VI

It was not till many weeks later that the way of Alastair's escape from

death became known.

On that dark night when he had lain down to die, the wave which fell

across Lora and himself, and tore asunder the bonds she had woven, was

followed by no other for a time: otherwise, the end of both would have

been attained. But so great was the shock, that his apathy of mind and

body was rudely broken. The tired blood stung in his veins; the instinct

of life was as a flame of fire that consumed all the stupor due to the

sea-fruit he had eaten--an instinct that wrought him to a passion of

effort.

Shaken and trembling, he staggered to his feet. Nothing but a profound

darkness beyond, behind, above: a darkness filled with the voices of the

wind, the seething tide, wave falling over wave, billow leaping after

billow and tearing it into a yeast of foam--itself to stagger the next

moment, and struggle and strangle furiously in a cloud of spray ere

flung a dead mass upon the shore.

He had no remembrance of Lora, of what had brought them here, of the

grave that was ready where the Sea-Woman watched.

But fear was left to him: and when he was aware of something moving

across the ledges to his left, and heard it splash through the tide-wash

in its effort to reach him, he gave a terrified cry, and dashed seaward

to escape the grip of the kelpie.

Stumbling, he fell heavily forward. But it was into deep water; and,

powerful swimmer as he was, he fought the surge, and so was not thrown

back upon the rocks till, unwittingly, he was caught in a cross-current

and swept southward on the backs of the reeling sea-horses.

A horrible tumult was in his ears. The darkness was upon him as a heavy

hand. As idle flotsam, the waves swung him backward and forward.

A deathly cold beset his limbs; then utter weariness. His hands ceased

to propel, and only automatically and instinctively kept him afloat.

Yet even now, at the last extremity, when memory was no more, terror

remained.

There was something swimming near, something moving toward him through

the dark.

The next moment he threw up his hands, overcome by the sickness of fear

and a fatigue that he could no longer withstand. As he sank, he was

conscious of a body surging up against his; of a hot breath against his

face; of a gasping whine against his ear. Then in a flash he recognised,

or by instinct divined, that it was Ghaoth who had followed into the

darkness, and was there to save him.

The dog had indeed followed, having but an hour ago escaped from the

byre where Ian Maclean had risen from his sleep to let him out because

of his ceaseless whining. He had raced across the island, and along

Alastair's and Lora's track, till he found them where they lay. Thence,

after seeing the two whom he loved lying silent and motionless in a way

that made him whine with fear, and knowing, as faithful dogs do know,

that he must win help without delay, he had sped back to the nearest

cottage. Once convinced that old Ealasaid was following to succour those

whom he had left, he had sprung away again through the moonflowers, and

had reached the entrance to the cave after fierce baffling with the

tide-race. Just as Alastair had risen and was staggering toward the sea,

Ghaoth had caught sight of him, and had plunged without hesitation into

the black bewilderment of waters which had swallowed up the friend whom

he loved with his life.

Fortunately, the spent swimmer was still near the shore--nearer, even,

than when he had first fallen; for he was now close to the headland of

Craig-Geal, and was already in shallow water, which swung on to a long

shelf of sand lying against the entrance to another of the innumerable

caverns of that side of the island. But here the sea, though at

full-flood it covered the sand and moved its hungry lip for a few feet

within, did not enter, as a beast of prey halting unassuaged at the

entrance to its lair.

Ghaoth had gripped him by the hair of his neck, and was now struggling

to reach the shore. Man and dog were still flung to and fro by the

waves; but the living sport of the sea was no longer separate. With

Ghaoth's help, Alastair made renewed, if despairing, efforts.

Suddenly his feet touched the ground for a moment. Then, with a

staggering rush, having shaken himself free of the dog, he gained the

shore, stumbled blindly up the low shelve of the sound, and fell

unconscious among the soft, powdery grit, midway in the wide,

half-roofless hollow known as the Cave of the Sùlaire, from the solan

geese which often congregated there in the blinding snow-storms of

winter.

