of his fathers.

"The ship that brought me hither was the ship of my brother, Rapp the
Icelander. Him I bade go over to Gigha and fulfil for me my vengeance
upon my enemy Roderic, and rescue my daughter. But the people secretly
told him that Roderic had been cruel to Sigrid, and that her love for
him had vanished as the morning mist. My child had lost her reason, and
in her mad despair she had gone out one day and cast herself from the
cliffs into the sea. Now Sigrid had left two children, and it was said
that they were unhappy. So Rapp, searching for them, with intent to
carry them off and bring them to me that I might be revenged upon their
father, found them one day playing in a great rock tunnel in Gigha."

"I know the place," said Kenric; "'twas there that Aasta --"

"'Twas there that Rapp the Icelander found Earl Roderic's bairns, and
from thence he carried them off. Those bairns, my lord, were Aasta the
Fair and the boy Lulach."

"Aasta? Lulach?" cried Kenric in astonishment, as he rose and began to
pace the rocky floor. "And they were brother and sister? And they were
the children of Roderic -- my own cousins? This is a strange thing that
you are telling me, Elspeth, and I can scarce believe it!"

"'Tis none the less true, my lord," said Elspeth.

"And Lulach -- it was then his own father who slew him! And it was her
own father whom Aasta fought against at Largs!"

"Even so. And pity 'tis that she did not kill him."

"Pity indeed," said Kenric. "And now you say that Roderic is in Bute?"

"He is here with intent to slay you, Earl Kenric, in some such subtle
way as he slew your good father. But I have told you where he will be at
midnight. Go thither, I charge you, and take the Thirsty Sword that
Aasta gave you. And may the blood of our enemy Roderic be the last that
it will drink."

CHAPTER XXX. THE BLACK FROST ON ASCOG MERE.

Kenric took old Elspeth back with him to Rothesay, and there, as she
would not agree to take up her quarters within the castle, he gave her a
little cottage, bidding her remain there in comfort for the rest of her
days. As to Aasta the Fair, he had no doubt in his mind that on being
told that she was his own cousin, she would yield to him when he asked
her to make the castle of Rothesay her home, and he at once besought his
mother to make preparations to receive her.

Late in the evening, the moon being at the full, Allan and Ailsa
Redmain, with Margery de Currie, set ou