Part 4

Both men sprang aside, the heart of each nigh upon bursting. The death-touch of the newly slain is an awful thing to incur, for it means that the wraith can transfer all its evil to the person touched.

The next moment there was a heavy splash. In a second Mànus realised that it was no more than a ruse, and that Gloom had escaped. With feverish haste he hauled in the small boat, leaped into it, and began at once to row so as to intercept his enemy.

Achanna rose once, between him and the _Luath_. MacCodrum crossed the oars in the thole-pins, and seized the boat-hook.

The swimmer kept straight for him. Suddenly he dived. In a flash, Mànus realised that Gloom was going to rise under the boat, seize the keel, and upset him, and thus probably be able to grip him from above. There was time and no more to leap: and, indeed, scarce had he plunged into the sea ere the boat swung right over, Achanna clambering over it the next moment.

At first Gloom could not see where his foe was. He crouched on the upturned craft, and peered eagerly into the moonlit water. All at once a black mass shot out of the shadow between him and the smack. This black mass laughed: the same low, ugly laugh that had preceded the death of Marcus.

He who was in turn the swimmer was now close. When a fathom away he leaned back and began to tread water steadily. In his right hand he grasped the boat-hook. The man in the boat knew that to stay where he was meant certain death. He gathered himself together like a crouching cat. Mànus kept treading the water slowly, but with the hook ready so that the sharp iron spike at the end of it should transfix his foe if he came at him with a leap. Now and again he laughed. Then in his low sweet voice, but brokenly at times, between his deep breathings, he began to sing:

The tide was dark an’ heavy with the burden that it bore, I heard it talkin’, whisperin’, upon the weedy shore: Each wave that stirred the sea-weed was like a closing door, ’Tis closing doors they hear at last who hear no more, no more, My Grief, No more!

The tide was in the salt sea-weed, and like a knife it tore; The wild sea-wind went moaning, sooing, moaning o’er and o’er; The deep sea-heart was brooding deep upon its ancient lore, I heard the sob, the sooing sob, the dying sob at its core, My Grief, Its core!

The white sea-waves were wan and grey, its ashy lips before, The yeast within its ravening mouth was red with streaming gore-- O red sea-weed, O red sea-waves, O hollow baffled roar, Since one thou hast, O dark, dim sea, why callest thou for more, My Grief, For more!

In the quiet moonlight the chant, with its long slow cadences, sung as no other man in the Isles could sing it, sounded sweet and remote beyond words to tell. The glittering shine was upon the water of the haven, and moved in waving lines of fire along the stone ledges. Sometimes a fish rose, and spilt a ripple of pale gold; or a sea-nettle swam to the surface, and turned its blue or greenish globe of living jelly to the moon dazzle.

The man in the water made a sudden stop in his treading, and listened intently. Then once more the phosphorescent light gleamed about his slow-moving shoulders. In a louder chanting voice came once again,

Each wave that stirs the sea-weed is like a closing door, ’Tis closing doors they hear at last who hear no more, no more, My Grief, No more!

Yes, his quick ears had caught the inland strain of a voice he knew. Soft and white as the moonshine came Anne’s singing, as she passed along the corrie leading to the haven. In vain his travelling gaze sought her: she was still in the shadow, and, besides, a slow drifting cloud obscured the moonlight. When he looked back again, a stifled exclamation came from his lips. There was not a sign of Gloom Achanna. He had slipped noiselessly from the boat, and was now either behind it, or had dived beneath it, or was swimming under water this way or that. If only the cloud would sail by, muttered Mànus, as he held himself in readiness for an attack from beneath or behind. As the dusk lightened, he swam slowly towards the boat, and then swiftly round it. There was no one there. He climbed on to the keel, and stood, leaning forward as a salmon-leisterer by torchlight, with his spear-pointed boat-hook raised. Neither below nor beyond could he discern any shape. A whispered call to Aulay MacNeill showed that he, too, saw nothing. Gloom must have swooned, and sank deep as he slipped through the water. Perhaps the dogfish were already darting about him.

