“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 of 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 MacNeil, 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 MacNeil, 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 MacNeil had surprised every one, except Mànus, by going away as a seaman on board one of the _Loch_ line of ships which sail for Australia from the Clyde.