The sweat poured from his face with heat and weariness long before he succeeded, at last, in getting a grip of the corpse. But, undaunted by failure after failure, and these even after he had first caught hold, he raised it slowly to the shelving ledge which ran out a few feet below the surface. The rest was easy. He slipped the rope over the feet, arms, and waist; then slid the body along the slippery ledge, and so with a rush to the face of the pool, and thence to a wide cranny in the rock beside him. Sure, there was no mistake. Màm-Gorm himself, in truth; for all he was so quiet and pale, with the dark brown out of his face now, and all the stern, brooding life of the man no more than an already nigh-forgotten idle song. So this was the end of Torcall Cameron of Màm-Gorm. There had been none prouder and more aloof than he in all Strath Iolair. Ay, he was a proud man. And now there was an end of it all. Sure, it was a bitter ending. God save us the dark hour of it. Ay, the dull knock and the muffled voice that come soon or late, in the mirk of day or night, at the soul-gate of each of us--Torcall mhic Diarmid had heard them.... Thus, over and over, variously, yet ever on the same lines, Murdo revolved in his mind the passing of Màm-Gorm. At last, to his satisfaction, he heard the peculiar cry which Nial was wont to give as a signal. Then followed the trampling of a horse: finally both appeared, coming along a stony path in the forest that in winter was a clattering watercourse. It did not take long for the two to lift the body on to the small, shaggy white horse, and there to secure it; with the white face staring blankly up at the blue sky, the open eyes fronting with unwinking gaze the pitiless glare of the sun. While they worked, Nial told how he had carried Oona home, and laid her on Sorcha's bed, sound asleep and warm. He had feared to leave her there all alone, lest she waked, or lest evil came to her "out of the shadow"; but he did what he could, and that was to take down the great Book from the shelf by the bed where Torcall Cameron would sleep never again, and lay it at the lassie's feet. Then he had gone out to the kailyard, and let Donn the collie leave her two pups awhile, and had given her a shawl of Sorcha's to smell, and then had sent her up the mountain to seek for Màm-Gorm's daughter, wherever she might be with the sheep and kye. As soon as all was ready, the crossing of the Mairg Water was done at the Ford, and then the ascent begun to Ardoch-beag. Murdo stalked in front, the rope-bridle looped over his arm; Raoilt, the white mare, staggered and stumbled after him up the craggy path. Then came Nial, his shape not more fantastic than the shadow which waxed and waned mockingly before him, as he toiled upward, with bent head and tear-wet, quivering face. Finally, lagging some yards behind, limped Murdo's two collies.