Going behind the boat, Mànus guided it back to the smack. It was not long before, with MacNeill’s help, he righted the punt. One oar had drifted out of sight, but as there was a sculling hole in the stern, that did not matter.

“What shall we do with it?” he muttered, as he stood at last by the corpse of Marcus. “This is a bad night for us, Aulay!”

“Bad it is; but let us be seeing it is not worse. I’m thinking we should have left the boat.”

“And for why that?”

“We could say that Marcus Achanna and Gloom Achanna left us again, and that we saw no more of them nor of our boat.”

MacCodrum pondered a while. The sound of voices, borne faintly across the water, decided him. Probably Anne and the lad Donull were talking. He slipped into the boat, and with a sail-knife soon ripped it here and there. It filled, and then, heavy with the weight of a great ballast-stone which Aulay had first handed to his companion, and surging with a foot-thrust from the latter, it sank.

“We’ll hide the … the man there … behind the windlass, below the spare sail, till we’re out at sea, Aulay. Quick, give me a hand!”

It did not take the two men long to lift the corpse and do as Mànus had suggested. They had scarce accomplished this when Anne’s voice came hailing silver-sweet across the water.

With death-white face and shaking limbs MacCodrum stood holding the mast, while with a loud voice so firm and strong that Aulay MacNeill smiled below his fear, he asked if the Achannas were back yet, and, if so, for Donull to row out at once, and she with him if she would come.

It was nearly half-an-hour thereafter that Anne rowed out towards the _Luath_. She had gone at last along the shore to a creek where one of Marcus’ boats was moored, and returned with it. Having taken Donull on board, she made way with all speed, fearful lest Gloom or Marcus should intercept her.

It did not take long to explain how she had laughed at Sheumais’ vain efforts to detain her, and had come down to the haven. As she approached, she heard Mànus singing, and so had herself broken into a song she knew he loved. Then, by the water-edge, she had come upon Donull lying upon his back, bound and gagged. After she had released him, they waited to see what would happen, but as in the moonlight they could not see any small boat come in--bound to or from the smack--she had hailed to know if Mànus were there.

On his side, he said briefly that the two Achannas had come to persuade him to leave without her. On his refusal, they had departed again, uttering threats against her as well as himself. He heard their quarrelling voices as they rowed into the gloom, but could not see them at last because of the obscured moonlight.

“And now, Ann-mochree,” he added, “is it coming with me you are, and just as you are? Sure, you’ll never repent it, and you’ll have all you want that I can give. Dear of my heart, say that you will be coming away this night of the nights! By the Black Stone on Icolmkill I swear it, and by the Sun, and by the Moon, and by Himself!”

“I am trusting you, Mànus dear. Sure, it is not for me to be going back to that house after what has been done and said. I go with you, now and always, God save us.”

“Well, dear lass o’ my heart, it’s farewell to Eilanmore it is, for by the Blood on the Cross I’ll never land on it again!”

“And that will be no sorrow to me, Mànus my home!”

* * * * *

And this was the way that my friend Anne Gillespie left Eilanmore to go to the isles of the west.

It was a fair sailing in the white moonshine with a whispering breeze astern. Anne leaned against Mànus, dreaming her dream. The lad Donull sat drowsing at the helm. Forward, Aulay MacNeill, with his face set against the moonshine to the west, brooded dark.

Though no longer was land in sight, and there was peace among the deeps of the quiet stars and upon the sea, the shadow of fear was upon the face of Mànus MacCodrum.

This might well have been because of the as yet unburied dead that lay beneath the spare sail by the windlass. The dead man, however, did not affright him. What went moaning in his heart, and sighing and calling in his brain, was a faint falling echo he had heard as the _Luath_ glided slow out of the haven. Whether from the water or from the shore he could not tell, but he heard the wild fantastic air of the Dàn-nan-Ròn, as he had heard it that very night upon the _feadan_ of Gloom Achanna.

It was his hope that his ears had played him false. When he glanced about him and saw the sombre flame in the eyes of Aulay MacNeill, staring at him out of the dusk, he knew that which Oisìn, the son of Fionn, cried in his pain: “his soul swam in mist.”

