There were two men who loved one woman. It is of no mere girl with the fair looks upon her I am speaking, but of a woman, that can put the spell over two men. The name of the woman was Silis: the names of the men were Sheumas and Isla.
Silis was the wife of Sheumas. So Sheumas had his home, for her breast was his pillow when he willed it: and he had her voice for daily music: and his eyes had never any thirst, for they could drink of her beauty by day and by night. But Isla had no home. He saw his home afar off, and his joy and his strength failed, because the shining lights of it were not for him.
One night the two men were upon the water. It was a dead calm, and the nets had been laid. There was no moon at all, and only a star or two up in the black corner of the sky. The sea had the wandering flames in it: and when the big jellyfish floated by, they were like the tide-lamps that some are for saying the dead bear on their drowned faces.
“Some day I may be telling you a strange thing, Sheumas,” said Isla, after the long silence there had been since the last net had sent a little cloud of sparkles up from the gulfs.
“Ay?” said Sheumas, taking his pipe from his mouth, and looking at the spire of smoke rising just forward o’ the mast. The water slipped by, soft and slow. It was only the tide feeling its way up the sea-loch, for there was not a breath of wind. Here and there were dusky shadows: the boats of the fishermen of Inchghunnais. Each carried a red light, and in some were green lanterns slung midway up the mast.
No other word was said for a long time.
“And I’m wondering,” said Isla at last: “I’m wondering what you’ll think of that story.”
Sheumas made no answer to that. He smoked, and stared down into the dark water.
After a time he rose, and leaned against the mast. Though there was no light of either moon or lamp, he put his hand above his eyes, as his wont was.