“Ay, and the fighting maid who cut me this wound across my pate,” added another.  “Methinks this Kenric must surely have got wind of our intention; but how that can be, what man can tell?”

“What then of the thing we found on the moor of Gigha, after the council that King Hakon held?” asked Thorolf the captain.  “What man would have slain the young Harald of Islay if it were not some spy of Bute?  The lad was stabbed through the back; ’twas in no fair fight that he fell.”

“True,” said they all.  “By St. Olaf, that is surely so!”

“Could we find out in Rudri’s absence where these babes and wives of Bute have been so cunningly hidden,” said one of the men of Colonsay, “methinks we might well pay out both Rudri and young Kenric.  What say you, my bold brothers all?”

“’Tis my belief,” said another, “that the old witch who spoke to Earl Roderic had some secret intention in turning us away from yon chapel at the end of the island.”

At this the men were silent; but at last one said: 

“I’d swear that it was even so.  And what say you all if we go thence this very night and fall upon the chapel with fire and sword?  ’Tis a straight road from this, and easily found.”

At this moment there were footsteps in the outer corridor.  Three men entered, dragging with them yet another who was bound with ropes.  Their prisoner was David Blair, the farmer of Scalpsie.  He had been captured, hiding like a frightened cur, among the rocks of Ascog.

The Norse captain, who could speak the Gaelic, on learning who he was, commanded him, on pain of instant death, to tell where Kenric of Bute had taken the women and children.

The farmer hesitated a moment; then, seeing the captain draw his sword, he gasped: 

“Oh, spare me, spare me, my lord!  Give me but my life, and I will tell you all.  I will tell you where you may find these people, and how you can get at them.  But, since death is the punishment wherewith you threaten my silence, tell me, then, what shall be my reward if I tell you this you ask?”

The captain smiled grimly.  Then in Danish he said: 

“You base inhuman craven! you ask what reward I will give you?  Methinks the only fitting reward for such treachery were to have a cauldron of boiling lead poured down your guilty throat.  Reward, forsooth!”

“Nay, but I cannot understand, my master.  I am but a poor Scot who knows not the Norse tongue.  Say, what reward do you promise?”

“Fear not, my man.  You shall have your deserts,” said the captain.  “Tell me, now, or I will even cut you down this instant where you stand trembling.”

“The families of Bute —­ men, women, bairns —­ are all in the abbey of St. Blane’s,” said Blair.  “They are penned up like a vast flock of sheep in the abbey and the chapel, in the chapel vaults, and within the walls of the Circle of Penance.  There you will find them, with my lady Adela of Rothesay, and young Kenric himself, and Allan Redmain that murdered my poor dog —­”