lone.

Many a hundred times had she been placed in great peril--on the stage;
and she knew that on such occasions it had been her duty to clasp her
hand on her forehead and set to work to find out how to extricate
herself. Well, on this occasion she did not make use of any dramatic
gesture; but she turned out the lamp, and threw herself on the top of
this narrow little bed; and was determined that, before they got her
conveyed to their savage home in the North, she would make one more
effort for her freedom. Then she heard the man at the helm begin to hum
to himself "_Fhir a bhata, na horo eile_." The night darkened. And soon
all the wild emotions of the day were forgotten; for she was asleep.

* * * * *

Asleep--in the very waters through which she had sailed with her lover
on the white summer day. But _Rose-leaf! Rose-leaf! what faint wind will
carry you_ NOW _to the South?_

CHAPTER XLV.

THE VOYAGE OVER.

And now the brave old _Umpire_ is nearing her Northern home once more;
and surely this is a right royal evening for the reception of her. What
although the sun has just gone down, and the sea around them become a
plain of heaving and wrestling blue-black waves? Far away, in that
purple-black sea, lie long promontories that are of a still pale
rose-color; and the western sky is a blaze of golden-green; and they
know that the wild, beautiful radiance is still touching the wan walls
of Castle Dare. And there is Ardalanish Point; and that the ruddy Ross
of Mull; and there will be a good tide in the Sound of Iona. Why, then,
do they linger, and keep the old _Umpire_ with her sails flapping idly
in the wind?

"As you pass through Jura's Sound
Bend your course by Scarba's shore;
Shun, oh shun, the gulf profound
Where Corrievreckan's surges roar!"

They are in no danger of Corrievreckan now; they are in familiar waters;
only that is another Colonsay that lies away there in the south. Keith
Macleod, seated up at the bow, is calmly regarding it. He is quite
alone. There is no sound around him but the lapping of the waves.

"And ever as the year returns,
The charm-bound sailors knows the day;
For sadly still the Mermaid mourns
The lovely chief of Colonsay."

And is he listening now for the wild sound of her singing? Or is he
thinking of the brave Macphail, who went back after seven long months of
absence, and found the maid of