Indeed, the contrast between Rintoul and Gavin was now impressive.  When Tosh signed that the weavers had done their all and failed, the two men looked in each other’s faces, and Gavin’s face was firm and the earl’s working convulsively.  The people had given up attempting to communicate with Gavin save by signs, for though they heard his sonorous voice, when he pitched it at them, they saw that he caught few words of theirs.  “He heard our skirls,” Birse said, “but couldna grip the words ony mair than we could hear the earl.  And yet we screamed, and the minister didna.  I’ve heard o’ Highlandmen wi’ the same gift, so that they could be heard across a glen.”

“We must prepare for death,” Gavin said solemnly to the earl, “and it is for your own sake that I again ask you to tell me the truth.  Worldly matters are nothing to either of us now, but I implore you not to carry a lie into your Maker’s presence.”

“I will not give up hope,” was all Rintoul’s answer, and he again tried to pierce the mist with offers of reward.  After that he became doggedly silent, fixing his eyes on the ground at his feet.  I have a notion that he had made up his mind to confess the truth about Babbie when the water had eaten the island as far as the point at which he was now looking.

CHAPTER XLIV.

End of the twenty-four hours.

Out of the mist came the voice of Gavin, clear and strong—­

“If you hear me, hold up your hands as a sign.”

They heard, and none wondered at his voice crossing the chasm while theirs could not.  When the mist cleared, they were seen to have done as he bade them.  Many hands remained up for a time because the people did not remember to bring them down, so great was the awe that had fallen on all, as if the Lord was near.

Gavin took his watch from his pocket, and he said—­

“I am to fling this to you.  You will give it to Mr. Ogilvy, the schoolmaster, as a token of the love I bear him.”

The watch was caught by James Langlands, and handed to Peter Tosh, the chief elder present.

“To Mr. Ogilvy,” Gavin continued, “you will also give the chain.  You will take it off my neck when you find the body.

“To each of my elders, and to Hendry Munn, kirk officer, and to my servant Jean, I leave a book, and they will go to my study and choose it for themselves.

“I also leave a book for Nanny Webster, and I charge you, Peter Tosh, to take it to her, though she be not a member of my church.

“The pictorial Bible with ‘To my son on his sixth birthday’ on it, I bequeath to Rob Dow.  No, my mother will want to keep that.  I give to Rob Dow my Bible with the brass clasp.

“It is my wish that every family in the congregation should have some little thing to remember me by.  This you will tell my mother.