II

For all the evil omens, the marriage of Anne and Mànus MacCodrum went well. He was more silent than of yore, and men avoided rather than sought him; but he was happy with Anne, and content with his two mates, who were now Callum MacCodrum and Ranald MacRanald. The youth Donull had bettered himself by joining a Skye skipper, who was a kinsman; and Aulay MacNeill had surprised everyone except Mànus by going away as a seaman on board one of the _Loch_ line of ships which sail for Australia from the Clyde.

Anne never knew what had happened, though it is possible she suspected somewhat. All that was known to her was that Marcus and Gloom Achanna had disappeared, and were supposed to have been drowned. There was now no Achanna upon Eilanmore, for Sheumais had taken a horror of the place and his loneliness. As soon as it was commonly admitted that his two brothers must have drifted out to sea, and been drowned, or at best picked up by some ocean-going ship, he disposed of the island-farm, and left Eilanmore for ever. All this confirmed the thing said among the islanders of the West--that old Robert Achanna had brought a curse with him. Blight and disaster had visited Eilanmore over and over in the many years he had held it, and death, sometimes tragic or mysterious, had overtaken six of his seven sons, while the youngest bore upon his brows the “dusk of the shadow.” True, none knew for certain that three out of the six were dead, but few for a moment believed in the possibility that Alison and Marcus and Gloom were alive. On the night when Anne had left the island with Mànus MacCodrum he, Sheumais, had heard nothing to alarm him. Even when, an hour after she had gone down to the haven, neither she nor his brothers had returned, and the _Luath_ had put out to sea, he was not in fear of any ill. Clearly, Marcus and Gloom had gone away in the smack, perhaps determined to see that the girl was duly married by priest or minister. He would have perturbed himself little for days to come, but for a strange thing that happened that night. He had returned to the house because of a chill that was upon him, and convinced, too, that all had sailed in the _Luath_. He was sitting brooding by the peat-fire, when he was startled by a sound at the window at the back of the room. A few bars of a familiar air struck painfully upon his ear, though played so low that they were just audible. What could it be but the Dàn-nan-Ròn; and who would be playing that but Gloom? What did it mean? Perhaps, after all, it was fantasy only, and there was no _feadan_ out there in the dark. He was pondering this when, still low, but louder and sharper than before, there rose and fell the strain which he hated, and Gloom never played before him, that of the Davsa-na-mairv, the Dance of the Dead. Swiftly and silently he rose and crossed the room. In the dark shadows cast by the byre he could see nothing; but the music ceased. He went out, and searched everywhere, but found no one. So he returned, took down the Holy Book, and with awed heart read slowly, till peace came upon him, soft and sweet as the warmth of the peat-glow.

But as for Anne, she had never even this hint that one of the supposed dead might be alive; or that, being dead, Gloom might yet touch a shadowy _feadan_ into a wild, remote air of the Grave.

When month after month went by, and no hint of ill came to break upon their peace, Mànus grew light-hearted again. Once more his songs were heard as he came back from the fishing or loitered ashore mending his nets. A new happiness was nigh to them, for Anne was with child. True, there was fear also, for the girl was not well at the time when her labour was near, and grew weaker daily. There came a day when Mànus had to go to Loch Boisdale in South Uist; and it was with pain, and something of foreboding, that he sailed away from Berneray in the Sound of Harris, where he lived. It was on the third night that he returned. He was met by Katreen MacRanald, the wife of his mate, with the news that, on the morrow after his going, Anne had sent for the priest, who was staying at Loch Maddy, for she had felt the coming of death. It was that very evening she died, and took the child with her.

Mànus heard as one in a dream. It seemed to him that the tide was ebbing in his heart, and a cold sleety rain falling, falling through a mist in his brain.

Sorrow lay heavily upon him. After the earthing of her whom he loved he went to and fro solitary; often crossing the Narrows and going to the old Pictish Tower under the shadow of Ben Breac. He would not go upon the sea, but let his kinsman Callum do as he liked with the _Luath_.

