; and over these 
lay a pale blue film of peat-smoke that did not move 
in the still air. Then they saw the bay into which the 
White Water runs, and they could trace the yellow 
glimmer of the river stretching into the island through 
a level valley of bog and morass. Far away towards 
the east, lay the bulk of the island  dark green un- 
dulations of moorland and pasture; and there, in the 
darkness, the gable of one white house had caught the 
clear light of the sky, and was gleaming westward like 
a Star. But all this was as nothing to the glory that 
began to shine in the south-east, where the sky was 
of a pale violet over the peaks of Mealasabhal and 
Suainabhal. There, into the beautiful dorne, rose the 
golden crescent of the moon, warm in colour, as though 
it still retained the last rays of the sunset. A line of 
qoivering gold feil across Loch Roag, and touched the 
black hll and spars of the boat in which Sheila had 
been sailing in the moming. That bay down there, 
with its white sands and massive rocks, its still ex- 
panse of water, and its background of mountain- 
peaks palely coloured by the yellow moonlight, seemed 

5* 



68 

really a home for a magic princess