enric raised himself on his elbow.

"The great God be thanked!" gasped Allan, and he fell upon his knees at
Kenric's side.

Kenric spoke not again: he was faint and sore of limb. Allan took off
his plaid and spread it upon the damp, rocky floor. Then he raised
Kenric in his arms, and wrapping him in the plaid carried him to the
bottom of the shaft where hung the rope. Making a sling of his plaid and
securing it to the rope he called to his men to draw up the line, and in
a few minutes Earl Kenric lay in the upper chamber breathing the fresher
air.

Not long was Allan Redmain in following, and in the space of another
hour they had carried Kenric on board the /Kraken/ of Bute.

For six long days and nights no food had passed his lips, and had it not
been that his frame was of uncommon strength he must have died in that
noisome cell. For many days afterwards his mind wandered, his eyes
stared blankly, his voice failed him, and not until two weeks after his
rescue, when he was back again in the castle of Rothesay, did he
recognize anyone.

Allan Redmain's two galleys were but a few miles outward from the coast
of Coll when they fell in with the four galleys of Bute that Kenric and
Duncan had left. They had been pursued about the seas by the ships of
Sweyn of Colonsay, but having outdistanced him they were now returning
to the island to search for their lost leader. Either alive or dead, he
must, they said, be found. Had it not been for Duncan Graham, who alone,
of all men, knew where Kenric was imprisoned, all search for him must
have been fruitless. On some day long after he might have been
discovered, as Allan had found the starved and forgotten prisoner in
that dungeon, a grim and unrecognizable skeleton.

CHAPTER XXI. HOW KENRIC MADE HIMSELF STRONG.

This expedition against the island kings had been attended with small
enough success. Many of the islands had indeed been invaded and some of
the smaller ones conquered. Several of the kings, wavering between
service of two masters, had quietly yielded to the persuasions of King
Alexander's ambassadors. But it must be said that, despite their seeming
compliance, they were ready to turn the other way again with equal ease,
or even to evade their duties to either monarch and assume the dignity
of independent rulers. In a political sense the result of the expedition
was a failure, the conquests being incomplete, and the compliance of the
less warlike kings being