Ghaoth stood panting beside him awhile. At last, with a low whine, the

dog pressed his muzzle against the white face in the white sand; turned

aside, whined again, and came back with lolling tongue. Then, suddenly,

he sprang away into the darkness, and back into the drowning surge, with

all his loyal, loving heart--beautiful love of the dumb animal-soul that

God heedeth and cherisheth no less than that other wandering fire He

hath placed in the human--eager to baffle with drift and billow till he

reached the cavern once more, in time to save Lora, of whose body he

had caught a glimpse as he dashed after Alastair.

In time, and no more. He had not long rescued Lora, who, also, had been

partially roused by the shock of the breaking wave. She had been

half-standing, half-leaning against the higher ledge, to which, with

difficulty and in blind instinct, she had clung; but, as Ghaoth reached

her, she sank wearily and lay back against the dog, dreaming she had

waked in terror, but was now safe in Alastair's arms.

It was thus that Angus Macrae discovered them. Long afterward the

islesman recalled how he had seen the dog leap back into the darkness.

Whether Ghaoth failed to reach the Cave of the Sùlaire, and was carried

seaward by a current; or whether his strength failed him in his last

effort, and he was swung lifelessly from wave to wave; whatever the

first word of his fate was, the last was the finding of his sea-mangled

body in the trawl-net of a fisherman more than a mile oceanward from

Innisròn.

* * * * *

When Alastair woke, an hour or more after dawn, he remembered nothing of

what had happened. His memory, though not killed, was clouded by his

madness; and, doubtless, the shock of what he had gone through, with the

action of the mermaid's fruit, had further weakened it.

He rose and looked about him wonderingly. Around, were the precipitous

rocks; beyond, the sea stretched far into the morning mists, calm, with

a silver sparkle in the south-east and turquoise-blue elsewhere, except

in green straits under the shadow of the isle, till it faded into opal

and dove-grey where the veils of mist slowly dispersed, re-wove, lifted,

in-wove, and sank to the wave again, or sailed indefinitely away.

Though he could still recall nothing of the past night, he recognised,

as soon as he stepped from the cave and went down by the sea-marge, the

head-land of Craig-Ruaidh and that of Craig-Geal just behind him. His

one wish was to hide, so that none should see him. His fantasy led him

to seek remote places, and to fear the face of his fellows.

Turning toward the sun, he looked scrutinisingly along the coast.

Somewhere beyond Craig-Geal, he remembered vaguely, there was another

hollow which led to a series of intricate and unexplored caves, perilous

places of evil repute among the islanders.

If he were to go there ... but at that moment his wandering gaze

lighted upon an object moving black in the shine of the sea.

Was it a whale sunning itself, or a pollack moving idly after the liath?

Then he saw that it was a boat--one of many torn from moorings or swept

from the beach by the recent gale.

So methodical were his actions, that none seeing him would believe his

mind was so darkly veiled, that his reason was only partially in

exercise.

Having taken off his coat, he wrapped it round a heavy stone and threw

the bundle far into the sea. Then he thrust his boots into a cranny in a

fissured boulder that at full flood was covered.

A few seconds later he was in the water, swimming swiftly toward the

derelict.

While he neared the boat, amid a sheen of sparkling foam as he urged his

way through the sun-dazzle which lay upon that part of the sea, he broke

intermittently into a mournful Gaelic chant, but with words so

incoherent, and with interjections so wild and strange, that the

fishermen on a coble, hid in the mist a few fathoms away, believed they

listened to a sea-kelpie, or to that vague object of their profoundest

dread known as "the thing that hides beneath the boat." They were

southward bound; but at that forlorn wailing they hauled down their

flapping sail, and, with their oars, made all haste northerly to their

island or mainland haven. Not a man among them would have persevered in

that voyage on that day.

Alastair heard the sound of the oar-wash, and ceased his fitful chant.

It must, he thought, be dead seamen rowing to and fro, looking for the

newly drowned to take their places as warders of the treasures and

keepers of the secrets which lie among the weed-tangle and sunless

caverns of the deep. At the thought, he laughed loud, but mirthlessly;

and the echo of his laughter, falling against the ears of the fishermen,

added to their horror and consternation.

With his hands gripping the gunwale, he swayed for some time to and fro,

fascinated by the lustrous green beneath the keel--green in the sunlit

spaces as leaves of the lime in April, and in the lower as emerald

lapsing into jade, and then as jade passing into the gloom of pines at

dusk.

