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.