withered by the heat of the sun and the month-long

drought--she stopped again and again, overcome by the heat even of the

dusk.

In her ears was the bewildered, plaintive cry of the lapwings: and, as

an undertone, the low, soft chime--the long, sweet ululation of the

myriad-swung bell of the sea.

She was weary when she reached the shore. An unspeakable horror of the

cavern came upon her, and she turned and went slowly toward the long

sandy tract that stretched beyond the base of the hollow. There she laid

the child gently down in the soft sand at her feet, and seated herself

on a low rock.

After all, was it worth while to seek Death, when Death had already

whispered that the little one was to be his own so soon, and had

stealthily removed all but the last barriers that guarded her own poor

life?

Would God not be even more wroth with her--punish her even more heavily;

though this, indeed, seemed impossible?

How lovely that vast ocean veiled in violet dusk, save where lit

gloriously with moonlight: how full of alluring peace, she thought that

wave-whisper all around her.

Surely the music was woven into a song that was dear and familiar in her

ears?

She turned her head away from the sea, and looked idly along the sand:

though, as she did so, the vague strain ceased.

Then Lora stood, trembling in a great awe, and with a passionate hope in

her eyes, in her heart, at the very springs of life.

In the moonshine, she saw a tall figure moving slowly toward her,

naked-white, and walking with a proud mien. The erect body, the flashing

eyes, the grace and beauty, were those of a king--of a king among men:

and as a king the naked figure was crowned, with moonflowers and yellow

sea-poppies woven into his gold-sheen hair.

Suddenly he saw her. He stood as though wrought in impassioned stone.

The moonshine fell full upon his white skin, upon the beauty of his

face, upon the flower-tangle wherewith he had crowned himself.

Then, without a sound, he turned and fled like the wind, and vanished

into the gloom that lay beyond the dusk.

And Lora, lifting the child and staggering homeward, knew that she had

seen Alastair.