At last he raised himself on the water, bending the gunwale low, and

half fell, half crawled into the boat. Indifferently, he noticed that it

was named _Fionnaghal_. Clearly it had drifted away from moorings; for

not only were oars and sail-enveloped mast lying taut under the thwarts,

but a rope trailed from the bow far down into the water.

He rowed for some time. At last, becoming weary, or perhaps puzzled by

the mists which crept behind and all around him, he desisted. A flurry

of air struck his right cheek. Instinctively he put up the palm of his

hand to feel if the wind were coming from the south-east or the

south-west. Then, adjusting the mast and setting the sail, he seated

himself at the tiller.

Eddy followed eddy, and soon a breeze blew freshly from the south-east.

By the time the _Fionnaghal_ was three or four miles to the north-west

of Innisròn, there was not a mist upon the sea. Immeasurably vast it

stretched; blue, or glittering in a diamond-sparkle sheen, or wimpling

over in violet hollows, with the white lambs beginning to collect and

leap merrily onward in the pathway of the sun.

Alastair became drowsy with the warmth of the glow upon his back and the

chime of the sea-music. Long before noon he slept. For hours the boat

went idly adrift.

When he woke, he saw an island less than half a mile to starboard.

Looking northward, he could descry nothing but sea; to the westward,

nothing but sea; nothing but sea to the southward. Far eastward, a dim

blue line of hills rose above the horizon: here and there--lying

apparently against it, and scarce bigger to his eye than the gannets and

sea-mews which flew overhead--two or three patches of amethyst. These

were the isles he had left, though he did not recognise them: Ithona,

most westerly; Innisròn, remote in the south-east;

I-na-Trilleachan-tràhad, lost in its northerly purple-greys.

Though the words brought no meaning to him, or awakened nothing beyond

mere visual reminiscence, his lips, as he looked at the island he was

now approaching, framed its name, "I-Mònair."

Heedless of the fact that he was running straight upon a shore set with

reefs like gigantic teeth, he tautened the sail and let the boat rush

forward, and was almost havened when, with a grinding rip, the

_Fionnaghal_ stopped, filled, leaned over, and hung upon a jagged reef,

as a dead body suspended on the horn that has gored it.

Alastair was thrown forward by the shock. Bruised and stunned, he lay

motionless for a few seconds while the water poured over him. Then,

rising and casting a keen glance around, he stepped on to the reef,

sprang thence to a rock nearer the shore, and thence to the shore

itself.

As he left the boat, it split. The larger half went drifting on the

tide.

He sat down to watch idly for the disappearance of the few planks which

remained. Suddenly, without cause, he rose, stared wildly at the sea and

along the shore on either hand, and then moved rapidly inland--often

casting furtive glances behind him, now on the one side, now on the

other.

No other lived on I-Mònair than a shepherd and his wife; and they only

through the summer months. Sometimes weeks passed by without their

seeing another soul: without other sign of the world of men than the

smoke of a steamer far upon the horizon, or the brown patches in the

distance when the herring-trawlers ventured oceanward.

No wonder, then, that Fearghas McIan gave a cry of astonishment, that

was partly fear, when he saw a man walking swiftly toward him ... a man

who appeared to have dropped from the clouds; for, looking beyond the

stranger, the shepherd could see no sign of trawler, wherry, or boat of

any kind.

"Diònaid, Diònaid," he cried to his wife, who had come to the door of

the cottage to see if he were at hand for his porridge; "Trothad so ...

bi ealamh, bi ealamh: quick, quick, come here."

They stood together as Alastair slowly drew near. When he was close, he

stopped, looking at them curiously, and with an air as if he wondered

who they were and why they were there.

"What is your name?" he asked quietly, looking at the shepherd.

"C'ainm' tha ort?" he repeated, as the man stared at him in surprise and

something of alarm.

"Fearghas McIan."

"And yours?" he asked of the woman.

"Diònaid McIan."

"Cò tha sin?" he added abruptly, pointing to the cottage: "who is

there?"

"No one."

"I thought I saw some one come out, look at us, and go in again."

Fearghas and Diònaid glanced at each other with eyes of dread.

