Once more Murdo left, and made a diligent search everywhere. When he came back, he was muttering constantly, with a wild look in his eyes.
"Did you hear that?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.
"That? What? I heard nothing."
"Did ye not hear some one in the shadow ayont the byre crying, Cian! Cian! Cianalas! Dubhachas!"[15]
"No, no," murmured Nial, trembling; "I saw the shadow of a bird on the grassy place yonder, and a cry like the binn fheadag."
"Ay, the feadag, the feadag, but no flying bird, for 'twas a wraith playing the dark song of the dead on the shadowy feadag that no man has ever seen, though there be those who hear it ... God save us!"
Nial shuddered. It might be so, he thought. He believed he had seen a plover only, had heard no more than the wailing cry of a plover; but doubtless Murdo knew.
The shepherd stood staring at him gloomily. At last he spoke:
"This is a dark thing, Nial, my man. There is no light upon it to me whatever. But it will be looking to me as though I should go down to the Pool again, and be seeing if she is there too. And if not, then I must seek out Alan upon the hill. Do you think this thing too?"
Nial shook his head despondently; he could think neither one way nor another. Màm-Gorm lay there dead—white, stiff, staring up to the sun. He knew that.