The flowing tide it was that wrought him thus. At the ebb he would wander across the weedy slabs or among the rocks: silent, and more like a lost duinshee than a man. Then again after three months a change in his madness came. None knew what it was, though Aulay said that the man moaned and moaned because of the awful burden he bore. No drowning seas for the sins that could not be washed away, no grave for the live sins that would be quick till the day of the Judgment! For weeks thereafter he disappeared. As to where he was, it is not for the knowing. Then at last came that third day of the seventh month when, as I have said, Aulay Macneill told old Ronald MacCormick that he had seen the Sin-Eater again. It was only a half-truth that he told, though. For, after he had seen Neil Ross upon the rock, he had followed him when he rose, and wandered back to the roofless place which he haunted now as of yore. Less wretched a shelter now it was, because of the summer that was come, though a cold, wet summer at that. “Is that you, Neil Ross?” he had asked, as he peered into the shadows among the ruins of the house. “That’s not my name,” said the Sin-Eater; and he seemed as strange then and there, as though he were a castaway from a foreign ship. “And what will it be, then, you that are my friend, and sure knowing me as Aulay mac Luais--Aulay Macneill that never grudges you bit or sup?” “_I am Judas._” * * * * * “And at that word,” says Aulay Macneill, when he tells the tale, “at that word the pulse in my heart was like a bat in a shut room. But after a bit I took up the talk. “‘Indeed,’ I said; ‘and I was not for knowing that. May I be so bold as to ask whose son, and of what place?’ “But all he said to me was, ‘_I am Judas._’ “Well, I said, to comfort him, ‘Sure, it’s not such a bad name in itself, though I am knowing some which have a more home-like sound.’ But no, it was no good. “‘I am Judas. And because I sold the Son of God for five pieces of silver …’ “But here I interrupted him and said,--‘Sure, now, Neil--I mean, Judas--it was eight times five.’ Yet the simpleness of his sorrow prevailed, and I listened with the wet in my eyes. “‘I am Judas. And because I sold the Son of God for five silver shillings, He laid upon me all the nameless black sins of the world. And that is why I am bearing them till the Day of Days.’” * * * * * And this was the end of the Sin-Eater; for I will not tell the long story of Aulay Macneill, that gets longer and longer every winter: but only the unchanging close of it. I will tell it in the words of Aulay. * * * * *