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!”