o had fallen victims to the wild Gallwegians was only partly softened
by the remembrance that he had at least saved their brethren from
further inhumanity.

Having taken formal possession of the island and gathered his forces
together, he went on board the ships of Galloway. There he severely
rebuked the men for what they had done, and threatened them with
punishment if any should again prove unruly. Then he picked out two
score of those who had been faithful to their posts in remaining on
board instead of rushing after their companions, and these he left,
under trusty officers of his own, with one of the galleys, in charge of
the island.

This proceeding, made in the interests of the people of Colonsay, was in
some respects unwise, for by this means the most savage and ungovernable
were now quartered aboard one ship. But Kenric made no doubt that with
his own four galleys and their crews he would have no further trouble.

So indeed it might have been. But in crossing with his five vessels over
the stretch of sea between Colonsay and Tiree he encountered a strong
gale from the southeast. The Gallwegians, being indifferent seamen, fell
off to leeward and lost control of their galley. In the nighttime they
were driven out into the Atlantic beyond Skerryvore. When the storm
abated they drifted northward, landed on many islands in turn, playing
great havoc amongst the children of the old vikings, and so disgracing
their own country Scotland that the Norsemen of the Hebrides vowed
vengeance upon all Scots wheresoever they might encounter them.

CHAPTER XX. ALONE WITH DEATH.

Kenric with his squadron, reduced now to four galleys, voyaged to the
isle of Tiree -- a distance of about fifty miles from Colonsay. There,
without drawing arrow from sheath or sword from scabbard, he prevailed
over the lord of that land to give him surety of his adherence to King
Alexander, and a solemn declaration that he would remain true to his
oaths. And then the barks departed for Coll.

Now young Harald of Islay having warned the people of Colonsay of the
approach of the invaders, bade his men take him at once to the isle of
Coll, whither, as it chanced, Earl Sweyn the Silent had gone, and there
the lad told the same tale of how Kenric of Bute was bent upon making
conquest of the isles, yet breathing no word of how King Alexander had
ordered the expedition. The men of Coll, thus warned, would not brook
that the ships of Bute should to