She knew that old Macrae's advice was right: that she could best help by going home at once, and making preparation to receive Alastair if he were still alive. There was no room for him at the farm, where Ranald's wife had given birth to a child two days before. So with little Pòl, the herd-boy, she set out once more, leaning often upon the lad's shoulder; and wondering if, after all, God were going to let her be of some service before he led her through the blind way till her hand should slip into that of her husband. As she went, she muttered to herself part of a rune now almost lost among the people, an ancient _sian_--that part of the _Tuaitheal_, beginning _Clogaid na salainte mu d'cheann_: "The helmet of Salvation about your head, The ring of the Covenant about your neck, The priest's breastplate about your breast; If it be rout on the rear, The shoes of the Virgin to take you swiftly away. Charm of the Three in one on you From crown of head to sole of foot, And the charm of the pater of the seven paters A-going anti-sunwise and sunwise, sunwise and anti-sunwise, To protect you from behind, From wound and from slaying, Till the hour and time of your death." Before they left the farmstead, the Macraes had provided themselves with lanterns, a long rope, and a pine torch dipped in tar. As they neared the summit of Craig-Geal, they could hear the frenzied barking of Ghaoth in the darkness down by the sea--loud when caught on an eddy of wind and borne upward, scarce audible when overborne by the moan and boom and ever recurrent breaking surge of the advancing tide. At the dark circular exit of the cavern, they waved lanterns and shouted themselves hoarse: but without seeing aught, or winning response. Angus Macrae silently drew back, rose, and lit the pine torch. Flaring abruptly into the dark before a gust of wind, it was like a blood-red wound in the flank of some vast black creature of night. Having fastened the torch to the rope, he swung it far down the narrow funnel, up which came the smell of wrack and sea-damp and an obscure, muffled sound. Still there was nothing visible. No shout followed the sudden glare. The old man stood silent, craning forward with brooding eyes; for now he was thinking of the two sons he had lost. With a shudder, he moved slowly back and turned to Ranald. "Will you go down?" "Ay, father, that I will: if you will breathe the holy word before me and after me. The kelpie ... the Sea-Woman ... won't catch _me_, for I am sure of hand and foot." "So your brother Seumas thought." Ranald hesitated, looked at the cave-mouth, then at his father. "Is it true Seumas died in _that_ way?"