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His own inheritance of the small island of Gigha was not enough to satisfy his vaulting ambition, and the growing power of the King of Norway, who was year by year extending his territories in the west of Scotland, offered a further inducement to Roderic, who believed that by slaying his brother Hamish, and taking his place, he might bring the island of Bute under the protection of the Norwegian crown.
Presently Aasta rose to her seat, and Kenric took his paddle and drove the boat along into the deeper water. Down the west coast of Kintyre they sailed until, out across the sea, they saw the light of a beacon fire shoot up upon the heights of Gigha.
The light of a hanging cruse lamp shone upon his long red hair and beard. His strong bare arms were folded, one within the other, across his broad chest, and the back of his right hand was splashed with blood that had been partly wiped off upon his under jerkin. "Which man of you is Earl Roderic of Gigha?" repeated Kenric. The three looked one to the other with evil smiles.
"Roderic of Gigha!" cried Aasta recoiling a step and feeling for her dirk, as she recognized the man she had set out to slay. "Ay, Roderic it is," said he smiling grimly. "And methinks, fair damsel, that you are the very same who so cunningly escaped from my ship over at Arrochar the same also who fought so bravely against me at Largs.
He looked about for their shepherd that he might ask him concerning the earls of Jura and Colonsay. He began to regret that he had so lightly dismissed his friends, who might better have waited to carry him in their ship to Gigha. Presently he heard voices from behind a great rock. A young sheepdog appeared, but when it saw him it turned tail and slunk away as if it were afraid of him.
But I swear that they are henceforth safe from all further peril. And now, for my own curiosity alone, I would ask you how it happened that you were so timely warned of the danger that threatened you, my lord?" Kenric told how William MacAlpin had come to Bute, and how he himself had spied upon the council of King Hakon in Gigha.
"And now do I leave my kinsman, William MacAlpin, as my chosen steward and governor over my lands and as the defender of my people." Kenric then went on board Sir Piers de Currie's ship, taking a fisherman of Gigha to act as pilot, and they left the rest of their barks at anchor in the quiet bay under the care of Allan Redmain.
Outward then they steered until they came nigh upon the rocky shores of that island; and passing many little islets, they sailed between Gigha and the brownie-haunted island of Cara, just as the day was breaking in the east. Here Aasta looked about her with strange bewilderment as though she were awaking from a dream.
"Which man of you is Earl Roderic of Gigha?" said he. Erland the Old, with an empty drinking horn in his bony hand, sat by the hearth looking vacantly into the dead embers of the fire. Sweyn the Silent stood beside him with his thumbs stuck in his leathern girdle; while Roderic of Gigha sat upon the table facing the door and swinging his legs to and fro.
But Roderic sprang lightly aside, so that the young man's aim was spent upon the soft ground. Roderic's sword flashed in a circle above his crested helm. There was a dull crunching sound, and then a deep groan. Kenric promptly rushed to his brother's side and tried to raise him from the ground. But the sword of Roderic of Gigha had done its work. Earl Alpin was dead.
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