These were my thoughts as I watched the flickering flame dropping nearer and nearer to the window-ledge, and listened to the pipes. Donald was inspired. He and the pipes were one. In his hands they became a living thing. What he felt, they felt. They wept as he wept, they gloried as he gloried, they triumphed as he triumphed. He began with a murmur of grief that grew into a wail, became a passionate tempest, and died into a prolonged sob. Then he changed his note as memory wandered backward. The music became tenderly reminiscent, subduedly cheerful. They were again boys together at their play, youthful hunters swinging over the mountains after the red deer; young men with the maidens; warriors on their first foray. The threads of life ran in and out through the pattern of sounds he was weaving, and the older days of fighting and victories followed as I listened. There was hurrying, marching, charging; the groan of defeat; the mad slogan of final victory. "He's fechtin' the Macleans noo," cried out one of the men, who had some English, and the others chattered vigorously for a minute in their own Gaelic. The candle was now guttering on the window-ledge. These glories over, Donald came hard up against the end of them all--the Chief dead at his feet, slain by his own hand. For a time he faltered, playing only in little, melancholy snatches. Then he got surer, and the music began to come in blasts. He was seeing his way, learning what it all meant to him and the Maclachlans. Weird mun hae way. Destiny must work itself out. We children of a day are helpless before it. The flame fell to a golden bead as the music grew in strength and purpose. There was a burst of light, a peal of triumph, and the music and the flame went out together. Across the road I raced, threw open the door, and rushed in. Everything was dark and still. "Donald!" I called passionately. There was no reply. I crept on tip-toe to the fire and kicked the embers into a flame. Donald was lying dead across the dead body of his Chief, his dirk buried to the hilt in his own heart. * * * * * At daybreak we buried them side by side in one grave on the top of Shap, their feet pointing northward to their own mountains. When the last clod had been replaced, and a great boulder reverently carried up to mark the spot, I turned, covered my head, and prepared to go, but the men stood on. I looked back. They were loath to go. Something that should be done, had been left undone. I divined what they had in mind, turned back, bared my head as they uncovered, and repeated the Lord's Prayer aloud. I am thankful to this day to those men whom fools and bigots call savages. They taught me to pray again. "Man Captain," said the one who had English, as we walked away in a body, "ye wad mak' a gran' meenister."