Chapter 4 THE DARKENING HALL.

The lord of Bute sat not down again, for the feast was at an end. Sir Oscar Redmain, minding that he had to travel all the way to Kilmory that night, went to his master and spoke with him aside. While the earl and his steward were thus engaged, a tall seneschal with his serving men came into the hall to clear away the remains of the banquet; and as the old minstrel left his place at the fireside to continue his harping in the supping room of the guards, the two lads, Alpin of Bute and Allan Redmain, stepped to the hearth to hold converse with the three guests.

Alpin and his young friend were both about nineteen years of age. They were almost full grown, and manly exercise had made them strong. They wore their rough hunting clothes -- loose vests of leather, homespun kilts, and untanned buskins. They carried no weapons, for it was held in custom that none should sit armed at table in the presence of strangers.

"Tell me, Earl Roderic," said Alpin, running his fingers through his long hair -- "you have, you say, been in far-off Iceland -- tell me, is it true that in that land there be many mountains that shoot forth fire and brimstone?"

"Ay, that is quite true, my lad," said his much-travelled uncle, "for I have myself seen such mountains. Higher than Goatfell they are, with streams of fire pouring down their glens."

"A most marvellous country!" exclaimed Alpin. "I wonder much if I shall ever behold that land."

"There you will have no such lordly feast as that we have just risen from," added Roderic, picking his teeth with his broad thumbnail.

Alpin and Allan watched him, hoping he would tell them something of his roving life. Roderic, finding that he could not easily dislodge the piece of meat from betwixt his teeth, picked up a twig of pine wood from the hearth, and took from the table the large knife with which his brother had carved the venison, and as he began to sharpen the little twig to a point he continued:

"No roasted beef there nor venison, but good tough whale flesh, black as a peat, or else a few candle ends -- for the Icelanders are fond of fat. Once when I was ship-broken on their coasts naught could my shipmates find to eat but reasty butter. Disliking that alone, we took our ship's cable, that was made of walrus hide, and smearing the cable with butter we bolted morsels of it, by which means we managed to exist for fourteen days.

"There," he said, finishing his toothpick, "that will serve. 'Tis strange, is it not, Master Alpin, what a piece of steel can do?"

And then, first looking at its point, he laid the long knife carelessly upon the shelf above the hearth.

"Why, in Norway, where I have also been, your man can take his knife and two slips of wood nine ells long, and he will so shape the wood that when the two slips are fitted to his feet he can outstrip a bird, a hound, or a deer."

"Does he, then, fly with them in the air, as a witch on her broom?" asked Allan Redmain.

"Why, no; he skates along the ice or snow," returned Roderic. "With such instruments and a snowy ground, master Redmain, you might be back at your castle of Kilmory in two flickers of a rush light. Go you to Kilmory tonight?"

"Yes," said Allan, "we go at once, for now I see my father is ready. Give you goodnight, my lords."

"Goodnight, boy," said the three guests.

And Allan, with his father and Alpin, then left the hall.

Two of the cruse lamps had by this time spent their oil, and their flames had died out. Earl Hamish was now alone with his guests.

"Shall we," said he, "retire to the smaller hall, Roderic? I have ordered Duncan to take some spiced wine there for us."

"I like the odour of the log fire here," said Roderic, exchanging glances with Erland the Old. "I pray you let us remain here a while."

Earl Hamish and his brother stood side by side, looking into the fire, while Sweyn the Silent and Erland the Old sat them at either corner of the hearth. The two brothers were much alike in stature, both being tall and broad; but Hamish was gentler, and his every movement showed that he was accustomed to the company of those who deemed a courtly bearing of more account than mere bodily prowess, though in truth he lacked not that either. His hair and beard, too, were dark, touched here and there with the frost of age; while his brother's long hair was red as the back of the fox.

"Well, Hamish," began Roderic, moving uneasily on his feet, "you have, as I have heard, won your way into the good graces of our lord the King?"

"I trust," said Hamish, "that I may never be accused of disloyalty. I am ever at my sovereign's service in whatsoever he commands me to do."

"What, even though the doing of that service be to your own great disadvantage?" said Roderic, looking aside at Earl Sweyn and smiling grimly.

"Naught can be to my disadvantage that is done in dutiful service of my country and King," answered the lord of Bute proudly.

