ting in the veins.

As he rested his hand on the dead earl's chest he touched the haft of
the weapon that had worked this cruel deed. He knew the knife and
guessed how all had happened. He grasped the handle in his fingers and
tried to withdraw the long blade; but the blood gushed out from the
terrible wound, and the lad grew faint at the sight.

"Dead! dead!" he moaned, rising to his feet, and then from the halls
below came the shouts of the retainers as they pledged "waes hael" to
the lord of Bute.

Kenric hastened out of the hall and crept down the stairs to summon the
guard and station them in the corridor, that none of the three
traitorous guests might escape. He met Duncan the seneschal at the foot
of the stairs carrying the food that he had ordered, and by the light of
a lamp in the lower passage Duncan saw the lad's pale and terrified face.

"God assoil me!" cried Duncan, "what has happened?"

"A terrible thing, Duncan. My dear father has been brutally slain under
his own roof tree."

"Slain! My lord, the Earl Hamish slain? Nay, boy, it cannot be!"

"Alas, 'tis true! One of those miscreant traitors who came hither today
has plunged a knife into my father's heart. Take back the food. I will
neither eat nor sleep again until I have discovered the villain who has
done this foul crime. Turn out the guard this instant. Station them
without the door of the room wherein those three wicked men are now
carousing. And now to call my brother Alpin."

Kenric went softly to his brother's room, which was next to the chamber
of the Lady Adela, and he knocked gently at the door. Alpin was sound
asleep upon his couch, for his day's hunting had wearied his limbs.
Kenric went within and awoke him.

In the darkness Alpin did not see his brother's pallid face, and he
turned over with many complaints at being so roughly disturbed.

"Nay, Alpin, 'tis for no light cause that I disturb you," urged Kenric.

And hearing his husky, trembling voice, Alpin roused himself with sudden
terror.

"What brings you back to the castle?" he cried; "and wherefore do you
call me at this late hour?"

"It is that our father has been entertaining enemies unawares," said
Kenric. "Entering the hall but a few moments ago I found him lying dead
upon the hearth with a cruel knife in his heart."

Alpin gave a piercing cry of sudden grief and sprang up from his bed.

"No, no, it cannot be!" he exclaimed, recovering himself as he threw on
some c