"But did you notice nothing about him, Ynys ... about his face, his features?"
"Yes. His eyes filled me with strange joy."
"With joy? Oh, Ynys! Ynys! do you know whom—what—it was you saw? It was a vision, a nothingness, a mere phantom; and that phantom was ... was ... myself!"
"You, Alan! Oh, no, Alan-aghray! dear, you do not know whom I saw—nor do I, though I know it was not you!"
"We will talk of this later, my fawn," Alan muttered. "Meanwhile, hold on to this ledge, for I wish to examine this mass of rock that they call the Altar."
With a spring he was on the ledge. Then, swift and sure as a wild-cat, he scaled the huge bowlder.
Nothing; no one! There was not a trace of any human being. Not a bird, not a bat; nothing. Moreover, even in that slowly blackening darkness he could see that there was no direct connection between the summit or side with the blank, precipitous wall of basalt beyond. Overhead there was, so far as he could discern, a vault. No human being could have descended through that perilous gulf.
Was the island haunted? he wondered, as slowly he made his way back to the boat. Or had he been startled into some wild fantasy, and imagined a likeness where none had been? Perhaps, even, he had not really seen any one. He had read of similar strange delusions. The nerves can soon chase the mind into the dark zone wherein it loses itself.
Or was Ynys the vain dreamer? That, indeed, might well be, and she with child, and ever a visionary. Mayhap she had heard some fantastic tale from Morag MacNeill or from old Marsail Macrae; the islanders had sgeul after sgeul of a wild strangeness.