rone. Wet and weary after his
escape from his pursuers, and smarting sorely of his many wounds, he
passed through the forest glades and emerged at the point where, on the
evening before, Kenric had entered.

As he skirted the lands of Kilmory he saw a herd of shaggy long-horned
cattle browsing there, with many sheep and goats. He looked about for
their shepherd that he might ask him concerning the earls of Jura and
Colonsay. He began to regret that he had so lightly dismissed his
friends, who might better have waited to carry him in their ship to Gigha.

Presently he heard voices from behind a great rock. A young sheepdog
appeared, but when it saw him it turned tail and slunk away as if it
were afraid of him. Then from behind the rock came young Lulach the herd
boy, and with him a most beautiful girl. Lulach stood for a moment
looking at the strange man.

"Ah, 'tis he! 'Tis he whom we were but now speaking of!" he cried, and
dropping the brown bread cake that he had been eating he ran away down
the hill in terror.

But the girl stood still, with her hand resting on the rock.

Now this girl was the same strange maiden who had appeared so
mysteriously before Kenric on his night journey through the forest. Tall
she was and very fair -- tall and graceful as a young larch tree, and
fair as the drifted snow whose surface reflects the red morning sun. Her
eyes were blue as the starry sky, and her long hair fell upon her white
skin like a dark stream of blood. Men named this wondrous maiden Aasta
the Fair.

Earl Roderic started back at sight of her great beauty as she stood
before him in her gray and ragged garments, for she was but a poor
thrall who worked upon the lands of Kilmory, minding the goats upon the
hills or mending the fishermen's nets down on the shore.

"Fair damsel," said he, "tell me, I pray you, if you have seen pass by
an aged man and his companion towards the bay of Scalpsie?"

"'Tis but an hour ago that they passed hence," said Aasta. "Cursed be
the occasion that brought both them and you into this isle!"

Then she pointed across the blue moor of the sea where, under the shadow
of the high coast of Arran, a vessel appeared as a mere speck upon the
dark water.

"Yonder sails their ship into the current of Kilbrannan Sound."

"Alas!" said Roderic, "and I am too late."

"Alas, indeed!" said Aasta. "Methinks they had better have tarried to
take away with them the false traitor they have left upon o