He lay back and listened. There were no bells calling across the water. He looked into the depths. It was Manann's kingdom, and he had never heard that God was there; but he looked. Then he stared into the dark-blue star-strewn sky.
Suddenly he touched Thorkeld.
"Tell me," he said, "how far north has the Cross of Christ come?"
"By the sea way it has not come here yet. Murdoch the Freckled came with it this way, but he was pulled into the sea, and he died."
"Who pulled him into the sea?"
Thorkeld stared into the running wave. He had no words.
Artân lay still for a long while.
"It will go ill with me," he thought, "if Mary cannot see me so far away from Iona, and if God will not listen to me. Colum should have known that, and given me a holy leaf with the fair branching letters on it, and the Latin words that are the words of God."
Then he spoke to the man who had sung.
"Do you know of Mary, and God, and the Son, and the Spirit?"