ht her husband by
the arm.

"Hamish? Hamish! Are you going to drown yourself before my eyes?"

He shook her hand away from him.

"My young master ordered me ashore: I have come ashore. But I myself, I
order myself back again. Duncan Cameron, they will never say that we
stood by and saw Macleod of Dare go down to his grave!"

They emerged from the shelter of this great rock; the hurricane was so
fierce that they had to cling to one boulder after another to save
themselves from being whirled into the sea. But were these two men by
themselves? Not likely! It was a party of five men that now clambered
along the slippery rocks to the shingle up which they had hauled the
gig, and one wild lightning-flash saw them with their hands on the
gunwale, ready to drag her down to the water. There was a surf raging
there that would have swamped twenty gigs: these five men were going of
their own free-will and choice to certain death--so much had they loved
the young master.

But a piercing cry from Christina arrested them. They looked out to sea.
What was this sudden and awful thing? Instead of the starboard green
light, behold! the port red light--and that moving? Oh see! how it
recedes, wavering, flickering through the whirling vapor of the storm!
And there again is the green light! Is it a witch's dance, or are they
strange death-fires hovering over the dark ocean grave? But Hamish knows
too well what it means; and with a wild cry of horror and despair, the
old man sinks on his knees and clasps his hands, and stretches them out
to the terrible sea.

"Oh Macleod, Macleod! are you going away from me forever and we will go
up the hills together and on the lochs together no more--no more--no
more! Oh, the brave lad that he was!--and the good master! And who was
not proud of him--my handsome lad--and he the last of the Macleods of
Dare?"

Arise, Hamish, and have the gig hauled up into shelter; for will you not
want it when the gale abates, and the seas are smooth, and you have to
go away to Dare, you and your comrades, with silent tongues and sombre
eyes? Why this wild lamentation in the darkness of the night? The
stricken heart that you loved so well has found peace at last; the
coal-black wine has been drank; there is an end! And you, you poor
cowering fugitives, who only see each other's terrified faces when the
wan gleam of the lightning blazes through the sky, perhaps it is well
that you should weep and wail for the young m