Chapter 5 A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY.

Kenric tarried not long in search of the ghostly figure that had appeared before him so mysteriously in the dark forest of Barone. Whence that figure had come and whither it had gone he could not tell. Nor did he exercise his mind in fruitless questionings concerning her. Leaving the rock behind him, he set off at a brisk pace through the shadows of the trees, more timid than ever, and came out upon the high ground that is behind Rothesay Bay.

Down by the water's brink, outlined against the moonlit waves, stood the dark towers of Rothesay Castle. A light shone dimly in his mother's chamber window; but the great banqueting hall wherein his father was wont to entertain his guests was dark, and Kenric thought this passing strange. Where were the strangers of whom he had heard? If they were not in the banqueting hall, then they must surely have already left the island.

Hastening down the hillside, he hied him to the castle, and as he neared the little postern in the western walls, a burst of boisterous song reached his ears from the guardroom. Taking up a stone from the ground he was about to knock three loud knocks, when the door was opened from within, and a tall man with a thick plaid over his broad shoulders slipped out, almost overthrowing Kenric as he ran against him.

"Duncan!" exclaimed Kenric, perceiving his father's seneschal, "whither go you at this late hour of night?"

"Ah, master Kenric, and that is yourself, eh? And you are here, and not at the abbey of St. Blane's? Well, sir, it's a bonnie night, you see, and I even thought I would take a quiet saunter along the side of Loch Fad."

"Then," said Kenric, "I warn you, go not near to the forest of Barone, Duncan; for I have but now come through, and therein I saw a sight that would raise your hair on end. It was, as I believe, none other than the werewolf that I saw. First there was an old gray wolf with a white patch on its breast, and then, even as I looked, that wolf was spirited into the form of a fair lady, and I was like to sink into the ground with fear."

"'Tis the first time that I have heard of a son of the house of Rothesay knowing fear," said Duncan, smiling and showing his great yellow teeth in the moonlight. "'Twas but the maid Aasta of Kilmory that you saw."

"Aasta? Then it is true that the maid has been bewitched? It is true that she has that power of turning herself at will into the form of a wolf?"

"Men say so," answered Duncan. "But methinks 'tis no more true than that other thing they say of her -- that though she looks but a girl of eighteen, she is yet full five score winters old. 'Tis idle talk, Kenric. But where saw you this sight? Was it not by the Rock of Solitude, in the heart of the forest?"

"'Twas even there. But in an instant she disappeared, and I saw her no more."

"If she be not there now," said Duncan, heaving a great sigh out of his deep chest, "then will I return into the castle; for now do I mind me that mine eyes are wanting sleep after the weary day that I have had among the hills, running high and low as though I were but a dumb hound made only to scent out game for those who know less of hunting than I do of building a ship. That lazy old graybeard, the lord of Jura, may bring his own gillies with him the next time he comes to the hunting in Bute. Never again shall he get me to fetch and carry for him!"

"The lord of Jura?" said Kenric. "It is then true that there are strangers in the castle."

"And is it not for that same cause that you have come home?" asked Duncan. "Methought you knew that they were here -- three gallant kings out of the west they are, and one of them is your own uncle, Earl Roderic of Gigha, whom, when he was but a bairn as high as my girdle, I taught to bend the bow and wield the broadsword. They are but now in the feasting hall with my lord your father; for Sir Oscar and young Allan have gone home to Kilmory, and my lady and Alpin have gone to their chambers."

"Have you then left my father alone with these three strange men?" asked Kenric as they entered the postern.

"My lord's own brother, Earl Roderic, is with him," said Duncan, looking at Kenric in surprise. "You would not surely have me mount guard over my lord's own guests! By the rood, that were strange hospitality!"

"Where are their dirks and swords?"

"Under my own keeping in the armoury, where 'tis right they should be; for men of peace, as these most surely are, encumber not themselves with the instruments of war."

"'Tis well," returned Kenric, much relieved. "Old Elspeth Blackfell was but playing me with her groundless forewarnings of danger. Well, get me some meat and a bowl of milk, Duncan, while I go up and see this uncle of mine. He has seen much of the world, and methinks his discourse must be full of instruction for a home-keeping youth."

So Duncan went into the guardroom, where two score of noisy retainers were making merry over their cups, and Kenric went upstairs to the great hall.

Up the steep stone steps he climbed, making little noise with his deerskin buskins. Hearing footsteps at the head of the stairs, he glanced along the north corridor, whose lancet windows looked out upon the quiet sea.

