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.