XI

That night, any wayfarer going down Strath Iolair, between the Pass of

the Eagles and Inverglas, must have been startled by a windy blaze of

flame against the slope of Tornideon.

Since sundown the wind had increased in strength. The loud clarion-call

could be heard unceasing on the hills. Through the Pass it came with

long wail or dreary sough, then with a howl would swoop along Mairg

Water, with a noise that washed away the roar of the Linn.

One man, at least, saw it. Under an arch of rock, in a space half filled

with fragrant dry bracken, Murdo the shepherd watched.

Doggedness was at once Murdo's strength and weakness. He had been

convinced that Anabal Gilchrist, guilty or innocent, had perished along

with Torcall Cameron. He had come to the Linn, and till he found her he

would wait. Moreover, had he not the word of the Scriptures for it,

bidding him be silent? What need, then, for him to go about as an idle

rumour? All would be known in time without _his_ telling.

When at last the twilight came, he was still there. If he could not see

the body of Anabal in Mairg Water--and he knew that, if there, it would

soon or late be swirled out of the Linn or the Kelpie's Pool--he would

wait till he saw her wraith.

There were many things--like certain stories told of the speed of great

vessels at sea, and about what the electricity, out of which the

lightning came, could be made to do--which he doubted, or at least

discounted in the telling. But in the sure wisdom of his fathers he knew

there was no rock of stumbling; therefore he was well aware that the

wraith of the dead comes to and fro between its death-place and that

darkness which is deeper than the mirk of the blackest night, on the

night following its severance from the body. So, he would wait and see.

If her wraith came from up the Strath or from down the hill, he would

know that she had not died in the water. Wherever it came from, he would

follow it.

He had seen too much, he muttered again and again to himself, with

quaking heart: he had seen too much in hill-gloamings and drear mountain

nights to have fear of the wraith of a poor widow-body, who lived no

further away than over against Cnoc-Ruadh on Tornideon. The moaning and

loud soughing of the wind tried him sore. But the night was cloudless,

and the moon hung above Iolair, a beacon everywhere in the dark. Then,

too, as the hours went, he grew warm and comfortable in his rocky lair;

moreover, fresh text after text came into his mind. In multiplicity of

these was safety; even were some of them no more than "And Chelub, the

brother of Shunah, begat Mehir," or than that (to Murdo, blasphemously

familiar) saying in Isaiah, "In that day shall the Lord shave with a

razor that is hired"--though, sure, to his shepherd mind, there was

comfortable word as of home, as well as sacred influence, in "And it

shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow,

and two sheep."

He had been dozing when the first spurt of flame broke out upon

Tornideon. A little later he roused with a start, and looked out upon

the Pool. There was a gleam there, or somewhere; could it be the woman

Anabal?

Then his gaze was drawn swift and steadfast, as iron to a magnet. He

realised what and where the flames were. Ardoch-beag was on fire.

In a moment there flashed upon him the recollection of Màm-Gorm, on the

white mare Raoilt, in the byre there.

With the thought came another, that he had been mad to believe Anabal

was in the Pool at all. She must have discovered the body of Torcall,

and set fire to the place--corpse, mare, and byre! There was not a

moment to lose. Yet, perhaps it was Alan; well, even then, he muttered,

he must go. But supposing ... _but supposing_ ... that ... that Màm-Gorm

himself....

Murdo did not know what to do. The dogs would help him, he thought.

Crawling from his hiding-place, he whistled to Donn and Luath. Both

collies had already crept from the fern, and were standing with

stiffened tails and rigid bodies, intently watching the shooting,

darting, leaping, ever-spreading flame on the hill opposite. Abruptly,

Luath began to growl. Then Donn stole, whining, to the shepherd's feet.

"What ails the dogs?" he muttered, half angrily.

A few minutes later his keen eyes discerned the cause of their

uneasiness. The full flood of the moonlight was upon the flank of

Tornideon, and it was now possible to see along the whole path from

Ardoch-beag to the Ford, "_glan mar a ghrian_," as he said to

himself--clear as in the sunlight.

And this was the thing that Murdo the shepherd saw, to be with him to

his death-day, and to be for ever in Strath Iolair a legend of terror.

Down the steep descent that began to fall away a few yards beyond

Ardoch-beag, he saw a tall, gaunt woman, with rent garments and long,

loosened hair fluttering in the wind, striding down the hillway, often

with wild gestures. And before the woman trampled and snorted a horse,

mad with the fear of the flame, and knowing, too, it may be, the awful

burden of death it bore, now swung crosswise upon its back. As a mad

horse will do, it pranced in a strange, stiff, fantastic way: wild to

leap forward and race like the wind from what lay behind, from what

jerked and jolted above; yet constrained as by another than human force.

Ever and again, in a momentary lull of the wind, Murdo could hear its

shrill, appalling neighing. Once, too, he shrank, because of the

screaming laughter of the woman.

