Gloom whispered, and his brother nodded sullenly. The next moment a heavy muffler was round Donull’s mouth, and before he could resist, or even guess what had happened, he was on his face on the shore, bound and gagged. A minute later the oars were taken by Gloom, and the boat moved swiftly out of the inner haven. As it drew near through the gloom Mànus stared at it intently. “That is not Donull that is rowing, Aulay!” “No; it will be Gloom Achanna, I’m thinking.” MacCodrum started. If so, that other figure at the stern was too big for Donull. The cloud passed just as the boat came alongside. The rope was made secure, and then Marcus and Gloom sprang on board. “Where is Donull MacDonull?” demanded Mànus sharply. Marcus made no reply, so Gloom answered for him. “He has gone up to the house with a message to Anna-nic-Gilleasbuig.” “And what will that message be?” “That Mànus MacCodrum has sailed away from Eilanmore, and will not see her again.” MacCodrum laughed. It was a low, ugly laugh. “Sure, Gloom Achanna, you should be taking that _feadan_ of yours and playing the Codhail-nan-Pairtean, for I’m thinkin’ the crabs are gathering about the rocks down below us, an’ laughing wi’ their claws.” “Well, and that is a true thing,” Gloom replied, slowly and quietly. “Yes, for sure I might, as you say, be playing the Meeting of the Crabs. Perhaps,” he added, as by a sudden afterthought, “perhaps, though it is a calm night, you will be hearing the _comh-thonn_. The ‘slapping of the waves’ is a better thing to be hearing than the Meeting of the Crabs.” “If I hear the _comh-thonn_, it is not in the way you will be meaning, Gloom ’ic Achanna. ’Tis not the ‘up sail and goodbye’ they will be saying, but ‘Home wi’ the Bride.’” Here Marcus intervened. “Let us be having no more words, Mànus MacCodrum. The girl Anne is not for you. Gloom is to be her man. So get you hence. If you will be going quiet, it is quiet we will be. If you have your feet on this thing, then you will be having that too which I saw in the boat.” “And what was it you saw in the boat, Achanna?” “The death of a man.” “So … And now” (this after a prolonged silence, wherein the four men stood facing each other), “is it a blood-matter, if not of peace?” “Ay. Go, if you are wise. If not, ’tis your own death you will be making.” There was a flash as of summer lightning. A bluish flame seemed to leap through the moonshine. Marcus reeled, with a gasping cry; then, leaning back till his face blanched in the moonlight, his knees gave way. As he fell, he turned half round. The long knife which Mànus had hurled at him had not penetrated his breast more than two inches at most, but as he fell on the deck it was driven into him up to the hilt. In the blank silence that followed, the three men could hear a sound like the ebb-tide in sea-weed. It was the gurgling of the bloody froth in the lungs of the dead man.