“Well, this ninth wave goes through the water on the forehead of the tide. An’ wherever it will be going it _calls_. An’ the call of it is--‘_Come away, come away, the sea waits! Follow!… Come away, come away, the sea waits! Follow!_’[10] An’ whoever hears that must arise and go, whether he be fish or pollack, or seal or otter, or great skua or small tern, or bird or beast of the shore, or bird or beast of the sea, or whether it be man or woman or child, or any of the others.” [10] Ivor, of course, gave these words in the Gaelic, the sound of which has the sweet wail of the sea in it. “_Any of the others_, Ivor?” “I will not be saying anything about that,” replied McLean gravely; “you will be knowing well what I mean, and if you do not it is not for me to talk of that which is not to be talked about. “Well, as I was for saying, that calling of the ninth wave of the Tide is what Ian Mòr of the hills speaks of as ‘the whisper of the snow that falls on the hair, the whisper of the frost that lies on the cold face of him that will never be waking again.’” “_Death?_” “It is _you_ that will be saying it.” “Well,” he resumed, after a moment’s hush, “a man may live by the sea for five-score years and never hear that ninth wave call in any _Srùth-màra_; but soon or late he will hear it. An’ many is the Flood that will be silent for all of us; but there will be one Flood for each of us that will be a dreadful Voice, a voice of terror and of dreadfulness. And whoever hears that voice, he for sure will be the burden in the Ebb.” “Has any heard that Voice, and lived?” McLean looked at me, but said nothing. Phadric Macrae rose, tautened a rope, and made a sign to me to put the helm a-lee. Then, looking into the green water slipping by--for the tide was feeling our keel, and a stronger breath from the sea lay against the hollow that was growing in the sail--he said to Ivor: “You should be telling her of Ivor MacIvor Mhic Niall.” “Who was Ivor MacNeill?” I said. “He was the father of my mother,” answered McLean, “and was known throughout the north isles as Ivor Carminish: for he had a farm on the eastern lands of Carminish which lie between the hills called Strondeval and Rondeval, that are in the far south of the Northern Hebrides, and near what will be known to you as the Obb of Harris. “And I will now be telling you about him in the Gaelic, for it is more easy to me, and more pleasant for us all. “When Ivor MacEachainn Carminish, that was Ivor’s father, died, he left the farm to his elder son, and to his second son Sheumais. By this time Ivor was married, and had the daughter who is my mother. But he was a lonely man, and an islesman to the heart’s core. So … but you will be knowing the isles that lie off the Obb of Harris: the Saghay, and Ensay, and Killegray, and, farther west, Berneray; and north-west, Pabaidh; and, beyond that again, Shillaidh?”