darkness beyond.

Kenric, bolder now, unbent his bow and stepped towards the rock that he
might see whither the wolf had fled. In an open glade that was behind
the rock he saw, instead of the wolf, a strange tall figure standing in
the moonlight. It was the figure of a woman, wondrously fair and
beautiful. Her long hair, that fell over her shoulders, was as the
colour of blood, and her white bare arm, that shone like marble in the
pale light, seemed to be pointing the way to Rothesay Castle. In her
other hand she held a long bright-bladed sword.

Now whether this figure appearing so mysteriously before him was indeed
that of a woman of human flesh, or, as he feared, the vision of some
ghostly dweller in the pine forest, Kenric could not at that moment have
told. Even as he stepped farther into the glade a dark cloud again
obscured the moon and all was black night around him, and no sound could
he hear but the beating of his own heart and the whispering of the wind
among the trees.


CHAPTER III. HOW EARL RODERIC SPILLED THE SALT.

On that same June evening, in the year 1262, whilst Kenric was at the
stream side with Ailsa Redmain, the three strangers who had landed
earlier in the day on the shores of Bute were feasting in the great
banqueting hall of the castle of Rothesay. For although to the tired lad
Lulach and to Ailsa they had appeared in the guise of enemies, yet each
of the three was known to the Earl Hamish. Their leader was, in truth,
none other than his own brother, the Earl Roderic of the Isle of Gigha.
The other two were Erland the Old of Jura, and Sweyn the Silent of Colonsay.