What startled her more were the strange, wild, barbaric words that Nial was chanting, with thin, hoarse, monotonous wail. What was this rune he chanted? Why did he crouch there, chanting and swaying, swaying and chanting? Sometimes he ceased for a few moments that crooning, mourning, appealing, inexplicable chant, and appeared to be speaking, and to gesticulate as he spoke. Fantastic thoughts flashed through the child's brain. Perhaps it was the kelpie who was trying to lure Nial to her arms; or mayhap Nial had seen her, and was putting a _rosad_ upon her. She knew that the people of the Strath, and even Murdo the shepherd--in truth, Alan, too, and perhaps Sorcha, though she would not say it--believed that the elf-man was in league with all the mysterious or dreadful creatures of the shadow, from the harmless "guidfolk" of the hill-hollow to the yellow-clad demon-woman who drove her herd of deer and sang her death-song, and to the dark and terrible kelpie who lurked in the deep pool in that wild place beyond the Linn o' Mairg. Or, again, Nial might be uttering some incantation: or be at his old quest, the seeking of his lost soul. Surely it must be that, she thought, as soundlessly she approached him. Within the last minute or two a change had come over him. Every now and then he raised his head, often clasping and unclasping his hands, swaying to and fro the while, and speaking or chanting rapidly, with wild, scarce coherent words. He was as one in an ecstasy. Oona, for the first time, feared him. She stood, only a few yards behind him now, and listened. "_Ochan, ochone, arone! and so fair too, and so fair! O white you are as the canna that floats in the breeze, Or as the wool of the young lamb that Murdo found dead in the heather, Or as the breast of Sorcha, or as Oona, little Oona! O, O, arone, arone, Death of me, Woe! Oh, white too and fair, and I black as the wet peats, Black and ugly, so that even the deer know, And Fior and Donn and all the dogs Think me no more than a sheep, than the kye, ochan, ochone!_ _But oh, it's dead you are and drowned, Anam, my Soul! And it's there you lie ... grey and still ... with ... and you laugh at me, maybe ... And it may be you are the shadow only that will go if I leap at you! ... and hair like mine thick with dew ... Or ... the kelpie ... And true it was, with the fēē-ach, and the feannag, and the corbie, The corbie, the hoodie-craw, and the raven!_" At these words Oona glanced swiftly to right and left. Nowhere had she heard again the croaking of the raven, and now she could descry neither of Nial's three birds of omen. But just as her gaze was wandering back to the dwarf, she caught sight of the _fitheach_ further downstream, perched upon a dead branch near some rocks, and even as she looked she heard its harsh, savage _croak! croak!_ "_Ay, ay, ròc, Fēē-ach, ròc! Dean rocail, dean rocail!_" began Nial again, with a wild gesture.... "_Nial! Nial!_"