"Let me go, Torcall Cameron, in the name of God!"
The blind man relaxed his grip a little, which had become like a vice. The words brought a shock to his heart. He had never heard Nial call him by his name before: and if he were of demon birth, how could he say "an ainm an Athar"?
"Let me go, Torcall Cameron, or I will put a rosad upon you, a spell that no sian of Oona or Sorcha will save you from."
"You, you thing of the woods, you put a spell upon me: you who had my bread, and had my fire, and who would have died but for me! Ay, and you would put a spell upon me! And what would that rosad be like, now, from you that have never consorted with men, and have learned nothing save from the lassie Oona?"
"When I was with the children of the wind," Nial began, to be interrupted at once by his captor, who muttered, "Ah, the gypsies I forgot"—and grew grave, as with the shadow of a fear.
"When I was with the children of the wind, Màm-Gorm, I learned some things that even you may not know. And in the woods I have learned that which no man knows. And if I put the evil upon you, you will die slow, year by year, from the brain that is behind your eyes to the last bones of your feet!"
Cameron shuddered.
"It may be so. God forgive me, any way. You have done me no harm. But look you, Nial of the woods, keep out of my way when I wander abroad—and let me hear no more of your spells. There: you are free to go. Yet even now that my hand is off you, I long to make sure that you are not the thing that came out of the cairn."
With a dark, vengeful face the elf-man moved out of reach; then he whispered in a slow, meaning way:
"I am going, for I see Marsail coming down the hill from the cairn, and with her is a man——"