done its work. Earl
Alpin was dead.

Then the men of Bute, seeing what had befallen their young king, raised
a wailing cry that rent the sunny air, and they closed in their ranks
around their fallen chief.

Earl Roderic looked but for a moment at Alpin, and then swinging his
bloodstained sword from right to left he passed through the crowd of
men. For the islanders, having just left the court of the mooting, were
none of them armed. So when Roderic made his way into their midst they
fell back beyond the range of his swinging blade.

They saw that he was making his way towards the shores of the lake,
which was but a few paces from where the battle had been fought. Many of
them picked up great stones and flung them after him and struck him on
the back.

"Down with the base traitor!" they cried.

But he little heeded either their missiles or their menacing cries. On
he sped until his feet were ankle deep in the mere. Then he turned round
for a moment and saw young Kenric, armed with his brother's sword, with
Sir Oscar Redmain, Allan, Duncan Graham, and many others pursuing him.

He sent up a hollow mocking laugh as he lightly sheathed his sword. Then
he waded farther into the loch and threw himself into the deeper waters,
so that only his glancing helm could be seen above the surface. As the
antlered stag, pursued by men and hounds, swims swiftly over the
mountain tarn to the safety of crag and fell, so swam Earl Roderic
before the fury of the men of Bute. And none dared follow him, for it is
said that that loch is deeper than the hills are high.

So many ran round to the farther shores that they might there meet him
and assail him with showers of stones. In the brief time that had passed
between two settings of the sun this man, this traitorous sea rover, had
taken the lives of two kings -- the well-beloved Hamish, who had ruled
over that little nation for a score of peaceful and prosperous years,
and Alpin, his son and successor, who had fallen ere yet he had known
the power of his kingship. And forgetting that by the sentence of
outlawry which their judge had passed but two hours before, Roderic had
been allowed three days of grace, during which it was a crime to molest
him, they were driven to the extremity of wild rage; they thirsted for
his blood.

It was not now enough that he should quit their island with his
treachery unavenged; they wanted to strike him down that the world might
no longer harbour a vil