“What wicked schemes, my lord, have brought you yet again to Bute?” asked Aasta, making pretence to be very calm, and thinking that by seeming to yield to his humour she might be the better able presently to use her dirk.

“If you must know,” said he as he stepped aside to the leeward of a great rock, “I come hither to see the old witch Elspeth Blackfell, to reproach her for her false prophecy.  Where lives the old hag these wintry days?”

“In the cave of Ascog, if you know that place,” said Aasta, promptly deciding how she might entrap him there, and knowing full well that the wolf Lufa would be a sufficient protection for Elspeth.

“I know it well,” said Roderic, “and there will I go.  And now, how fares the young lord of Bute since he has lost his castles and lands?”

“My lord Kenric’s castles and lands are in no wise lost to him,” said Aasta more boldly.

“How so?  Not lost?” cried Roderic in surprise.  “Where, then, is Thorolf Sigurdson, whom I left as warden over my isle of Bute?”

“Thorolf Sigurdson, Heaven bless his honest heart! has gone home these many weeks past to Benbecula, and taken his cowardly Norsemen with him.”

“The traitor!” gasped Roderic.  “And is the young Kenric again in possession of my castle of Rothesay?”

“The castle of Rothesay was never yours, Earl Roderic, and never shall be,” returned Aasta firmly.  “His Majesty of Scots hath given us full protection, and for you to seek to remove Earl Kenric from his rightful lordship were vain.  If you value your life, my lord, go not near to Rothesay.”

“Your warnings are useless, bold maiden,” said Roderic with a sneer.  “To Rothesay I will surely go, and Kenric, were he the strongest man in all the isles, shall not prevent me from taking my own.  I have sworn to bring that whelp to his death, and by St. Olaf he shall die this very night!”

Aasta drew nearer until she stood close enough to touch him.  The light of the moon shone upon her beautiful face, and Roderic, standing with his back against the rock, thought that surely she was the fairest woman his eyes had ever beheld.

“My lord,” said she softly, as though she meant to help him to his coveted power, “if this be indeed your intention, methinks ’twere well that you should first reckon with me.”

Her right hand now grasped the haft of her dirk, her left hand was ready to fly at the man’s bare throat.

“Haply I am but a weak woman; yet a woman can ofttimes do that which men would shrink from.”

“Even so,” said he calmly.  “And now if you would but help me in this project, I swear to you that I will love you always, and when I am in possession of my lands and castles, I will even make you my wedded wife, and you shall be right happy.”

“Villain!” cried Aasta.  Then she flung back her cloak and sprang upon him, seizing his throat and raising her knife to strike it to his heart.