Now and again Father Allan MacNeill sailed northward to see him. Each time he departed sadder. “The man is going mad, I fear,” he said to Callum, the last time he saw Mànus.

The long summer nights brought peace and beauty to the isles. It was a great herring-year, and the moon-fishing was unusually good. All the Uist men who lived by the sea-harvest were in their boats whenever they could. The pollack, the dogfish, the otters, and the seals, with flocks of sea-fowl beyond number, shared in the common joy. Mànus MacCodrum alone paid no need to herring or mackerel. He was often seen striding along the shore, and more than once had been heard laughing. Sometimes, too, he was come upon at low tide by the great Reef of Berneray, singing wild strange runes and songs, or crouching upon a rock and brooding dark.

The midsummer moon found no man on Berneray except MacCodrum, the Reverend Mr Black, the minister of the Free Kirk, and an old man named Anndra McIan. On the night before the last day of the middle month, Anndra was reproved by the minister for saying that he had seen a man rise out of one of the graves in the kirkyard, and steal down by the stone-dykes towards Balnahunnur-sa-mona,[2] where Mànus MacCodrum lived.

[2] _Baille-’na-aonar’sa mhonadh_, “the solitary farm on the hill-slope.”

“The dead do not rise and walk, Anndra.”

“That may be, maighstir; but it may have been the Watcher of the Dead. Sure, it is not three weeks since Padruic McAlistair was laid beneath the green mound. He’ll be wearying for another to take his place.”

“Hoots, man, that is an old superstition. The dead do not rise and walk, I tell you.”

“It is right you may be, maighstir; but I heard of this from my father, that was old before you were young, and from his father before him. When the last buried is weary with being the Watcher of the Dead he goes about from place to place till he sees man, woman, or child with the death-shadow in the eyes, and then he goes back to his grave and lies down in peace, for his vigil it will be over now.”

The minister laughed at the folly, and went into his house to make ready for the Sacrament that was to be on the morrow. Old Anndra, however, was uneasy. After the porridge he went down through the gloaming to Balnahunnur-sa-mona. He meant to go in and warn Mànus MacCodrum. But when he got to the west wall, and stood near the open window, he heard Mànus speaking in a loud voice, though he was alone in the room.

“_B’ionganntach do ghràdh dhomhsa, a’ toirt barrachd air gràdh nam ban!…_”[3]

[3] “Thy love to me was wonderful, surpassing the love of women.”

This Mànus cried in a voice quivering with pain. Anndra stopped still, fearful to intrude, fearful also, perhaps, to see someone there beside MacCodrum whom eyes should not see. Then the voice rose into a cry of agony.

“_Aoram dhuit, ay an déigh dhomh fàs aosda!_”[4]

[4] “I shall worship thee, ay even after I have become old.”

With that Anndra feared to stay. As he passed the byre he started, for he thought he saw the shadow of a man. When he looked closer he could see nought, so went his way trembling and sore troubled.

It was dusk when Mànus came out. He saw that it was to be a cloudy night, and perhaps it was this that, after a brief while, made him turn in his aimless walk and go back to the house. He was sitting before the flaming heart of the peats, brooding in his pain, when, suddenly, he sprang to his feet.

Loud and clear, and close as though played under the very window of the room, came the cold white notes of an oaten flute. Ah, too well he knew that wild fantastic air. Who could it be but Gloom Achanna, playing upon his _feadan_; and what air of all airs could that be but the Dàn-nan-Ròn?

Was it the dead man, standing there unseen in the shadow of the grave? Was Marcus beside him--Marcus with the knife still thrust up to the hilt, and the lung-foam upon his lips? Can the sea give up its dead? Can there be strain of any _feadan_ that ever was made of man--there in the Silence?

In vain Mànus MacCodrum tortured himself thus. Too well he knew that he had heard the Dàn-nan-Ròn, and that no other than Gloom Achanna was the player.

Suddenly an access of fury wrought him to madness. With an abrupt lilt the tune swung into the Davsa-na-mairv, and thence, after a few seconds, and in a moment, into that mysterious and horrible _Codhail-nan-Pairtean_ which none but Gloom played.