Suddenly in the midst of the moonbeams that streamed in through the western window, lighting the corridor with a clear silvery light, he saw three men steal out of the banqueting hall. The last of the three moaned grievously as they passed beyond into another apartment.

"Oh, Hamish, Hamish my brother!" he moaned, and his voice was as the wailing of the wind, "what is this evil thing that I have done!"

Kenric drew back into the shadow of the stairway, and not seeing his father with the three guests, he began again to fear some ill.

"What!" croaked the old man with the silvery beard, "and is this your resolution? Is this your courage? I fear me, Roderic, you are but a weak craven thus to deplore the fulfilment of our most righteous mission!"

Then the door of the smaller hall closed behind the three earls, and Kenric was left alone. He still heard the rumour of their voices as he walked with quick steps along the moonlit corridor, and he paused to listen at the door.

"And now that we have done so completely with the fox," said a voice, "what say you, comrades, to our making equal despatch with the vixen and her cub? 'Twere easy doing, could we but discover in what corner we might entrap them."

Kenric did not understand the purport of these words. He did not guess that the "fox" meant his own father, and the "vixen and her cub" his mother and Alpin. But he listened yet again.

"Wait, wait, my lord of Jura," said another voice. "'Twere better we tarried until all the watchdogs are sound asleep. Fill me yon drinking horn, Sweyn, for my hand trembles, and my mind is strangely cloudy."

Silence followed this speech, and Kenric crept along the corridor until he came to the entrance of the great hall. He drew aside the arras hangings and peered into the deserted room. All was silent as the grave. The crackling embers of the fire gave but a sorry light, with only a fitful glimmer that rose now and again from some half-consumed pine log. But with the feeble moonbeams, that shone through the thin films of skin that in those days -- except in the churches -- did service for glass, there was still light enough in that vast room to show what terrible deed had been enacted upon the hearthstone.

Kenric had taken but a few strides into the hall when his eyes rested upon the form of his murdered father. He started back aghast at the horrible sight.

"Oh, my father, my father!" he cried, flinging himself down upon the bloodstained floor. "Father? father? It is I, Kenric -- your son. Tell me, I beseech you, tell me, what foul villain has done this thing?"

Then he took hold of the earl's cold right hand and chafed it tenderly, as he still tried to arouse him. But there was no response. He knelt down closer and bent his head to his father's bare throat, and, putting out his tongue, he felt with its sensitive touch if there was sign of breathing, or if the pulses were beating in the veins.

As he rested his hand on the dead earl's chest he touched the haft of the weapon that had worked this cruel deed. He knew the knife and guessed how all had happened. He grasped the handle in his fingers and tried to withdraw the long blade; but the blood gushed out from the terrible wound, and the lad grew faint at the sight.

"Dead! dead!" he moaned, rising to his feet, and then from the halls below came the shouts of the retainers as they pledged "waes hael" to the lord of Bute.

Kenric hastened out of the hall and crept down the stairs to summon the guard and station them in the corridor, that none of the three traitorous guests might escape. He met Duncan the seneschal at the foot of the stairs carrying the food that he had ordered, and by the light of a lamp in the lower passage Duncan saw the lad's pale and terrified face.

"God assoil me!" cried Duncan, "what has happened?"

"A terrible thing, Duncan. My dear father has been brutally slain under his own roof tree."

"Slain! My lord, the Earl Hamish slain? Nay, boy, it cannot be!"

"Alas, 'tis true! One of those miscreant traitors who came hither today has plunged a knife into my father's heart. Take back the food. I will neither eat nor sleep again until I have discovered the villain who has done this foul crime. Turn out the guard this instant. Station them without the door of the room wherein those three wicked men are now carousing. And now to call my brother Alpin."

Kenric went softly to his brother's room, which was next to the chamber of the Lady Adela, and he knocked gently at the door. Alpin was sound asleep upon his couch, for his day's hunting had wearied his limbs. Kenric went within and awoke him.

In the darkness Alpin did not see his brother's pallid face, and he turned over with many complaints at being so roughly disturbed.

"Nay, Alpin, 'tis for no light cause that I disturb you," urged Kenric.

And hearing his husky, trembling voice, Alpin roused himself with sudden terror.

"What brings you back to the castle?" he cried; "and wherefore do you call me at this late hour?"

