"Oh, oh! the dark, the dark, and never more the sun shining on the bonny blooms of dark Darruach, never mair the white lambs running, and the gleam on the wing of the moorcock.
"Ay, they would be for the killing of me, and I lay among the rafters, under the thatch of my mother's house, and listened to them miscalling me, the black killer—the bloody man that had the black art and the evil eye; and it came over my heart to catch them by the hair, and pull them up to me as they were speaking, and let my black knife kiss their hearts. It was all red, red before me, up there under the thatch, and them down below, and my sisters shaking when they saw me watching down in the dark. It's droll, droll—because a soft white coward died—they would kill me, me that would kill a man when I drew my dirk—ho, ho, ho!
"I lay hid among the rocks above the Herring Slap, alane day and night, and the blue rockdoos left their nestlings and circled above my lair, till I was feart that folk wid see them, and come peering down and get me. But a herrin' skiff took me away from that place in the dark of the night, and I drifted to the warm South Seas and the darkling women and the white glistening houses; but she came with me, she that had died. I would be seeing her rising before the bows o' the ship, rising from the sea, and waving on me to follow, and the weather was worse and worse at her every coming. An' there was a man o' the Western Isles in the crew, and he had the sight, and would be telling o' the woman rising from the sea, and her hair blowing over the yeast o' the waves, and her eyes staring, staring, and the waving of her hand when I was at the tiller; and so bad the weather got, and the sickness among the crew, that the captain swore he would send the woman's man to her, and he lay aft in his cabin, and drank rum till his boy was feart to venture near him; and then he came on deck—a fine wild man, all in his finery o' lace and golden earrings, and he called his sailors aft to make choice of the woman's man. There was many there that would have been making choice of me, but my hand was quick on the dirk, and no man spoke above a whisper, and then I looked over the bows, and I would be seeing her coming, and the man of the Western Isles cried out in his fear—
"'She's wavin', she's wavin', Chrisht's mercy.' He was pointing to the grey seas, and the froth was on his lips.
"And as he was standing gazing I creeped round behind him like a cat, so quiet, and I had my arms round him before his eyes were winking.
"'Go to your wet love,' I cried, and I flung him over the rail by the poop, and the captain was at the laughing.
"'The curse is lifted, my lads,' he roared. 'Crowd the sail on her. Heigh-ho for the North and the gay adventures!' But after that there were two to be watching in the darkness when I took the tiller—ay, and I crawled from the sea at last, and came to the hills again—in the dark.
"Oh, the dark, the dark, and never mair the sun shining on the heather howes of dark Glen Darruach." As we lay on the heather beds the Nameless Man wandered through the cave, and the booming of his voice rumbled in the heart of the hill, as he wandered through unknown galleries in the dark. The day came at last, and I saw a wee shaft of light filter down some way on the cavern walls, but we could only lie still till the dusk would come again, and we might make our way among the hills, for after our sleeping Dan and Ronny and me had a great confab.
"I canna lie here like a rat in a hole a' my days," said Dan.
"Ye'll never sleep sound till there's many a mile o' blue sea between you and Dol Beag's hunters," said I. "If we could pass the word for a skiff. . . ."