Part 32 (1/2)

Dark-haired girl!--a cow in the fold!

Bro! bro! bro, beloved ho!

Bro! my love! the irl--a cow, in the fold, And the birds have coer to be of help, Ian put off in his boat, and was soon aetful of all else than that the mackerel were come, and that every moment was precious For the first time Ian found himself no unwelcome comrade Was it, he wondered, because that, there upon the sea, whatever of shadoelled about hier visible

All through that golden noon he and the others worked hard Fro oars and splashi+ng nets; of the splashi+ng of the fish and the splashi+ng of gannets and gulls; of the splashi+ng of the tide leaping blithely against the sun-dazzle, and the illi out of the west;--all this blent with the loud, joyous cries, the laughter, and the hoarse shouts of the men of Barra and the adjacent islands It was close upon dusk before the Rona boats put into the haven of Aonaig again; and by that time none was blither than Ian MacIain, who in that day of happy toil had lost all the gloom and apprehension of the day before, and now returned to Caisteal-Rhona with lighter heart than he had known for long

When, however, he got there, there was no sign of Alan He had gone, said Giorsal, he had gone out in the smaller boat midway in the afternoon, and had sailed around to Aoidhu, the great scaur which ran out beyond the precipices at the south-west of Rona

This Alan often did, and of late more and more often Ever since he had come to the Hebrid Isles his love of the sea had deepened and had grown into a passion for itsi to be where no eye could see and no ear hearken

So at first Ian was in no way alarmed But when the sun had set, and over the faint blue filn of Alan, he becaed him in vain to eat of the supper she had prepared Idly he e, or down by the pebbly shore, or across the green _airidh_, eager for a glier to endure a growing anxiety, he put out in his boat, and sailed swiftly before the slight easterly breeze which had prevailed since , there was not a haven anywhere, nor even one of the sea caverns which honeycolance, therefore, showed him that Alan had not yet coh unlikely, that he had sailed right round Rona; unlikely, because in the narrow straits to the north, between Rona and the scattered islets known as the Innse currents prevailed, and particularly at the full of the tide, when they swept north-eastward dark and swift as a mill-race

Once the headland was passed and the sheer precipitous ard cliffs loomed black out of the sea, he becaer; but he saw that a sasout of the west; and whenever the wind blew that way, the sea-arcades were filled with a lifting, perilous wave Later, escape ht be difficult, and often ies which opened between Aoidhu and Ardgorm, it was difficult to know into which to chance the search of Alan Together they had exahtly; others wound sinuously till the green, serpentine alleys, flanked by basalt walls hundreds of feet high, lost theuishable maze

But that which was safest, and wherein a boat could e, cavernous passage known locally as the Uai Ian steered his boat Soon he ithin the wide corridor Like the great cave at Staffa, it rought as an aisle in some natural cathedral; the rocks, too, were coluraven by the hand of es a long, narrow arcade, filled by day with the green shi+ne of the water, and by night, when the ht It is one of the fehere there are open gateways for the sea and the wandering light, and by its spherical shape ale in a season of heavy wind Half-way along this arched arcade a corridor leads to a round cup-like cavern, e estive of a titanic altar Thus it ination of the islanders of old; for by them, even in a remote day, it was called Tea to the narrowness of the passage, and to the sreen depths into an invisible darkness, the Strait of the Te, save in a time of calm

Instinctively, however, Ian quietly headed his boat along this narroay When, silently, he eed from the arcade, he could just discern the mass of basalt at the far end of the cavern But there, seated in his boat, was Alan, apparently idly adrift, for one oar floated in the water alongside, and the other swung listlessly frorip as he saw him whom he had coe, listless indifference? For a dreadful moment he feared death had indeed coend had it, a woht death upon any who ca of the shaft of his oar against a ledge, Alanfrom where he crouched in the stern, he called to hiely unfamiliar

”I will not hear!” he cried ”I will not hear! Leavethat the desolation of the place had wrought upon his mind, Ian swiftly side

Stepping from the one to the other, he kneeled beside hihray_, what is it? What gives you dread?

There is no harm here All is well Look! See, it is I, Ian--old Ian MacIain! Listen, _haoil_; do you not know me--do you not knoho I am? It is I, Ian; Ian who loves you!”

Even in that obscure light he could clearly discern the pale face, and his heart slance wild and mournful Had he indeed succuain strikes into a terriblethose ell in the remote isles? But even as he looked, he noted another expression come into the wild strained eyes; and almost before he realised what had happened, Alan was on his feet and pointing with rigid arh unreachable and for ever unvisited solitude, was the figure of a e basalt altar, and appeared to have sprung frorown out of the obscure unrealities of the darkness

Ian stared, fascinated, speechless

Then with a spring he was on the ledge Swift and sure as a wild cat, he scaled the huge ; no one! There was not a trace of any hu Moreover, even in that slowly blackening darkness, he could see that there was no direct connection between the summit or side with the blank, precipitous wall of basalt beyond Overhead there was, so far as he could discern, a vault No huulf

Was the island haunted? he wondered, as slowly he made his way back to the boat Or had he been startled by soined a likeness where none had been? Perhaps even he had not really seen any one He had heard of such things The nerves can soon chase the mind into the shadoherein it loses itself

Or was Alan the vain dreaht well be Mayhap he had heard so MacNeill, or froeul_ of a wild strangeness

In silence he guided the boats back into the outer arcade, where a faint sheen of listened on the water Thence, in a few minutes, he oared that wherein he and Alan sat, with the other fastened astern, into the open

When the moonshi+ne lay full on Alan's face, Ian saw that he was thinking neither of himself nor of where he was His eyes were heavy with dreaainst their course, so Ian rowed unceasingly

In silence they passed once again the headland of Aoidhu; in silence they drifted past a single light glea out into the shadow of the sea, fro; and in silence their keels grided on the patch of shi+ngle in Caisteal-Rhona haven