Then his gaze was drawn swift and steadfast, as iron to a magnet. He realised what and where the flames were. Ardoch-beag was on fire.
In a moment there flashed upon him the recollection of Màm-Gorm, on the white mare Raoilt, in the byre there.
With the thought came another, that he had been mad to believe Anabal was in the Pool at all. She must have discovered the body of Torcall, and set fire to the place—corpse, mare, and byre! There was not a moment to lose. Yet, perhaps it was Alan; well, even then, he muttered, he must go. But supposing ... but supposing ... that ... that Màm-Gorm himself....
Murdo did not know what to do. The dogs would help him, he thought. Crawling from his hiding-place, he whistled to Donn and Luath. Both collies had already crept from the fern, and were standing with stiffened tails and rigid bodies, intently watching the shooting, darting, leaping, ever-spreading flame on the hill opposite. Abruptly, Luath began to growl. Then Donn stole, whining, to the shepherd's feet.
"What ails the dogs?" he muttered, half angrily.
A few minutes later his keen eyes discerned the cause of their uneasiness. The full flood of the moonlight was upon the flank of Tornideon, and it was now possible to see along the whole path from Ardoch-beag to the Ford, "glan mar a ghrian," as he said to himself—clear as in the sunlight.
And this was the thing that Murdo the shepherd saw, to be with him to his death-day, and to be for ever in Strath Iolair a legend of terror.
Down the steep descent that began to fall away a few yards beyond Ardoch-beag, he saw a tall, gaunt woman, with rent garments and long, loosened hair fluttering in the wind, striding down the hillway, often with wild gestures. And before the woman trampled and snorted a horse, mad with the fear of the flame, and knowing, too, it may be, the awful burden of death it bore, now swung crosswise upon its back. As a mad horse will do, it pranced in a strange, stiff, fantastic way: wild to leap forward and race like the wind from what lay behind, from what jerked and jolted above; yet constrained as by another than human force.
Ever and again, in a momentary lull of the wind, Murdo could hear its shrill, appalling neighing. Once, too, he shrank, because of the screaming laughter of the woman.
Furlong by furlong he watched this ghastly march of the dead and dying. Were it not for the flames at Ardoch-beag, where both house and byre were now caught in a swirling blaze, he would have believed the other to be no more than a vision.