have the greater claim, think on Ella's mother, Lauchlan's sister, and spare her brother for your dead wife's sake.”

But Sir Angus was an unforgiving foe. Little compassion had he in his heart, and less mercy. He looked again at Ella, who was the exact presentment of the fair daughter of the Clan MacLean whom he had made his wife, and said deliberately:

"If the mother of my children could come back to-day from Loch Finlaggan Island, and kneel where her child and mine is kneeling now, I would not spare MacLean. My enemy shall die. I swear it!"

On hearing the choking cry that Ella uttered, Muriel stepped forward, and, raising her sister, drew her within her arms protectingly, as James MacDonald at last made his voice heard:

"I tell you, father, you are hot-headed and foolish. You are in bad favour enough at Court already. Remember your enemies eager for your fall-MacLeods, MacLeans, Campbellsto name but a few of the strongest. All roads will lead to Islay if Clan Donald is to be despoiled. Think you the King

His father stopped him wrathfully.

"What care I for King or Council?" he yelled. “I am king in Islay. Our kindred have lorded it here for nigh a thousand years; and it's a long arm will pluck me forth from Dunyvaig! I will have revenge, come of it what may. No woman's tears shall stop me, nor no over-cautious son! If your uncle's blood is little in your eyes, to me it is dearer than my own, and MacLean's shall flow to avenge it!"

James knew well the uselessness of trying to turn his father from his purpose. It would have been far easier to make a straw float up against a stream in spate.

"I do not wish to rob you of revenge," he said, “but I counsel you to wait. Make certain if Sir Lauchlan gave his kinsman orders for the deed, ere doing what never can be undone and what will cost you dear."

"Wait? 'Tis but another way of asking me to spare him. Wait? Till when? Till the iron cools? I tell you, James, I will not wait!"

"I mean not what you think. I am as hot to avenge our loss as you, but on the real slayer. That Allen MacLean is an evil man. Have I not told you it was he that counselled our imprisonment in Mull? Delay your vengeance. It will keep. MacDonald blood cools not like iron withdrawn from Black Duncan's fire. Had you Allen MacLean, I'd see his head come

off his shoulders as calmly as a thistle's off its stalk. Wait a week and I will go to Mull."

"Not a day!"

"Till to-morrow, then."

"Not an hour! Too long have I listened; the sun is up. MacKay! Go seek the slayer of my brother, the usurper of my lands, for he shall die the death he would have given me in Duart had he dared. The sword is sharpened and the block is placed. There is not a man or woman in Islay who can delay his doom as long as a chief's authority is mine!"

"A little brief authority." As brief as life, as fleeting. Stable as the shadow of a cloud on rippling water. Gone with a breath as a cloud vanishes. Hasten, proud chief, while Godgiven authority is thine.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE SOOTHSAYER SPEAKS

WHAT hideous fancies, what terrifying nightmares course with thunderous hoofs across the wide stretching plains of insensibility. Sir Lauchlan MacLean, stupefied at the sudden tragic turn of affairs, fell at length into a troubled sleep peopled, by the peril in which he lay, with terrors. The Mull Witch warned in vain dream faces scowled at him; dream voices spoke his doom; dream gibbets loomed before him, and he died dream deaths with every mental pang a hundred-fold intensified.

Then suddenly the gossamer warp of sleep through which the dream shuttle weaves its airy woof snapped, and he awoke. Hector's hand was on his arm, and the morning sun was streaming into the hut through the open door, where stood. MacDonald's lieutenant. The full meaning of his awakening. burst upon him at the sight of Hugh MacKay, and he stood up with sleep banished from his eyes. Brave as he was a numbness seized him. The time had come, and the lieutenant's words sounded a death-knell in his ears.

"Make your farewell, Sir Lauchlan. The chief waits!" The door closed behind MacKay, and father and son were left together to say their parting words in private.

It was a lovely morning when Sir Lauchlan MacLean came forth to die. The sun lit up the Laggan river flowing in spate to Laggan Bay, brown almost as the moors that stretched on

either bank. The rain drops, not yet fallen from the grass, sparkled like diamonds in an emerald setting. Clear and sweet in the stillness a lark was singing, and moor birds were wheeling with sharp cries above their heathery haunts. The leaves of the trees made soft music to the light wind, and the hum of countless insects was in the warm air, sweet with the smell of honey-laden heather.

Sir Lauchlan walked erect and proud between his guards, to the place appointed for his execution. Then, beside the block he paused and looked around him at the Islay hills, at the Rhinns across the blue sun-steeped Loch Indaal, at the bright sky with its thin pencilled cloud wraiths pointing away northward to where the rocky isle of Mull lay, girt with summer seas. Mull! No, he would not think of Mull when death was to be faced unflinchingly.

Ah, but death! And so soon. It was no day to die, rather one on which to court life, were it for the mere joy of breathing the sunlit air heavy with the scent of the moors, or basking on some sun-baked strand fanned by the summer breeze.

