For a long while after this no word was spoken. The chill of that remote place began to affect Alan, and he shivered slightly at times. But more he shivered because of the silence, and because that he who had promised to be there gave no sign. Sure, he thought, it could not be all a dream; sure, the Herdsman would come again.
Then at last, turning to Ian, he said, "We must come on the morrow, for to-day he is not here."
"I will do what you ask, Alan-mo-ghaol."
But of a sudden Alan stepped on the black ledges at the base of the Altar, and slowly mounted the precipitous rock.
Ian watched him till he became a shadow in that darkness. His heart leaped when suddenly he heard a cry fall out of the gloom.
"Alan, Alan!" he cried, and a great fear was upon him when no answer came; but at last he heard him clambering slowly down the perilous slope of that obscure place. When he reached the ledge Alan stood still regarding him.
"Why do you not come into the boat?" Ian asked, terrified because of what he saw in Alan's eyes.
Alan looked at him with parted lips, his breath coming and going like that of a caged bird.
"What is it?" Ian whispered.
"Ian, when I reached the top of the Altar, and in the dim light that was there, I saw the dead body of a man lying upon the rock. His head was lain back so that the gleam from a crevice in the cliff overhead fell upon it. The man had been dead many hours. He is a man whose hair has been greyed by years and sorrow, but the man is he who is of my blood; he whom I resemble so closely; he that the fishermen call the hermit of the rocks; he that is the Herdsman."