"C'ainm' tha ort?" asked the former, in turn.

Alastair looked at him, as if uncomprehendingly; and then, in a low,

dull voice, said that he was tired; that he was hungry, and thirsty, and

wet.

"Tha mi glé sgith; tha an t acras orm; tha am pathadh orm; tha mi

flìuch."

"How did you come here?"

"Tha mi glé sgith."

"Did you come in a boat? Where is the boat you came in?"

"Tha mi glé sgith."

"What is your name? Are you of the isles?"

"Tha mi glé sgith."

"What do you want with us here, on I-Mònair, where we do no wrong, O

stranger who carry your sorrow in your eyes?"

"Tha mi glé sgith. Tha mi flìuch. Tha an t' acras orm. Tha mi glé

sgith--tha mi glé sgith--tha mi glé sgith."

Alastair spoke in a strange, dull voice. It would have terrified

Fearghas and Diònaid more, but that the stranger was so gentle in his

manner, and had a look upon his face that awed while it reassured them.

"God has sent him," said Diònaid, simply. "The poor lad has not

waked--he is in a dream. God do unto us as we do unto this waif from the

sea. In His good time He will whisper in the closed ears, and the man

will wake, and tell us who he is, and whence he came, and whither he

would fain go."

"So be it, Diònaid. You have said the word, and a good word it is. When

this man's hour has come, God will deliver him. Meanwhile, let us call

him Donncha, after the boy we lost nigh upon six-and-twenty years ago,

who might have been as tall and comely as this stranger that is now a

stranger no more, but of us and one with us."

* * * * *

And so it was that, from that day, Alastair Macleod, unsought by any,

and unrecognised because no one came near who might have known or

guessed who he was, abode on I-Mònair with Fearghas the shepherd and his

wife Diònaid.

He dwelt in peace. Through the long days he wandered about the shores.

Often, in the gloaming, he sat on a rock and stared longingly across the

waters for he knew not what, for some nameless boon he craved witlessly;

stared yearningly through the dusk for something that lay beyond, that,

though unseen, brought a mist into his eyes, so that when he reached the

peat-fire again, where Diònaid McIan awaited him, he often could not see

to eat for a while for the blur of his slow-falling tears.

Week succeeded changeless week. The sheep ceased to look up as he

passed. The yellow-hammers in the gorse sang even when he stopped

brooding by the bush whereon they flitted from branch to branch, looking

at him with quiet eyes.

It was in the sixth week, after a time of storm which had lapsed into

another long spell of exquisite summer, that the dream came to its end.

Late one afternoon, a herring-trawler lay off I-Mònair. The skipper, a

kinsman of Fearghas, came ashore to give and learn what news there was.

Alastair had come back about the usual time from one of his day-long

rambles, and, as he approached the door, his quick ear had caught the

sound of an alien voice.

Whether he overheard the shepherd tell his friend, in turn for the

strange and moving tale of Alastair MacDiarmid Macleod, of Innisròn, of

the strange visitor he and his wife nourished, with the surmise that he,

Donncha, might be no other than the missing man; or whether some other

suggestion concerning his removal or identification alarmed him, no one

ever knew.

But, in the cloudy dark of that night, when Rory McIan and his two

mates, Dùghall and Eòghann, were drinking the crude spirit from

Fearghas' illicit still, Alastair slipped into the small boat in which

they had come ashore, and rowed softly away into the obscure and lonely

wilderness of the sea.

Truly, as Diònaid said, God must have whispered in the closed ears, and

told him whither to guide the boat, and when to rest while he let it

drift, and when to take up the oars again. For, betwixt dawn and

sunrise, the fugitive, oaring slowly out of a pearly haze, came abruptly

upon the south-west of Innisròn.

With a cry of gladness, he leaned forward, shading with his right hand

his eager eyes. He had recognised familiar features of shore and

headlands. The whim took him to capsize the boat and swim ashore. In

sudden excitement, he sprang to his feet. The little craft rocked

wildly. The next moment Alastair had left the upturned keel to drift in

the grey sea like a water-snake, and was swimming swiftly across the two

or three hundred yards which lay between the island and the place where

he had fallen.

