“Oh, haste ye, lads, or it's not Carnus for us to-night,” cried Niall Mor. “We have business before us, and long's the march to follow. The secret, black fellow!”
Calum Dubh laughed, and spat in a bravado over the edge of the rock.
“Come, fool; if we have not the word from you before the sun's off Sithean Sluaidhe, your sleep this night is yonder,” and he pointed at the pit below.
Calum laughed the more. “If it was hell itself,” said he, “I would not save my soul from it.”
“Look, man, look! the Sithean Sluaidhe's getting black, and any one of ye can save the three yet. I swear it on the cross of my knife.”
Behind the brothers, one, John-Without-Asking, stood, with a gash on his face, eager to give them to the crows below.
A shiver came to Uileam's lips; he looked at his father with a questioning face, and then stepped back a bit from the edge, making to speak to the tall man of Chamis.
Calum saw the meaning, and spoke fast and thick.
“Stop, stop,” said he; “it's a trifle of a secret, after all, and to save life ye can have it.”
Art took but a little look at his father's face, then turned round on Shira Glen and looked on the hills where the hunting had many a time been sweet. “Maam no more,” said he to himself; “but here's death in the hero's style!”