uld best reach
within hearing distance of the warriors. And they had arranged that the
one who found a likely place should give signal to the other by means of
the lapwing's cry.

Aasta had not well made the half circle when through the night air she
heard faintly, as it were half a mile away, the cry, "Pee-wit! pee-weet!"

Quickly she returned and followed the way Kenric had gone. Soon she
found herself under a high piece of ground that obscured the firelight.
Then nearer to the fire she heard the cry repeated, and she replied with
the same call. She went towards the fire until she saw Kenric standing
on the top of a high rock, outlined against the glow of light. She knew
him by his fisher's cloak. She saw him lie down flat and creep nearer
and nearer to the edge of the rock.

Suddenly, between her and Kenric, she saw another figure appear and
stealthily follow behind the young king with drawn sword.

Now Aasta had the faculty of being able to see in the darkness almost as
well as in the daylight, and it took but a hurried glance to prove that
he who followed Earl Kenric was none other than the fair-haired Harald.

Like the bird whose cry she had but lately imitated she ran along the
ground, drawing her dirk as she ran, and just at the moment when Harald
of Islay was preparing to smite Kenric a blow that would have killed
him, Aasta threw her hand over the young viking's mouth, dragged him
over, and then plunged her dagger into his heart.

So quickly did this happen that Kenric, intent upon seeing what was
passing around the fire, was quite unconscious that Aasta had saved his
life. And Aasta never afterwards told a living being of the thing that
she had done.

Leaving the body of Harald where it had fallen she followed Kenric yet
nearer to the brink of the rock, until together they lay so near to the
band of Norsemen that they could see their white teeth glisten in the
firelight as they spoke. The fire was built against the rock. The
warriors sat about it in a half circle.

Presently the men all rose to their feet to greet the arrival of the
Norwegian monarch. Kenric could now see faces that had been hidden
before, and amongst them were those of Sweyn of Colonsay, Erland of
Jura, and, to his surprise, even the renegade John of Islay. None of the
others did he know; but there were Magnus king of Man, Sigurd king of
Lewis, John of Kintyre, and Henry the bishop of Orkney, with many more
of the most trusted of Ki