Once more Murdo left, and made a diligent search everywhere. When he came back, he was muttering constantly, with a wild look in his eyes. "Did you hear _that_?" he asked in a hoarse whisper. "That? What? I heard nothing." "Did ye not hear some one in the shadow ayont the byre crying, _Cian! Cian! Cianalas! Dubhachas!_"[15] [15] Pron. _Kĕ-ăn! Kĕ-ăn! Keen-ăl-ŭs! Doov-ăch-ŭs!_ To Celtic ears, not unlike the wailing cry of the plover. The words, moreover, mean _For long, ever! Melancholy! Gloom!_ The word _feadag_ (pron. _Fāād'ak_), in the ensuing sentences, has two meanings--a plover, and a flute. The _binn fheadag_ is "the shrill voice of the plover." Murdo turns the word both ways: _feadag_, the bird, and _feadag_, a flute; the flute made of wind and shadow that sometimes is heard on the hills when a (_tamhasq_) _tāvăsk_ moves through the gloom of night. "No, no," murmured Nial, trembling; "I saw the shadow of a bird on the grassy place yonder, and a cry like the _binn fheadag_." "Ay, the feadag, the feadag, but no flying bird, for 'twas a wraith playing the dark song of the dead on the shadowy feadag that no man has ever seen, though there be those who hear it ... God save us!" Nial shuddered. It might be so, he thought. He believed he had seen a plover only, had heard no more than the wailing cry of a plover; but doubtless Murdo _knew_. The shepherd stood staring at him gloomily. At last he spoke: "This is a dark thing, Nial, my man. There is no light upon it to me whatever. But it will be looking to me as though I should go down to the Pool again, and be seeing if _she_ is there too. And if not, then I must seek out Alan upon the hill. Do you think this thing too?" Nial shook his head despondently; he could think neither one way nor another. Màm-Gorm lay there dead--white, stiff, staring up to the sun. He knew _that_. "Ah, poor fool that you are," Murdo went on, pityingly, and as though talking to himself; "sure, I need not be asking you. How can a soulless thing o' the woods think? wi' a head like an addled egg, and a poor bit body withouten a spirit in it, as all decent folk have. Well, well, 'tis Himself has the good reason, praise be His! And now, Nial, I will be doing this thing. I told you the Book lay open on the table in there. Well, I will be for going by whatever the word is that is on my sight when I first look. If it tell me to go into Inverglas, and speak of this evil day, then it is going there I will be; if it tell me to go and seek in the Pool, well, I will be going there; and whatever I see, it will be the way for me. If I am to speak, it is speaking I will be; if I am to be silent, it is silent I will be." And with that the shepherd turned, moved slowly away, and entered the cottage for the third time.