"And what then, Oona?" Nial, the child resumed, had heard no more. But when he turned and looked toward the strath he saw nine men moving away from Màm-Gorm, carrying in their midst a long black box. When he glanced back, the four wayfarers he had seen had disappeared. Yet, as Sorcha knew, her father had not stirred from the house that day. Nothing of what Murdo or Nial had seen came to his ears--of that she was heedful. But suddenly, while they were eating the porridge, Oona asked her foster-father what an "eilidriom" was. Cameron sprang to his feet, pale as death, and shaking, with the milk that he had spilt from the mug in his hand running down his breast as though his life-blood were pouring from him, white, too, with fear. "_What is that you say, Oona?_" he cried, hoarsely; "what is that you say? _Do you see a carbad-mhàrbh--at the door--coming here?_" "No--no----" murmured the child, terrified. "Then how do you know that word for it? Who told it to you? I have not heard it said for years. No man uses it in this country. I have not heard it since--since Marsail died--and then it was from--from the people yonder on Tornideon, for Anabal Gilchrist was of the isles." But here Sorcha had interposed, and said that Oona had picked it up in some way--in one of the old runes told her by Murdo, no doubt. For the rest of that night Torcall Cameron only once opened his lips, and that not at the covering of the peats, or when Sorcha sang one of the sweet _orain spioradail_ he loved so well, after she had read a while in the Book of Peace. It was when she came to him after he had lain down in his bed, and kissed him, and let her flooding tears fall warm upon his blind, upstaring eyes: then he pulled her head closer, and whispered, "Sorcha, Sorcha, my soul swims in mist!" It was a night of beauty, and still. All slept. But toward dawn a voice arose in the corries. From height to height it went, and the long wail of it swept past the green airidh of Màm-Gorm and wandered sobbing through the forest. Then all was still again. The dawn that came soon after was of pale gold and faintest wild-rose. Peace was in the heaven. But with that sudden passing wail, so often heard on the mountains when there is not a cloud in the sky, and when far and near not a branch sways, and the gnats dance in long columns perpendicularly without drifting this way or that--with that voice out of the hills, Torcall awoke. When Sorcha arose she heard him moaning. Wearily she wondered what this fateful date meant, this dreaded first day of the eighth month. When she went to him, he said no other word than this: "I have heard the lamentable cry of death." "The cry of death?" she repeated, questioningly. "Ay, truly, the lamentation of the demon-women mourning for the dead." * * * * *