eance against the infidels. This man, who had held
the dying Knight tenderly upon his knee, said that Colin bade his wife
farewell, bade her remember his injunction to wed again and find a
protector, gasped out, "Take her the token I promised; it is here,"
and died; but the Saracens attacked the Christians again, drove them
back, and plundered the bodies of the slain, and when the one survivor
returned to search for the precious token there was none! The body was
stripped of everything of value, and the clansman wound it in the
plaid and buried it on the battlefield.

The Lady's Stratagem

There seemed no reason for the lady to doubt this news, and her grief
was very real and sincere. She clad herself in mourning robes and
bewailed her lost husband, but yet she was not entirely satisfied, for
she still wore the broken half of the engraved ring on the chain round
her neck, and still the promised death-token had not come. The Baron
now pressed his suit with greater ardour than before, and the Lady of
Loch Awe was hard put to it to find reasons for refusing him. It was
necessary to keep him on good terms with the clan, for his lands
bordered on those of Glenurchy, and he could have made war on the
people in the glen quite easily, while the knowledge that their chief
was dead would have made them a broken clan. So the lady turned to
guile, as did Penelope of old in similar distress. "I will wed you,
now that my Colin is dead," she replied at last, "but it cannot be
immediately; I must first build a castle that will command the head of
Glenurchy and of Loch Awe. The MacGregors knew the best place for a
house, there on Innis Eoalan; there, where the ruins of MacGregor's
White House now stand, will I build my castle. When it is finished the
time of my mourning will be over, and I will fix the bridal day." With
this promise the Baron had perforce to be contented, and the castle
began to rise slowly at the head of Loch Awe; but its progress was not
rapid, because the lady secretly bade her men build feebly, and often
the walls fell down, so that the new castle was very long in coming to
completion.

Black Colin Hears the News

In the meantime all who loved Black Colin grieved to know that the
Lady of Loch Awe would wed again, and his foster-mother sorrowed most
of all, for she felt sure that her beloved Colin was not dead. The
death-token had not been sent, and she sorely mistrusted the Baron
MacCorquodale and doubted t