“I cannot stay here, I cannot stay here! I must go,” cried the lad, and he made to run on deck.
But Duncan put a hand out as the lowest step was reached, and set him back in his place.
“Sit you there!” said he. “I have a fine story you never heard yet And a fighting story too.”
“What is it? What is it?” cried Nan. “Oh! tell us that one. Is it a true one?”
“It is true—in a way,” said the seaman. “It was a thing that happened to myself.”
Gilian delayed his going—the temptation of a new story was too much for him.
“Do you take frights?” Black Duncan asked him. “Frights for things that are not there at all?”
Gilian nodded.
“That is because it is in the blood,” said the seaman; “that is the kind of fright of my story.”
And this is the story Black Duncan told in the Gaelic.