t sufficient in his estimation, but the life's blood
of such a number of his bitterest foemen, and an act at which the
country should stand aghast was absolutely necessary. Returning home he
gathered together a number of the most desperate of his clan, and by a
forced march across the hills arrived at the Church of Cilliechriost on
a Sunday forenoon, when it was filled by a crowd of worshippers of the
clan Mackenzie. Without a moments delay, without a single pang of
remorse, and while the song of praise ascended to heaven from fathers,
mothers, and children, he surrounded the church with his band, and with
lighted torches set fire to the roof. The building was thatched, and
while a gentle breeze from the east fanned the fire, the song of praise,
mingled with the crackling of the flames, until the imprisoned
congregation, becoming conscious of their situation, rushed to the doors
and windows, where they were met by a double row of bristling swords.
Now, indeed, arose the wild wail of despair, the shrieks of women, the
infuriated cries of men, and the helpless screaming of children, these
mingled with the roaring of the flames appalled even the Macdonalds, but
not so Allan Dubh. "Thrust them back into the flames" cried he, "for he
that suffers ought to escape alive from Cilliechriost shall be branded
as a traitor to his clan"; and they were thrust back or mercilessly hewn
down within the narrow porch, until the dead bodies piled on each other
opposed an unsurmountable barrier to the living. Anxious for the
preservation of their young children, the scorching mothers threw them
from the windows in the vain hope that the feelings of parents awakened
in the breasts of the Macdonalds would induce them to spare them, but
not so. At the command of Allan of Lundi they were received on the
points of the broadswords of men in whose breasts mercy had no place.
It was a wild and fearful sight only witnessed by a wild and fearful
race. During the tragedy they listened with delight to the piper of the
band, who marching round the burning pile, played to drown the screams
of the victims, an extempore pibroch, which has ever since been
distinguished as the war tune of Glengarry under the title of
"Cilliechriost." The flaming roof fell upon the burning victims, soon
the screams ceased to be heard, a column of smoke and flame leapt into
the air, the pibroch ceased, the last smothered groan of existence
ascended into the still sky of that Sab