"It is that our father has been entertaining enemies unawares," said Kenric. "Entering the hall but a few moments ago I found him lying dead upon the hearth with a cruel knife in his heart."

Alpin gave a piercing cry of sudden grief and sprang up from his bed.

"No, no, it cannot be!" he exclaimed, recovering himself as he threw on some clothing. "You have made some strange mistake. These friends could not have harmed our father. They were not armed. And what could our uncle Roderic gain by such treachery?"

Kenric drew his brother out into one of the dark passages, not observing that their mother's chamber door had opened and that the Lady Adela, roused from her slumber by Alpin's cry of grief, had taken the alarm and was preparing to follow.

"Alas, he has but too much to gain," said Kenric. "Had he been left to carry out his base plot to the end, you and I, Alpin, must surely have fallen as our father has fallen -- victims to Earl Roderic's ambition to make himself lord over Bute."

"If this be so," returned Alpin, raising his voice in wrath, "then with my own hands will I take a deadly vengeance. I swear it now, Kenric -- by our holy faith I swear that if Roderic of Gigha has indeed slain our father, then Roderic shall die by my hand!"

"Will such vengeance give back the life that has been taken?" asked Kenric solemnly. "Will vengeance restore to our dear mother the happiness that she now has lost? Methinks it had been wiser in you, Alpin, to have stayed by our father's side instead of slinking off to your bed and leaving him thus exposed to danger. Come, let us arm ourselves and confront these evil men, that we may learn which one of them has dealt this fatal blow."

"With what weapon, say you, was my father slain?" asked Alpin, as, being now in the armoury, they proceeded to don their coats of chain mail.

"With the great knife wherewith he was wont to carve the venison and meat," said Kenric, taking down a sword.

"Ah!" cried Alpin with swift recollection, "now do I perceive the reason wherefore Earl Roderic took that same knife from off the board and placed it so cunningly above the hearth. Oh, villain that he is! He designed even then to do as he has done.

"Now," he added, snatching up a great two-handed sword, "I am ready. Let me but meet him -- let me but face him for a moment, and I will slay him like a dog."

"Think well ere you strike the blow you contemplate," said Kenric as they ascended a side stairway that led to the upper floors of the castle. "Remember that you are now the rightful lord over Bute, and that you will have power to inflict due punishment upon this man without taking a personal vengeance that would surely lead to an endless blood feud."

"Tush! You are but a timid boy, Kenric. What priestly precepts has the old Abbot Thurstan been cramming you with? Would you pardon the man who has slain our own father?"

"Pardon him?" exclaimed Kenric. "No, never will I do that. If you slay him not, Alpin, then, by the holy rood, I myself will do so. But it shall be in fair fight that I will overcome him, and by no mean subterfuge."

The two lads were now at the entrance of the larger hall, wherein the good Earl Hamish lay dead. Alpin went within, and there, bending over his father's body, he was overwhelmed by his grief. He staggered to a seat and sat down with his head in his hands, weeping piteously.

Kenric heard loud voices in the corridor, and grasping his sword he hastened to where the guards were stationed. Duncan Graham, of the long arm, was holding parley with the three earls within the smaller hall. His broad frame filled up the half-open doorway, so that the presence of the armed guard was not yet known to Roderic and his two companions.

"More wine it may be you can have," said Duncan; "but as to bringing you your swords, that I cannot do without orders from my master."

"I am now your master!" said the gruff voice of Roderic of Gigha; "and again I command you to bring us our swords and dirks."

"You are no master of mine, Earl Roderic," said Duncan; "and now for your insolence shall you have neither wine nor weapons," and with that he slammed to the door.

"Insolent varlet!" growled Roderic within the room.

"Nay, calm yourself, good Roderic," said the voice of Erland the Old; "we had better have tarried till daylight. It may be that they have already discovered what you have done. Truly you were an arrant simpleton to leave the weapon in your brother's breast. 'Twould have served our further purpose well."

Kenric heard these last words, and though they were spoken in the Danish, yet full well did he understand that the further purpose of Earl Roderic was indeed the slaying of the Lady Adela and Alpin.

Assured that the three miscreants were unarmed, he drew Duncan aside and whispered his commands, which were that four of the guards should follow him into the room and make prisoners of the three island kings. Thereupon Duncan went back to the door and forced it open, and Kenric, with buckler on arm and sword in hand, marched in, and standing firmly upright faced the three men defiantly.

"Which man of you is Earl Roderic of Gigha?" said he.