Now, on the ship of King Magnus of Man there was a mighty warrior, whom men called Rudri, and he was the most terrible pirate that ever roved upon the western seas, and all men feared him.  There was not a vic or sound that he had not sailed into, nor an island upon which he had not drawn his sword.

He was the one man in all that host who could best instruct the Norse king concerning the invasion.  So, taking many ships with him, Rudri went among the island earls and compelled them one and all to remember their duty, and to follow under the banner of their Norse master.  Many of those who had taken oaths of loyalty before King Alexander’s ambassadors demurred.  But the power of the King of Scots was remote, the vengeance of piratical warfare was near at hand, and the islanders submitted, agreeing to pay fine of so many hundred head of cattle as punishment for their former desertion of Norway.  And so, like an avalanche that gathers added weight as it descends, the invading forces drew rearer and nearer to their goal.

CHAPTER XXII.  THE TWO SPIES.

On a certain morning in September, Aasta the Fair sat crouched at the door of the little cot wherein she dwelt.  She was grinding oats in a small stone hand mill.  Old Elspeth sat within doors spinning.

Presently Aasta raised her eyes and looked over towards the little isle of Inch Marnock, where on the green knolls some sheep were grazing.  In the narrow channel that separates Inch Marnock from Bute she saw a tiny coracle with a man on board.  The little boat drew to the beach of St. Ninian’s Bay, where the man stepped out and began to run.  Staggering in his gait, he fell; then rose again and again fell.  Aasta, leaving her work, ran down towards the man, and when she got near him she saw that his clothes were torn, and his limbs bleeding from many wounds.  He was lying on his back, groaning.  She looked into his white face and saw that it was the face of the man whom Earl Kenric had left in Gigha as his steward and governor.

“What means all this, William MacAlpin?” asked Aasta, kneeling by his side; “and wherefore come you back to Bute thus covered with bleeding wounds?”

The man pointed westward, and with his dying breath said: 

“Run you to Castle Rothesay, I beseech you; run and tell my lord Kenric that the Norsemen with their hosts have landed on Gigha, and have wrested the island from us.  They tried to torture me to death, but I escaped to tell my master of this calamity —­”

Then Aasta questioned him; but her words fell upon the ears of the dead; so she arose.

The swift-footed hart runs not more swiftly than Aasta ran that day across Bute.  She found Kenric lounging on the little pier and throwing pebbles one by one into the green water.  Near him were some fishermen unloading their herring boat.

“My lord,” said she, scarcely showing by her easy breathing that she had run the distance of four miles —­ “my lord, I have ill news to tell.”