This letter was ever in his mind: this, and what happened in the gloaming when he sailed away for Skye in the herring-smack of two men who lived at Armadale in Sleat. For, as the boat moved slowly out of the haven, one of the men asked him if he was sure that no one was left upon the island; for he thought he had seen a figure on the rocks, waving a black scarf. Achanna shook his head, but just then his companion cried that at that moment he had seen the same thing. So the smack was put about, and when she was moving slow through the haven again, Achanna sculled ashore in the little coggly punt. In vain he searched here and there, calling loudly again and again. Both men could hardly have been mistaken, he thought. If there were no human creature on the island, and if their eyes had not played them false, who could it be? The wraith of Marcus, mayhap; or might it be the old man himself (his father), risen to bid farewell to his youngest son, or to warn him? It was no use to wait longer; so, looking often behind him, he made his way to the boat again, and rowed slowly out towards the smack. _Jerk_--_jerk_--_jerk_ across the water came, low but only too loud for him, the opening bars of the Damhsa-na-Mairbh. A horror came upon him, and he drove the boat through the water so that the sea splashed over the bows. When he came on deck he cried in a hoarse voice to the man next him to put up the helm, and let the smack swing to the wind. “There is no one there, Callum Campbell,” he whispered. “And who is it that will be making that strange music?” “What music?” “Sure, it has stopped now, but I heard it clear, and so did Anndra MacEwan. It was like the sound of a reed-pipe, and the tune was an eerie one at that.” “It was the Dance of the Dead.” “And who will be playing that?” asked the man, with fear in his eyes. “No living man.” “No living man?” “No. I’m thinking it will be one of my brothers who was drowned here, and by the same token that it is Gloom, for he played upon the _feadan_; but if not, then … then …” The two men waited in breathless silence, each trembling with superstitious fear; but at last the elder made a sign to Achanna to finish. “Then … it will be the Kelpie.” “Is there … is there one of the … the cave-women here?” “It is said; and you know of old that the Kelpie sings or plays a strange tune to wile seamen to their death.” At that moment, the fantastic jerking music came loud and clear across the bay. There was a horrible suggestion in it, as if dead bodies were moving along the ground with long jerks, and crying and laughing wild. It was enough; the men, Campbell and MacEwan, would not now have waited longer if Achanna had offered them all he had in the world. Nor were they, or he, out of their panic haste till the smack stood well out at sea, and not a sound could be heard from Eilanmore.