When he reached the shore, he wandered slowly to and fro, his new-born

energy having lapsed into a vague unrest. Aimlessly he leaned now

against one boulder, now against another. At last, the chill of his

dripping clothes gave him active discomfort. He looked doubtfully on the

slopes, then at the sea, then again at the slopes. With the strange

impulsiveness of his disease, he turned abruptly; with swift, stumbling

steps, crossed the shore; passed the ridges covered with sea-grass, and

entered the shaws beyond. Thence he walked quickly up the corrie behind

Craig-Geal. When he gained the upper end, the sunrise shone full upon

him. Flinging first one wet garment from him, and then another, he was

speedily naked--beautiful in his fair youth, with his white skin and

tangle of yellow hair, which, as the sun-rays blent with it, seemed to

spill pale gold.

He laughed with pleasure; then raced to and fro for warmth. When tired,

he stooped to pluck the thyme or tufts of gale. For a while, he wandered

thus circle-wise, aimlessly happy.

The day came with heat, and hourly grew hotter. Alastair was glad to lie

down in a shady place by a burn, and drowse through the long, warm

hours. As the afternoon waned into gloaming, he rose, and, forgetful of

or unheeding his discarded clothes, wandered idly northward by one of

the many sheep-paths. It was late when, having woven for himself a crown

of moonflowers into which he inserted afterward a few yellow

sea-poppies, he made his way down to the sea, and hungrily ate of what

shell-fish he could gather--briny cockles from the sand, and whelks and

mussels from the rocks.

At the coming of the moonlight across the water, he laughed low with

joy. It was only in the darkness he heard the Voice in the sea which

called, called, called, and terrified him so even while it allured him.

The waves, dancing and leaping in the yellow shine and breaking into a

myriad little cups and fleeting hollows, sang a song that filled him

with joy.

Then it was that, with erect head, flashing eyes, and proud mien,

crowned with moonflowers and sea-poppies, and beautiful in the

comeliness of his youth, Alastair appeared before the startled eyes of

Lora, who, for the second time, had come down to that shore to woo and

win Death.

* * * * *

When, late that night, Mary Maclean returned, she found Lora in

Ealasaid's arms, sobbing and moaning hysterically.

It was long ere she was able to learn the exact truth, and at first she

doubted if Lora were not suffering from a hallucination. But as the

young mother grew calm, and took up her frail babe and kissed it with

tears, Mary was won to believe in at least the possibility that the

vision was, if not of Alastair in the body, at any rate the wraith of

him, allowed to be seen of Lora out of God's pity of her despair.

The night was too far gone for anything to be done straightway; but she

promised to go forth with Lora at sunrise and see if that white,

flower-crowned phantom walked abroad in the day, and was no mere fantasy

of the moonshine.

She had fallen asleep when, at dawn, Lora aroused her.

Without a word, she rose from the chair, wrapped a shawl about her, and

then, kissing Lora gently, looked at her with quiet, questioning eyes.

"What is it, Mary?"

"You still believe that you saw Alastair ... Alastair in the body?"

"Yes."

"Then had you not better take the child with you? I will carry the

little one. If he should see it--perhaps he would...."

"You are right, dear friend. God has put that thought into your mind."

A few minutes later, the two women passed out into the cold, fresh

morning; Mary going first with the child, and keeping, wherever

practicable, to the sheep-paths or to the barren ledges that ran out

every here and there from the heather and bracken, and this because of

the dews which lay heavily, giving a moon-white sheen to the grass, and

sheathing every frond and leaf and twig as with crystal, glistening

rainbow-hued.

They took a path that trailed above the hollow of the moonflowers, and

led deviously shoreward by the side of Craig-Geal.

When they reached the summit of the grassy brae, where the path

diverged, they looked long in every direction. Nowhere could they

discern sign of any human being. Not a soul moved upon the upland moors;

not a soul moved upon the boulder-strewn, rowan-studded slopes; not a

soul moved by the margin of that dead-calm sea, so still that even the

whisper of its lip was inaudible, though the faint aerial echo of the

crooning of its primeval slumber-song slipped hushfully into the ear.

They were half-way down toward the shore when Mrs. Maclean, holding up a

warning hand, stopped.

