When Alastair woke, an hour or more after dawn, he remembered nothing of what had happened. His memory, though not killed, was clouded by his madness; and, doubtless, the shock of what he had gone through, with the action of the mermaid's fruit, had further weakened it. He rose and looked about him wonderingly. Around, were the precipitous rocks; beyond, the sea stretched far into the morning mists, calm, with a silver sparkle in the south-east and turquoise-blue elsewhere, except in green straits under the shadow of the isle, till it faded into opal and dove-grey where the veils of mist slowly dispersed, re-wove, lifted, in-wove, and sank to the wave again, or sailed indefinitely away. Though he could still recall nothing of the past night, he recognised, as soon as he stepped from the cave and went down by the sea-marge, the head-land of Craig-Ruaidh and that of Craig-Geal just behind him. His one wish was to hide, so that none should see him. His fantasy led him to seek remote places, and to fear the face of his fellows. Turning toward the sun, he looked scrutinisingly along the coast. Somewhere beyond Craig-Geal, he remembered vaguely, there was another hollow which led to a series of intricate and unexplored caves, perilous places of evil repute among the islanders. If he were to go there ... but at that moment his wandering gaze lighted upon an object moving black in the shine of the sea. Was it a whale sunning itself, or a pollack moving idly after the liath? Then he saw that it was a boat--one of many torn from moorings or swept from the beach by the recent gale. So methodical were his actions, that none seeing him would believe his mind was so darkly veiled, that his reason was only partially in exercise. Having taken off his coat, he wrapped it round a heavy stone and threw the bundle far into the sea. Then he thrust his boots into a cranny in a fissured boulder that at full flood was covered. A few seconds later he was in the water, swimming swiftly toward the derelict. While he neared the boat, amid a sheen of sparkling foam as he urged his way through the sun-dazzle which lay upon that part of the sea, he broke intermittently into a mournful Gaelic chant, but with words so incoherent, and with interjections so wild and strange, that the fishermen on a coble, hid in the mist a few fathoms away, believed they listened to a sea-kelpie, or to that vague object of their profoundest dread known as "the thing that hides beneath the boat." They were southward bound; but at that forlorn wailing they hauled down their flapping sail, and, with their oars, made all haste northerly to their island or mainland haven. Not a man among them would have persevered in that voyage on that day.