As sometimes happens after a night of uneasy dreaming of some disturbing topic, the reaction of the morning carried oblivion with it. It was well into the afternoon when all at once I remembered the existence of the witch-woman--for as such I was beginning to think of Gormala. The thought came accompanied by a sense of oppression which was not of fear, but which was certainly of uneasiness. Was it possible that the woman had in some way, or to some degree, hypnotised me. I remembered with a slightly nervous feeling how the evening before I had stopped on the roadway obedient to her will, and how I had lost the identity of my surroundings in her presence. A sudden idea struck me; I went to the window and looked out. For an instant my heart seemed to be still. Just opposite the house stood Gormala, motionless. I went out at once and joined her, and instinctively we turned our steps toward the sand-hills. As we walked along I said to her: "Where did you disappear to last night?" "About that which is to be done!" Her lips and her face were set; I knew it was no use following up that branch of the subject, so I asked again: "What did you mean by those verses which you told me?" Her answer was given in a solemn tone: "Them that made them alone can tell; until the time shall come!" "Who made them?" "Nane can now tell. They are as aud as the rocky foundations o' the isles themselves." "Then how did you come to know them?" There was a distinct note of pride in her answer. Such a note as might be expected from a prince speaking of his ancestry: "They hae come doon to me through centuries. Frae mither to dochter, and from mither to dochter again, wi' never a break in the lang line o' the tellin'. Know ye, young master, that I am o' a race o' Seers. I take my name from that Gormala o' Uist who through long years foresaw the passing o' mony a one. That Gormala who throughout the islands of the west was known and feared o' all men; that Gormala whose mither's mither, and mither's mither again, away back into the darkness o' time when coracles crept towards the sunset ower the sea and returned not, held the fates o' men and women in their han's and ruled the Mysteries o' the Sea." As it was evident that Gormala must have in her own mind some kind of meaning of the prophecy, or spell, or whatever it was, I asked her again: "But you must understand something of the meaning, or you would not attach so much importance to it?" "I ken naught but what is seen to ma een, and to that inner e'e which telleth tae the soul that which it seeth!" "Then why did you warn me that Lammas-tide was near at hand?" The grim woman actually smiled as she replied: "Did ye no hearken to the words spoken of the Lammas floods, which be of the Powers that rule the Spell?"