"What is it, Mary?" Lora whispered. "Do you see anything? Do you see

him?"

"Look!" and, as she spoke, Mary pointed to a dip in the little glen.

Under a rowan, heavy with clusters of fruit, as yet of a ruddy brown

touched here and there with crimson, a white figure stooped, leaning

over one of the pools wherein the falling burn slept and dreamed awhile

ere it leaped again from ledge to ledge, or slipped laughing and

whispering through time-worn channels.

He was like some beautiful creature of an antique tale. Even as a wild

deer, he stooped and drank; looked questioningly through the rowans and

birches, and then across the bracken where the sun-rays slid intricately

in a golden tangle; then, stooping again, again drank.

The sunlight was warm about him. His shoulders and back gleamed

ivory-white, dusked flickering here and there with leaf-shadows. A

shadowy green-gloom lay upon his curved breast and against his thighs,

from the sheen of the water passing upward through the dense fern that

overhung the stream.

"It is the young god," thought Mary; "the young god who, Seumas the Seer

says, was born of human hope, weaned with human tears, taught by dreams

and memories, and therewith given for his body, Beauty ... and for his

soul, Immortal Joy."

But aloud she murmured only, "It is he--the Beautiful One--of the

_Domhan Tòir!"_

Lora did not look at her; but below her breath whispered, "_It is

Alastair_."

* * * * *

Swiftly and silently, they moved forward.

So intent was Alastair, after he had quenched his thirst, upon what he

saw or imagined in the pool beneath him, that he did not hear their

steps till they were but a few yards away.

"_Alastair!_"

He lifted his head and listened.

"_Alastair!_"

The sudden fear passed from his eyes. A smile came into them, and his

lips parted:

"Lora ... Lora bhàn ... Lora, my beautiful gloom ... my fawn ... my

little one...."

As he spoke, with low, caressing, yearning voice, he looked into the

heart of the pool again, and stretched forward his arms longingly.

A sob behind him fell upon his ears. Startled, he sprang back.

For more than a minute, he looked intently at Lora and Mrs. Maclean.

Then, slowly, some reminiscence worked in his brain. Slowly, too, the

dark veil began to lift from his mind; slightly, and for a brief while

at most.

"Mary!"

Mrs. Maclean made a step toward him, but stopped. The peace that was

about her at all times breathed from her, and lay upon him. The

benediction of her eyes upheld him.

Quietly she spoke, with her right hand pointing to the sobbing woman at

her side.

"Alastair ... this is Lora, who has sought you far, and now has found

you."

"Lora? Lora is dead! She is a beautiful spirit, and sleeps in that pool

under the rowan. She walked with me last night in the moonshine. She has

a beautiful child that is our child. It is now a song, singing in the

sunshine. I heard it at dawn, when I was listening to the stars calling

one to another. It is a song of joy about the doorway of Pharais. I saw

the golden doors open a brief while ago--the doors of Pharais. Our

little child danced in the glory as a mote in a sunbeam. But Lora is

dead."

"Hush! Lora is not dead, but liveth. Lora is here. See, her tears run

for you--her bosom heaves for you--her arms reach for you!"

Slowly the dreamer advanced. He would not come quite close at first, but

there was a wonderful new light in his eyes.

"Alastair! Alastair! It is I, Lora! Come to me! Come to me!"

"If, indeed ... if, indeed, you are Lora ... Lora, my joy ... where is

our child whose soul I heard singing in the sunshine over against

Tigh-na-Pharais?"

Without a word, and swiftly, Lora took her poor blind blossom from Mary,

and held the child toward him.

"It is God's gift to us, Alastair," she added at last, seeing that he

came no nearer, and looked at the child wonderingly.

He advanced slowly, till his breath fell upon Lora's hands, and made her

heart strain with its passion. Stopping, he stretched forth his right

hand and gently touched the sleeping face. A sun-ray fell upon it. Then

a smile grew upon the little parted lips, as the spirit of a flower

might grow and bloom bodiless in dreamland.

Alastair smiled. With soft, caressing hand, he smoothed the child's face

and little, uplifted arm. Then he took it gently from its mother, kissed

it, handed it to Mary.