Forth from the Long House came Sir Angus MacDonald. Held by a ghillie beside the mounting stone, his horse, a fiery and restive animal, pawed the ground. Sir Angus mounted and paced him down the strath, curbing the impatient beast, heedless how he strained against the bit, or pranced with proudly arching neck. His hour of triumph had come at last, and be would not have it hurried over with too great swiftness. Eager as he had been for his revenge, now that the time had come he would linger over it, enjoy it slowly; and as he rode he feasted his eyes on the figure of Sir Lauchlan calmly awaiting his coming. Then he cast a searching glance over the crowd that had gathered together. Not a woman or a child was visible. So he had commanded, and he smiled grimly to see how well his orders were obeyed. Now no woman could try to come between him and his desire. He reined in opposite the prisoner and dismounted.

Countess Clan Connell's words had not been without effect, nor had James MacDonald's mention of King and Council; though Sir Angus had shown to them no sign of relenting, he had made up his mind to give Sir Lauchlan one more chance of life. Behind MacLean the river flowed, and round him in a rough semicircle were grouped MacDonald's men, who drew nearer the prisoner as their chief approached him.

"MacLean," said Sir Angus, "deeply have you wronged

me, and heavy is my grief for my brother. But, for the sake of those who pled for you last night, you shall go free in spite of Coll, if you but restore to me my ancient inheritance. Look around you. See what it is to be alive this day, and give me the promise I require."

Sir Lauchlan drew himself up till he towered over MacDonald. His head was uncovered, and the breeze ruffled his thick light-brown hair.

"Sir Angus," he said, haughtily, "think you I care for life at your gift? My life is but mine, while the Rhinns of Islay are my clan's. Think not that for the fear of death-one stroke of a broadsword, or two, perhaps will I cede my children's rights. I will die and defy you!"

Then look your last upon the Rhinns!" roared MacDonald, his short-lived prudence cast to the winds. He strode to his horse, and resting his foot upon the bent back of a ghillie, sprang into the saddle. As he did so, a wide lane opened in the crowd, and with a muttered curse he recognised Janet of Mull approaching him.

Neither to right nor left looked Janet, but she fixed upon the MacDonald chieftain her dark and piercing eye. Then she spoke.

Sir Angus MacDonald, outrage not hospitality! Had Sir Lauchlan listened to my warnings, he would not now be here, yet I defy you to take his life. His doom is read. The place of his death is fixed, and it is not in Mulindry. I say he shall not die!"

Sir Angus MacDonald was not altogether free from the fear that attached to Janet's reputation as a witch; but that she should beard him thus before his men was galling to his pride. "Peace, woman!" he shouted, beside himself with rage. 'Presume not too far upon your character of soothsayer!"

Seeing MacDonald preparing to give the signal for his enemy's death, Janet of Mull took a step forward. Straight she was as an arrow, despite her years, and her eyes blazed with an angry light. Raising her hand high above her head, she uttered against the chief a terrible curse that chilled the blood of all who heard it.

Sir Angus was stationed beneath a tree at ten paces from his victim, and as Janet cursed him, even he shrank from the woman all men feared.

"Proud man!" she cried, "A mother's prayers, a daughter's tears have failed. Ask me not how, but I know who rode

Her voice rose

from Dunyvaig and all that passed last night." to a shriek and she looked unutterable rage. Here before heaven do I call upon you a widow's curse. May it come upon you like the swift lightning that rends the proud tree of the forest! May it cling to you by day and night, on land and sea, in time and when time for you shall be no more! He whom you would slay is as a son to me. May the heart curse of a stricken mother

She ceased abruptly, for at that instant there was a snap, a cry. A branch above the chief gave way, and a youth fell headlong, striking full against the horse, and then lay still upon the ground.

The chafed and fretted animal reared, and plunged upon the motionless body, flinging its rider heavily to earth; then, finding himself free, he bolted, lashing out viciously at those who would have held him.

Sir Angus lay where he had fallen, senseless. A yell of rage burst from MacDonald's followers, and not all their superstitious fear of Janet of Mull could have saved her from instant and violent death, but with a bound Sir Angus's ghillie-more was beside her.

"To me Archie! Ewen!" he shouted, and in a moment the woman had a bodyguard of three strong sons.

James MacDonald was the first to reach his father, and willing hands bore Sir Angus to the Long House. His horse, recaptured and mounted, had his fill of galloping, carrying a messenger to summon MacDonald's physician. In another direction, a second messenger went hot-foot for Father O'Moore.

Archie, Ewen, and Neill remained with their mother, while she knelt on the ground beside the youth's still form.

not.

"Ian, Ian," she wailed, "speak to me," but he heard her

Hugh MacKay, on guard over MacLean, came to her, and drawing forth a flask of usquebaugh, put it to the youth's lips. The strong spirit revived Ian: he groaned and opened his eyes. "How came you here? asked the lieutenant.

Ian turned his gaze towards Sir Lauchlan. "I came to see him die," he said faintly; then added with strange savageness, "I hate him. Oh, I hate him!"

At the words Janet sprang to her feet, and all her love for Ian died. Never more would her foster-son darken the door of her little hut by the edge of the woods.