He ceased all movement, all sound, as though smitten into silence. Her fear partially overcome, now that she had gathered from his words that he thought he had found his soul at last, but that it was dead--yet with a dread in her heart because of the _thing_ that lay there in the pool, whether alive, dead, or asleep, or treacherously assuming life--she called again, and more loudly: "Nial! Nial!" Slowly he looked round. A bewildered terror in his eyes waned. It was only Oona. "Nial, Nial-mo-ghràidh, what is it?" "Hush, mo-mùirnean," he muttered, beckoning to her to creep close to him. The slight breeze that had sprung up for its brief life crept along the stream, and whispered along the grass and in the hot-smelling fern. The murmurous sound of it made the child glance apprehensively behind her. She dreaded the elfin footsteps that folk said could be heard at times near Nial. "What is it, dear Nial?" "_Ssh!_ Hush! Come here: look! ... look!" he whispered. Gently she stole beside him, leaned over the ledge, and stared down into the pool. A mere breath of the breeze ruffled the surface, and all she could see was a dark mass with a dusky white splatch, looming shadowily through the amber water, and strangely distorted by the silver shimmer caused by the wind-eddy, which came and went round the circuit of the pool like a baffled bird. "What is it? Who is it? What is it, Nial?" "Hush, do not speak so loud! It is my soul." "Your soul, Nial?" "Ay, true. Sure it is my soul. All night I was in the woods, and I heard a _tap-tapping_ going ever before me, and at dawn it led me down by the Mairg, and then the spirit flew away before me, and the _annir-choille_ was just like a woodpecker! And when it flew up by the Linn, I...." "Whisper louder, Nial! I can't hear." "When it flew up by the Linn, I saw it change into a curlew, and it wheeled over the Linn and called _cian-cian-cianalas_, and then I was afraid, though the annir-choille that was like a woodpecker had made hope to me of finding my soul." "Who is the annir-choille, Nial?" He gloomed at her silently. Then in a constrained voice, and with averted eyes: "How should I know? I know nothing. I am Nial." "But what have you been told?" "They call her the wood-maid--the tree-maid." "_Ah-h!_ ... and Nial...." "But when I came near, the curlew flew away. Then it was that I looked into the pool. And then, and then it was, Oona-mo-rùn, that I saw my soul lying here--big as a man's soul should be, and with a face as white as yours; ay, a fair, good body like Alan's, an' with clothes on, too--dark, beautiful clothes; an' the hands of him that moved about were white; an' ... oh, Oona-birdeen, look _you_ now, and see if it is not as I say!" The awed child stared into the brown depths, where the surface was still ruffled silvery here and there, with a glinting, glancing shimmer that made all things below shiftily uncertain. "Do you see it, Oona?" cried an eager whisper at her ear.