Macleod of Dare Part 67

What was this sudden and awful thing? Instead of the starboard green light, behold! the port red light--and that moving? Oh see! how it recedes, wavering, flickering through the whirling vapor of the storm!

And there again is the green light! Is it a witch's dance, or are they strange death-fires hovering over the dark ocean grave? But Hamish knows too well what it means; and with a wild cry of horror and despair, the old man sinks on his knees and clasps his hands, and stretches them out to the terrible sea.

"Oh Macleod, Macleod! are you going away from me forever and we will go up the hills together and on the lochs together no more--no more--no more! Oh, the brave lad that he was!--and the good master! And who was not proud of him--my handsome lad--and he the last of the Macleods of Dare?"

Arise, Hamish, and have the gig hauled up into shelter; for will you not want it when the gale abates, and the seas are smooth, and you have to go away to Dare, you and your comrades, with silent tongues and sombre eyes? Why this wild lamentation in the darkness of the night? The stricken heart that you loved so well has found peace at last; the coal-black wine has been drank; there is an end! And you, you poor cowering fugitives, who only see each other's terrified faces when the wan gleam of the lightning blazes through the sky, perhaps it is well that you should weep and wail for the young master; but that is soon over, and the day will break. And this is what I am thinking of now: when the light comes, and the seas are smooth, then which of you--oh, which of you all will tell this tale to the two women at Castle Dare.

So fair shines the morning sun on the white sands of Iona! The three days' gale is over. Behold, how Ulva--Ulva the green-sh.o.r.ed--the _Ool-a-va_ that the sailors love--is laughing out again to the clear skies! And the great skarts on the sh.o.r.es of Erisgeir are spreading abroad their dusky wings to get them dried in the sun; and the seals are basking on the rocks in Loch-na-Keal; and in Loch Scridain the white gulls sit buoyant on the blue sea. There go the Gometra men in their brown-sailed boat to look after the lobster-traps at Staffa, and very soon you will see the steamer come round the far Cailleach Point; over at Erraidh they are signalling to the men at Dubh-artach, and they are glad to have a message from them after the heavy gale. The new, bright day has begun; the world has awakened again to the joyous sunlight; there is a chattering of the sea-birds all along the sh.o.r.es. It is a bright, eager, glad day for all the world. But there is silence in Castle Dare!

THE END.