Furlong by furlong he watched this ghastly march of the dead and dying.

Were it not for the flames at Ardoch-beag, where both house and byre

were now caught in a swirling blaze, he would have believed the other to

be no more than a vision.

With difficulty he silenced the dogs. He would stay where he was now,

and see what was going to be done that night: for it was clear that

Anabal, seemingly mad, and having set fire to Ardoch-beag, was now

driving Raoilt and its corpse-burthen either down to Mairg Water, or

with intent to cross and go up the mountain of Màm-Gorm.

This last, indeed, was evidently her aim: for, when at last the Ford was

reached, Murdo could see her striving to make the affrighted mare enter

the shallows. Raoilt, however, would not budge. With forelegs planted

firmly, with head thrown up, quivering flanks, and long tail slashing

this way and that, the white mare showed some strange horror of the

swift-running ford-water. Suddenly she swung round, and with a grotesque

prancing moved along the north bank toward the Linn.

They were now close to him. Murdo could see the bloodshot, gleaming

eyeballs of Raoilt: the white set face and staring eyes of Anabal.

Either the roar of the whirlpool, or the sight of one of the collies

slinking terrified through the fern, added a new terror to the mare. She

swerved wildly. The burden she bore became still further unloosed. With

scraping hoofs she pawed at a bank of heather, in a vain attempt to find

solid footing. A plunge ... a fall backward ... a staggering recovery

among the very rocks of the Linn ... and ... freedom at last!

But, for the second time since Murdo had last seen him in life, Torcall

Cameron was hurled headlong into the Linn o' Mairg.

With a cry the shepherd sprang forward. Anabal heard, but did not see.

All she knew was the roar of the linn, the wail of the kelpie, and

_that_--that withering scream of the dead man.

For a moment she stood on the verge of the cataract. Her arms were

upraised: her whole body moved with one unutterable supplication.

"_Fergus! Fergus!_"

The wild appeal rang through the night, above the turmoil of the falling

water, the increasing moan and loud blasting vehemence of the wind.

Murdo did not see her leap or fall. His gaze had for a moment sought the

mare, who, at that cry, had leaped as though stung by fire, and was

careering at breakneck speed up the boulder-strewn bank by which she had

come.

But when the shepherd looked again, Anabal Gilchrist was gone.

* * * * *

Throughout that night there was a wilder sound on the hillside than any

wail of the wind. This was the screaming of the white horse, as,

wrought now to a death-madness, it leaped waywardly through the dark, so

passing from height to height upward along the whole mountainal flank of

Iolair.

At dawn, in the sheiling high up on Druimnan-Damh, Sorcha awoke,

trembling.

For a time she listened in awe to the majesty of the wind, a vast choric

chant that filled the morning-twilight with an ocean of flowing sound.

Then, again and again, she heard that strange, horrible scream.

Alan stirred. She whispered as she drew closer to him. He, too,

listened. A great fear lay upon both. This screaming voice in the night

was an omen of sorrow, of doom. Who could it be but the Bandruidh--that

evil sorceress of the hills, dark daughter of the Haughty Father, who

had already won the soul out of Nial?

Sleep was impossible. It was banished even from thought, when a wild

neighing close to the walls of the cot made Sorcha cry out and cling to

Alan as though death were already upon them.

They lay shuddering. Clearly this was one of the water-bulls or

water-horses which roam the mountain-ways on nights of storm: dread

demon-creatures, to see whom even is almost certain death.

"It will not be long till sunrise," Alan whispered; and by that Sorcha

was comforted, for she knew that the ravening thing outside would have

to haste back to loch or river or sea.

And by daybreak, in truth, the beast was already away. They heard the

clamour of its hoofs against the granite stones and rock, as it sped

upward still.

When, hand clasping hand, they ventured to go out, they could see no

living thing, but an eagle soaring high above the extreme peak of

Iolair: for the light of the new glorious day was in their eyes as they

faced the Ridge of the Stags.

But suddenly Sorcha caught sight of something white leaping against the

sunrise.

Alan's gaze followed her trembling arm and outstretched finger. He, too,

saw, but unrecognisingly, a white horse, prancing and screaming along

the verge of the granite precipice of Sgòrr-Glan.

The mad beast was now on the Sgòrr itself. Behind were deep corries and

ravines: in front, nothing but the flaming disc of fire, nothing but

that sheer blank wall of granite, straight from the brow of the Sgòrr to

where the Srúantsrhà surged darkly its tortuous way, two thousand feet

below.

A faint, impalpable mist was in the air. This, doubtless, it was that

made the white horse loom larger and larger, till it stood out against

the morning, vast as Liath-Macha, the untamable phantom steed, "grey to

whiteness," that Cuculain the Hero rode triumphantly through the valley

of the shadow of death.

Then it was as though it leaped against the sun itself.