Roderic laughed scornfully, and his laugh was echoed by Sweyn and Erland.

"There may be two thoughts as to that," returned Roderic. "As for myself, I'd snap my fingers in the King's face ere I would go on a journey such as you have newly undertaken, my brother. Think not that we have no eyes nor ears in the outer isles, Earl Hamish; for it is known in every castle between Cape Wrath and the Mull of Kintyre that you have but now returned from a mission to King Hakon of Norway."

"And what though it were yet more widely known?" said Hamish in surprise. "Am I, then, the only lord in all the isles who remains true to his oaths of fealty? And are they all as you are, Roderic, who have failed these many years to pay due tribute to the King of Scots?"

"You are the only one among us," croaked Erland the Old, "who pays not homage to our rightful lord and sovereign the good King Hakon."

"I owe no sort of fealty to Norway," said Hamish. "Nor do I know by what right Hakon claims sovereignty over any one of the isles south of Iona."

"Methinks," said Sweyn the Silent, looking up under his dark brows, "that Harald Fairhair settled that matter a good four hundred years ago."

"Right well am I aware that at such time Harald did indeed conquer the Western Isles -- ay, even to Bute and Arran" -- returned Earl Hamish. "But methinks, my lord of Colonsay, that my own ancestor the great king Somerled (God rest him!) did at least wrest the isles of Bute, Arran, and Gigha from the power of Norway. Those three island kingdoms do to this day owe truage to no overlord saving only the King of Scots, and to Alexander alone will I pay homage."

At that Earl Roderic's eyes found their way to the shelf that was above the hearth, and his two friends, following his glance, saw the knife upon the shelf and smiled. From the halls below, where the guards and servitors were feasting, came the strains of the minstrel's harp and a henchman's joyous song of triumphant battle.

"'Tis then no marvel," said Roderic, "that the young King of Scots, like his father before him, has made of you a willing cat's-paw. On what fool's errand went you to Norway?"

"That," said the lord of Bute, "is quickly told;" and he looked round for a moment, observing that all the lamps save one had burned out their feeble lights. "I went to Norway, bearing letters to King Hakon from the King of Scots and his majesty of England, King Henry the Third."

"His majesty of England!" exclaimed all three.

"Henry of England is no more a friend to the Norseman than is Alexander," said Hamish, as he pressed down the burning logs with his foot. "And I do assure you, my lords, that both are well prepared to resist the incursions of King Hakon's vassals."

"And what manner of princely reward got you for your trouble as letter bearer?" asked Roderic in a tone of injured envy.

"Ten score head of Highland cattle, I would guess," muttered Erland the Old.

"Nay, twenty score, rather," chimed in Sweyn the Silent.

"Methinks, brother Hamish," said Roderic hoarsely, as he stepped nearer to him and looked with an evil scowl into his face -- "methinks it had been your part to have sent me word, that I might also have been of that journey. It had been but reason that I had the honour as well as you. Selfish man that you are, you are ever ready to win worship from me and put me to dishonour!"

At this moment the last remaining cruse light flickered, burned blue, flickered again, and then went out. The hall was now in darkness, saving only for the feeble light of the fire, and the moonbeams that slanted in through the mullioned windows and shone here and there upon some burnished helmet or corselet upon the walls.

As Roderic of Gigha ceased speaking, Erland the Old coughed thrice and stroked his silvery beard. Sweyn the Silent echoed the fatal sign, and Roderic drew back, resting his right hand upon the mantel.

"Had I tarried till I had sent for you, Roderic," said Earl Hamish, "I must first have wasted much precious time in suing with King Alexander for his pardon for my brother who has betrayed him!"

"You lie! base slanderer! you lie!" cried Roderic in jealous fury, snatching the knife from off the shelf. And then, springing forward and raising his right hand above his head, he plunged the blade deep, deep into his brother's heart. The good Earl Hamish staggered and fell.

"Treachery!" he groaned. "Adela! Adela!" and with the name of his loved wife upon his lips, he died there upon the stone of his own hearth.

Roderic and his two companions approached the dead man, gazed upon him, and then at each other with satisfaction in their dark looks. But there was fear, too, in Roderic's face, for he was craven of heart. He drew back into the shadow, where neither moonbeam nor firelight could fall upon him and reveal him.

And all the while the henchman's song of triumph reached their ears from the halls below.