So intent were the seals upon the fight of the two great bulls that they did not see the swimmer, or, if they did, took him for one of their own people. A savage snarling and barking and half-human crying came from them. Mànus was almost within reach of the nearest, when one of the combatants sank dead, with torn throat. The victor clambered on to the reef, and leaned high, swaying its great head and shoulders to and fro. In the moonlight its white fangs were like red coral. Its blinded eyes ran with gore.
There was a rush, a rapid leaping and swirling, as Mànus surged in among the seals, which were swimming round the place where the slain bull had sunk.
The laughter of this long white seal terrified them.
When his knee struck against a rock, MacCodrum groped with his arms and hauled himself out of the water.
From rock to rock and ledge to ledge he went, with a fantastic dancing motion, his body gleaming foam-white in the moonshine.
As he pranced and trampled along the weedy ledges, he sang snatches of an old rune—the lost rune of the MacCodrums of Uist. The seals on the rocks crouched spell-bound: those slow-swimming in the water stared with brown unwinking eyes, with their small ears strained against the sound:—
It is I, Mànus MacCodrum,
I am telling you that, you, Anndra of my blood,
And you, Neil my grandfather, and you, and you, and you!