"Let there be a duel between us then ... ay, Marsail, you may weep; ay, Fergus, you may leap out of your shroud to be soul to soul with me ... what do I care for the hounds of the night?... Call off thy hounds, O Hunter!... Be the day between us, and the night, O God; and the two noons, and the darkness of the coming and the darkness of the going; and the blood of the living, and the corruption of the dead; and the earth and the sea; and the stars beneath the world, and the stars above the world; and the friend of man that is Time, and Thy friend that is Eternity ... for I _will_ not, I _will_ not, I _will_ not ... no, though I perish for ever and for ever" ... (_and at last, with a scream_) ... "Go Thy ways, O God.... Leave me, if Thou wilt not slay! ... I _will_ not! I _will_ not! I _will_ not!" When the next flash and thunderblast had hurtled and gone, Nial thought that Death had indeed come. Then he heard a low whisper: "What is it that I hear? Do the dead stir? Marsail ... Marsail ... or ... or ... is it _you_, Fergus, son of Fergus, son of Ian?" Sick with fear, Nial sprang to his feet, seized one of the fallen hands in his own, and tried to lead Màm-Gorm away. The blind man shook as a tuft of canna in a wind-eddy; white, too, as the canna, was his face. His lips moved convulsively. At last, hoarse, choking, sobbing sounds came forth, and from these grew three or four words: "Is--it--_you_, Marsail?" Nial shrank appalled, but could not withdraw his hands. "Is--it--_you_, Fergus Gilchrist?" Struggling to escape, he merely added to the paralysing awe which held his captor. "Who are you--what are you? Are you the thing of the grave, the black guide I have heard of?" With a sudden jerk the dwarf freed himself. The next moment he bounded aside, then, without a glance behind him, fled. Cameron sprang forward, but when he found that he had missed his grip he drew up again, and stood listening intently. If it was a spirit, it made a noise of running like a human: if it was a creature of the grave, it hurried back to no hollow near by: if it was Black Donald himself, Sir Diabhol had fled, affrighted! Ah, the Cailliach! He had not thought of _her_! It might well be that the demon-woman had tried to snare him. If so, what, who, had saved him? Dazed and sick he stood for a moment, because of a crash of a thunderbolt against a near height. The granite splintered like glass. In his mouth his palate shrank: his nerves strained, quivering. Who, what, hurled that thunderbolt? Was it God? Was He answering his wild prayer? If it were of God, why had it not stricken him? Hark! A scream far off! Had the leaping Cailliach been slain by the lightning, as a flying man by the spear of his pursuer? Had God given him these things as signs? These voices, that awful touch as of human hands?