This last, indeed, was evidently her aim: for, when at last the Ford was reached, Murdo could see her striving to make the affrighted mare enter the shallows. Raoilt, however, would not budge. With forelegs planted firmly, with head thrown up, quivering flanks, and long tail slashing this way and that, the white mare showed some strange horror of the swift-running ford-water. Suddenly she swung round, and with a grotesque prancing moved along the north bank toward the Linn. They were now close to him. Murdo could see the bloodshot, gleaming eyeballs of Raoilt: the white set face and staring eyes of Anabal. Either the roar of the whirlpool, or the sight of one of the collies slinking terrified through the fern, added a new terror to the mare. She swerved wildly. The burden she bore became still further unloosed. With scraping hoofs she pawed at a bank of heather, in a vain attempt to find solid footing. A plunge ... a fall backward ... a staggering recovery among the very rocks of the Linn ... and ... freedom at last! But, for the second time since Murdo had last seen him in life, Torcall Cameron was hurled headlong into the Linn o' Mairg. With a cry the shepherd sprang forward. Anabal heard, but did not see. All she knew was the roar of the linn, the wail of the kelpie, and _that_--that withering scream of the dead man. For a moment she stood on the verge of the cataract. Her arms were upraised: her whole body moved with one unutterable supplication. "_Fergus! Fergus!_" The wild appeal rang through the night, above the turmoil of the falling water, the increasing moan and loud blasting vehemence of the wind. Murdo did not see her leap or fall. His gaze had for a moment sought the mare, who, at that cry, had leaped as though stung by fire, and was careering at breakneck speed up the boulder-strewn bank by which she had come. But when the shepherd looked again, Anabal Gilchrist was gone. * * * * * Throughout that night there was a wilder sound on the hillside than any wail of the wind. This was the screaming of the white horse, as, wrought now to a death-madness, it leaped waywardly through the dark, so passing from height to height upward along the whole mountainal flank of Iolair. At dawn, in the sheiling high up on Druimnan-Damh, Sorcha awoke, trembling. For a time she listened in awe to the majesty of the wind, a vast choric chant that filled the morning-twilight with an ocean of flowing sound. Then, again and again, she heard that strange, horrible scream. Alan stirred. She whispered as she drew closer to him. He, too, listened. A great fear lay upon both. This screaming voice in the night was an omen of sorrow, of doom. Who could it be but the Bandruidh--that evil sorceress of the hills, dark daughter of the Haughty Father, who had already won the soul out of Nial?