"We had two children," he continued sadly. "The girl would have been of
the years of your own son there, the boy was two summers younger than she."

"Oh, do not tell me that they are dead!" cried Adela.

"Alas! but that is so," he sighed. "One sunny day they went out hand in
hand from our castle to play, as was their wont, among the rocks and
caves that are at the south of our island. Never since then have they
returned, and some said that the water kelpie had taken them and carried
them away to his crystal home under the sea. Others whispered that the
kraken or some other monster of the deep had devoured them. They said
these things, believing that Sigrid had no heart for her children, and
that she was unkind to them. But many days thereafter I learned that a
strange ship had been seen bearing outward between Gigha and Cara; and
it was the ship of Rapp the Icelander, the cruellest sea rover that ever
sailed upon the western seas. Then did I believe that neither kelpie nor
kraken had taken my bairns, but Rapp the Rover.

"So I got ship and followed him. For three long years I followed in his
track -- to the frozen shores of Iceland, and into every vic and fiord
in Scandinavia. Southward then I sailed to the blue seas of England --
always behind him yet never encountering him. But at last there came a
day of terrible tempest. The thunder god struck my ship and we were
wrecked. Every man that was on board my ship was drowned saving only
myself, for the white sea mew swims not more lightly on the waters than
I. So I was picked up by a passing vessel, and it was the vessel of Rapp
the Icelander. Instead of killing him I loved him, in that he had saved
my life. Then he told me, swearing by St. Olaf, that never in all his
time of sea roving had he touched at the little island of Gigha, and