ward 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
that he knew naught soever of the dear children I had lost."

"Greatly do I pity you, Earl Roderic," said Adela, clasping her hands.
"And you have not yet found trace of your little ones?"

"No," said Roderic. "And now do I believe that they are still at play in
the crystal halls of the water kelpie, whence no man can rescue them."

"And your wife Sigrid, what of her?" asked Sir Oscar Redmain.

"When I got back to Gigha," murmured Roderic, "they told me that in my
absence she had gone mad, and that in her frenzy she had cast herself
from the cliffs into the sea. Whithersoever I have gone since that sad
time, there have I found unhappiness."

The Lady Adela looked upon the man with gentle pity in her dark eyes.
She felt how different had been his lot from hers and her dear
husband's. For notwithstanding that she dwelt in a country not her own,
and among people who spoke a foreign tongue, yet she was very happy. The
Earl Hamish loved her well and was ever good to her. And their two sons,
Alpin and Kenric, growing up into manhood, were very dear to her heart.

She was the daughter of a proud English baron, who had wide dominions
near the great city of York. Twenty years before, Earl Hamish of Bute
had been sent with other wise counsellors by King Alexander the Second
on a mission to the court of the English king, Henry the Third,
concerning the great treaty of peace between England and Scotland, and
also to consider the proposal o