the men of the clan under pretext of coming here to deliver him, but now I have no doubt his real object was to be strong to meet MacLean's son when he returned. Then it was that Lady MacLean came to me and begged me to flee from Mull and do what I could to save Sir Lauchlan. I was willing enough to see the last of Duart and at night she got boats for us and helped us away. Only for her we should have been there for that traitor to wreak his vengeance on. Allen MacLean would never have let us live to prove his lie on him."

"Then," said Sir Angus, "Lauchlan shall go back to do justice on that bold man. Were I able I would go myself, but Islay men shall not be wanting to humble him. Summon MacKay to me!"

The physician came forward. "Sir Angus, it would be wiser not to see MacKay till evening. You are hot and may bring on a fever."

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The old pride came back to MacDonald's eyes. "Am I a Ichild to be reasoned with ?" he exclaimed. MacBeath, I have come near doing what I would have regretted for the rest of my days. But I will make it up to MacLean. Summon MacKay, I say! I burn to right the wrong, and righted it shall be. Till then I will not rest."

Whatever his

MacDonald's nature was an ardent one. desires, whether good or evil, he followed them with all his powers, and Hugh MacKay, coming speedily to his chief's room, listened with surprise to his commands.

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Why do you stare at me? Are not my words plain?" demanded MacDonald at the end.

"Is he then free to go from Mulindry, Sir Angus?" "As free as you, MacKay, to go or stay."

"But the Rhinns!" exclaimed the lieutenant in amazement.

"The Rhinns! Man, I have been on the borders of that Dark Valley, where even Rhinnsmen could not have stood to me. A little farther and neither Rhinns nor the rest of Islay would I have seen again, nor would it have mattered to me who possessed them." This much in his new-found frame of mind, but MacDonald's old spirit revived with, "Never fear, MacKay. We'll keep the Rhinns, but it shall be by fair and honest fight."

VOL. XLII.-No. 499.

3

Not altogether reluctantly the lieutenant went to do his chieftain's bidding since it meant joy to the lady Muriel. A few minutes afterwards found him in the presence of MacDonald's daughters in a room that looked out over a pleasant valley sloping away towards Loch Indaal. Part of the loch could be seen calm and glassy, a perfect mirror for the clouds that floated over it; but neither of the girls was thinking of the clouds or the loch or the valley, for Ella MacDonald was standing beside her sister with parted lips, flushed and eager, listening to Hugh MacKay delivering his message:

Lady, the chief charged me to give you the key of Sir Lauchlan MacLean's prison, and to say to you that he and his men are for you to do with as you please, and this because MacLean is proud and would rather take his liberty from you than from MacDonald or his lieutenant. There is but one condition" (MacKay allowed himself to smile), "Hector MacLean is to remain as surety that his father will lodge no complaint with king or council."

Ella's fingers closed tightly around the key, and her eyes spoke the thanks her emotion prevented her from expressing. She hurried from the room, and soon Sir Lauchlan and his son saw their prison door fly open and beheld, as it were, a vision of a girl with radiant face and outstretched hands, come in with the sunlight. Their eyes, accustomed to the darksome hut, were dazzled by the sudden light, but the vision spoke, Hector! Sir Lauchlan! you are free," and Ella MacDonald was folded in her lover's arms.

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Sir Angus MacDonald and Sir Lauchlan MacLean met once more in neutral mood. Neither mentioned the Rhinns, but MacDonald was pressing in his offers of men to help Sir Lauchlan against his kinsman, Allen.

However, MacLean would not avail himself of the services of MacDonald's, and as soon as his men were mustered, he rode out from Mulindry at their head.

Hector remained behind to enter on a period of bliss. He listened enraptured to Ella MacDonald compassionating him on how he and his father had suffered through Allen MacLean.

Then said he, "Ah, but my father will pay the false Allen for the trick he played."

The girl beside him shuddered.

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Hector, speak not of it as a trick. It was too terrible for such a name. Think what it cost both us and you. My

father, I fear, will never know again his wonted vigour, and Sir Lauchlan too has suffered. He has become like an old His hair is white."

man.

"Yes, Ella, his hair is that of a man of three score years and more. It was the anxiety that caused it. I have heard of such things before."

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Oh, it was dreadful for him to lie in doubt from day to day not knowing whether the next hour might not bring him death, but no one dared bid him hope, even after Coll returned, until my father spoke. It was cruel, cruel." "Sweetheart, he had himself to thank."

"How, Hector ?"

"You know Janet of Mull ?"

"That dreadful woman!"

