The Thirsty Sword | Page 7

those who are dearest to him have been torn away?"
"Then you have had sorrows?" questioned the lady.
"When I went forth to take the kingship of my island home," said he, "my life was indeed
most bright and joyous; and on a time it befell that I went north to Iceland, and there I
met one who (with submission I say it) was not less beautiful than yourself, my lady. She
was the most beauteous damsel that ever came out of the Northland, and her name was
Sigrid the Fair. I married her and we were happy."
Roderic again filled his drinking bowl and looked across the table at Alpin's handsome
brown face.
"We had two children," he continued sadly. "The girl would have been of the years of
your own son there, the boy was two summers younger than she."
"Oh, do not tell me that they are dead!" cried Adela.

"Alas! but that is so," he sighed. "One sunny day they went out hand in hand from our
castle to play, as was their wont, among the rocks and caves that are at the south of our
island. Never since then have they returned, and some said that the water kelpie had taken
them and carried them away to his crystal home under the sea. Others whispered that the
kraken or some other monster of the deep had devoured them. They said these things,
believing that Sigrid had no heart for her children, and that she was unkind to them. But
many days thereafter I learned that a strange ship had been seen bearing outward between
Gigha and Cara; and it was the ship of Rapp the Icelander, the cruellest sea rover that
ever sailed upon the western seas. Then did I believe that neither kelpie nor kraken had
taken my bairns, but Rapp the Rover.
"So I got ship and followed him. For three long years I followed in his track -- to the
frozen shores of Iceland, and into every vic and fiord in Scandinavia. Southward then I
sailed to the blue seas of England -- always behind him yet never encountering him. But
at last there came a day of terrible tempest. The thunder god struck my ship and we were
wrecked. Every man that was on board my ship was drowned saving only myself, for the
white sea mew swims not more lightly on the waters than I. So I was picked up by a
passing vessel, and it was the vessel of Rapp the Icelander. Instead of killing him I loved
him, in that he had saved my life. Then he told me, swearing by St. Olaf, that never in all
his time of sea roving had he touched at the little island of Gigha, and that he knew
naught soever of the dear children I had lost."
"Greatly do I pity you, Earl Roderic," said Adela, clasping her hands. "And you have not
yet found trace of your little ones?"
"No," said Roderic. "And now do I believe that they are still at play in the crystal halls of
the water kelpie, whence no man can rescue them."
"And your wife Sigrid, what of her?" asked Sir Oscar Redmain.
"When I got back to Gigha," murmured Roderic, "they told me that in my absence she
had gone mad, and that in her frenzy she had cast herself from the cliffs into the sea.
Whithersoever I have gone since that sad time, there have I found unhappiness."
The Lady Adela looked upon the man with gentle pity in her dark eyes. She felt how
different had been his lot from hers and her dear husband's. For notwithstanding that she
dwelt in a country not her own, and among people who spoke a foreign tongue, yet she
was very happy. The Earl Hamish loved her well and was ever good to her. And their two
sons, Alpin and Kenric, growing up into manhood, were very dear to her heart.
She was the daughter of a proud English baron, who had wide dominions near the great
city of York. Twenty years before, Earl Hamish of Bute had been sent with other wise
counsellors by King Alexander the Second on a mission to the court of the English king,
Henry the Third, concerning the great treaty of peace between England and Scotland, and
also to consider the proposal of a marriage between the daughter of the King of England
and the son of the King of Scots. The treaty established a peace which had not yet been
broken, and the Princess Margaret of England was now the Queen of Scotland. But while

on that embassy to York Earl Hamish of Bute won more than the gratitude of his
sovereign, for he won the heart of the Lady