It was certainly a strange and impressive scene.  They stood on the top of a lofty range of hill, and, underneath them lay a vast semicircle, miles in extent, of gleaming white sand, that had in bygone ages been washed in by the Atlantic.  Into this vast plain of silver whiteness the sea, entering by a somewhat narrow portal, stretched in long arms of a pale blue.  Elsewhere, the great crescent of sand was surrounded by a low line of rocky hill, showing a thousand tints of olive-green and gray and heather-purple; and beyond that again rose the giant bulk of Mealasabhal, grown pale in the heat, into the southern sky.  There was not a ship visible along the blue plain of the Atlantic.  The only human habitation to be seen in the strange world beneath them was a solitary manse.  But away toward the summit of Mealasabhal two specks slowly circled in the air, which Sheila thought were eagles; and far out on the western sea, lying like dusky whales in the vague blue, were the Pladda Islands—­the remote and unvisited Seven Hunters—­whose only inhabitants are certain flocks of sheep belonging to dwellers on the mainland of Lewis.

The travelers sat down on a low block of gneiss to rest themselves, and then and there did the King of Borva recite his grievances and rage against the English smacks.  Was it not enough that they should in passing steal the sheep, but that they should also, in mere wantonness, stalk them as deer, wounding them with rifle-bullets, and leaving them to die among the rocks?  Sheila said bravely that no one could tell that it was the English fishermen who did that.  Why not the crews of merchant-vessels, who might be of any nation?  It was unfair to charge upon any body of men such a despicable act, when there was no proof of it whatever.

“Why, Sheila,” said Ingram with some surprise, “you never doubted before that it was the English smacks that killed the sheep.”

Sheila cast down her eyes and said nothing.

Was the sinister prophecy of John the Piper to be fulfilled?  Mackenzie was so much engaged in expounding politics to Ingram, and Sheila was so proud to show her companion all the wonders of Uig, that when they returned to Mevaig in the evening the wind had altogether gone down and the sea was as a sea of glass.  But if John the Piper had been ready to foretell for Mackenzie the fate of Mackrimmon, he had taken means to defeat destiny by bringing over from Borvabost a large and heavy boat pulled by six rowers.  These were not strapping young fellows, clad in the best blue cloth to be got in Stornoway, but elderly men, gray, wrinkled, weather-beaten and hard of face, who sat stolidly in the boat and listened with a sort of bovine gaze to the old hunchback’s wicked stories and jokes.  John was in a mischievous mood, but Lavender, in a confidential whisper, informed Sheila that her father would speedily be avenged on the inconsiderate piper.

“Come, men, sing us a song, quick!” said Mackenzie as the party took their seats in the stern and the great oars splashed into the sea of gold.  “Look sharp, John, and no teffle of a drowning song!”