There could be no mistake now, nor as to what was meant by the muttering, jerking air of the “Gathering of the Crabs.”

With a savage cry Mànus snatched up a long dirk from its place by the chimney, and rushed out.

There was not the shadow of a sea-gull even in front: so he sped round by the byre. Neither was anything unusual discoverable there.

“Sorrow upon me,” he cried; “man or wraith, I will be putting it to the dirk!”

But there was no one; nothing; not a sound.

Then, at last, with a listless droop of his arms, MacCodrum turned and went into the house again. He remembered what Gloom Achanna had said: “_You’ll hear the Dàn-nan-Ròn the night before you die, Mànus MacCodrum, and lest you doubt it, you’ll hear it in your death-hour._”

He did not stir from the fire for three hours; then he rose, and went over to his bed and lay down without undressing.

He did not sleep, but lay listening and watching. The peats burned low, and at last there was scarce a flicker along the floor. Outside he could hear the wind moaning upon the sea. By a strange rustling sound he knew that the tide was ebbing across the great reef that runs out from Berneray. By midnight the clouds had gone. The moon shone clear and full. When he heard the clock strike in its worm-eaten, rickety case, he sat up, and listened intently. He could hear nothing. No shadow stirred. Surely if the wraith of Gloom Achanna were waiting for him it would make some sign, now, in the dead of night.

An hour passed. Mànus rose, crossed the room on tip-toe, and soundlessly opened the door. The salt-wind blew fresh against his face. The smell of the shore, of wet sea-wrack and pungent gale, of foam and moving water, came sweet to his nostrils. He heard a skua calling from the rocky promontory. From the slopes behind, the wail of a moon-restless lapwing rose and fell mournfully.

Crouching, and with slow, stealthy step, he stole round by the seaward wall. At the dyke he stopped, and scrutinised it on each side. He could see for several hundred yards, and there was not even a sheltering sheep. Then, soundlessly as ever, he crept close to the byre. He put his ear to chink after chink; but not a stir of a shadow even. As a shadow, himself, he drifted lightly to the front, past the hay-rick: then, with swift glances to right and left, opened the door and entered. As he did so, he stood as though frozen. Surely, he thought, that was a sound as of a step, out there by the hay-rick. A terror was at his heart. In front, the darkness of the byre, with God knows what dread thing awaiting him: behind, a mysterious walker in the night, swift to take him unawares. The trembling that came upon him was nigh overmastering. At last, with a great effort, he moved towards the ledge, where he kept a candle. With shaking hand he struck a light. The empty byre looked ghostly and fearsome in the flickering gloom. But there was no one, nothing. He was about to turn, when a rat ran along a loose hanging beam, and stared at him, or at the yellow shine. He saw its black eyes shining like peat-water in moonlight.

The creature was curious at first, then indifferent. At least, it began to squeak, and then make a swift scratching with its forepaws. Once or twice came an answering squeak: a faint rustling was audible here and there among the straw.

With a sudden spring Mànus seized the beast. Even in the second in which he raised it to his mouth, and scrunched its back with his strong teeth, it bit him severely. He let his hands drop, and grope furtively in the darkness. With stooping head he shook the last breath out of the rat, holding it with his front teeth, with back-curled lips. The next moment he dropped the dead thing, trampled upon it, and burst out laughing. There was a scurrying of pattering feet, a rustling of straw. Then silence again. A draught from the door had caught the flame and extinguished it. In the silence and darkness MacCodrum stood, intent but no longer afraid. He laughed again, because it was so easy to kill with the teeth. The noise of his laughter seemed to him to leap hither and thither like a shadowy ape. He could see it: a blackness within the darkness. Once more he laughed. It amused him to see the _thing_ leaping about like that.

Suddenly he turned, and walked out into the moonlight. The lapwing was still circling and wailing. He mocked it, with loud, shrill _pēē-wēēty, pēē-wēēty, pēē-wēēt_. The bird swung waywardly, alarmed: its abrupt cry, and dancing flight, aroused its fellows. The air was full of the lamentable crying of plovers.