"Dreadful she may be when roused to anger, but to my father she is loving as a mother. She warned him not to go to Mulindry, but like Dierdre's advice to Naisi and his brothers to avoid the Red Branch House, her caution went for naught."

"How like was the sad story of the sons of Usnagh to yours. They also trusted to a plighted word and found it false," sighed Ella.

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Well, dearest," said her lover lightly, our story had a better ending. They died and we live. And, after all, your father and mine are but quits. All's fair in war. That is how I view the matter."

"Would you give your word and then break it?" she asked him, and he smiled at her earnestness. "Never to you, Ella," he said eagerly. serious ?"

"But why so

"I fear

Ella's eyes looked troubled as she made answer. Sir Lauchlan will be more my father's enemy than ever." "My own," he said tenderly, knowing the truth of her words, "you, when you reign as queen in Duart, will change my father's heart. He longs to have you there as much as I, for Duart has lacked a mistress over long. Soon you must turn your galley's head northwards to Mull of the Mountains."

CHAPTER XXXI

THE SWORD DECIDES

when he discovered He was playing a

Allen MacLean was at his wit's end Coll MacDonald's flight from Duart. dangerous game for a high stake, and he felt that he had lost an important point, for now his lie would be found out and a true construction put upon it.

Though cunning and unscrupulous, he was at heart a craven, and bitterly he regretted the cowardly considerations that had prompted him to lie instead of really making an end of Coll MacDonald. Now, when the story of his deception would become known in Mull, MacLeans as well as MacDonalds would be against him. His only hope lay in instant action. He had roused the men of Mull and they had flocked to him clamorous to go to Islay to fight for their chief, and Allen MacLean, sure in his own mind of Sir Lauchlan's death, to make the best of matters, set sail with them and landed in Islay on Loch Gruinart's shore the very day that the chief of Clan MacLean regained his liberty.

While the false Allen was holding a council of war by the loch side, loud shouts of joy broke from his followers as they saw approaching a small body of men in MacLean colours.

There was no mistaking their leader. No other of the clan except Hector could match Sir Lauchlan's stature, and Hector had not yet attained his father's breadth of limb.

The traitor's heart sank within him, and he shook with terror as his chief drew near. To right and left he darted a despairing glance. There was no escape through the thick ranks; and he had no ready lie upon his lips to screen him from Sir Lauchlan's anger.

With parched throat and starting eyes he waited, and then, reading his unmasking and his condemnation in the face of MacLean, he drew his dirk and made a coward's end, and saved his kinsman the hanging of him.

Word of Allen's trick flew round from lip to lip, and Sir Lauchlan from the back of his horse addressed his clan, telling of his own marvellous escape. In proof of the severity of

his trial, he removed his bonnet and showed his hair, once brown, now white as the foam that edged the sand. Loud and deep were the cries against MacDonald. The passions of the MacLeans were seeking active expression, and Sir Lauchlan, finding himself at the head of a considerable force, thought that the chance had come to seize the Rhinns.

But the news of the coming of the men of Mull had already reached Mulindry, and the men of Islay were gathering. The force that had camped within Dun Brolchain had not been dispersed, nor had the gentlemen from Jura and Gigha and Colonsay, whose presence at the treacherous banquet had been an added insult to MacLean, returned to their homes. They and their attendants swelled the MacDonald ranks, which had yet another reinforcement. Sorley Boy MacDonald had arrived from Antrim, and he had not come alone.

But, such had been the zeal of Allen MacLean to further his own bad ends that the men who had answered his call, outnumbered the whole strength of the MacDonalds and their allies.

Before many hours had passed, a meeting was in progress in a church beside Loch Gruinart between Sir Lauchlan and his principal supporters on one side, and Coll and James MacDonald and the Antrim chieftain on the other.

James MacDonald knew that MacLean possessed the advantage of a larger force, and tried to pacify him by making an offer of the Rhinns as his sister's dowry, which Sir Lauchlan himself had proposed in Holyrood; seeing that the proposal was met now with scorn, he went so far as to promise to add to the Rhinns another part of Islay for the sake of peace.

But Sir Lauchlan, though pressed to accept these most generous terms was obdurate in refusal. He thought he perceived in James MacDonald's desire for peace a weakening of the Clan Donald spirit, and he demanded the surrender of all Islay. Naturally, the meeting was productive of nothing but added rancour.

Then it was that the sword at length decided the vexed question of the Rhinns of Islay.

In the evening of that August day, when the sun was sinking to rest, and the tide far out in narrow Loch Gruinart