“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.

CHAPTER VI.  ALPIN’S VOW OF VENGEANCE.

Erland the Old, with an empty drinking horn in his bony hand, sat by the hearth looking vacantly into the dead embers of the fire.  Sweyn the Silent stood beside him with his thumbs stuck in his leathern girdle; while Roderic of Gigha sat upon the table facing the door and swinging his legs to and fro.  The light of a hanging cruse lamp shone upon his long red hair and beard.  His strong bare arms were folded, one within the other, across his broad chest, and the back of his right hand was splashed with blood that had been partly wiped off upon his under jerkin.

“Which man of you is Earl Roderic of Gigha?” repeated Kenric.

The three looked one to the other with evil smiles.  Roderic drank off what remained in his wine cup.

“I am he,” he said coolly as he again folded his arms.  “And who, then, are you who demand to know?”

“Then if you be he,” said Kenric, “you are the vilest man that ever breathed within these walls.  Oh, Roderic MacAlpin, unworthy son of a noble and good prince, you have brought the guilt of blood upon your father’s name!  You have slain your own brother, our dear lord and master; you have shed his life’s blood within his own hall.  Deceitful traitor that you are, you came to this peaceful island in the semblance of a friend.  But, by all that I hold sacred, you shall not leave it again ere you have been duly judged for your foul crime.”

A burst of mocking laughter from Roderic greeted this speech.

“And now,” added Kenric, turning to the guard, “take me this man as prisoner to the deepest dungeon.  For though he were King Hakon himself he should not longer remain as a guest in the castle whose shelter he has abused.”

“Let one of those varlets but touch me with his hand,” said Roderic, “and I will break his back across my knee.  And you, who are you, my young knave, that dares to threaten his betters?  By St. Olaf, but you are passing bold to speak of prisoning me in the walls wherein I was born.  Away with you to your couch; this is no hour for bairns to be awake.”