In the nighttime they
were driven out into the Atlantic beyond Skerryvore. When the storm
abated they drifted northward, landed on many islands in turn, playing
great havoc amongst the children of the old vikings, and so disgracing
their own country Scotland that the Norsemen of the Hebrides vowed
vengeance upon all Scots wheresoever they might encounter them.
CHAPTER XX. ALONE WITH DEATH.
Kenric with his squadron, reduced now to four galleys, voyaged to the
isle of Tiree -- a distance of about fifty miles from Colonsay. There,
without drawing arrow from sheath or sword from scabbard, he prevailed
over the lord of that land to give him surety of his adherence to King
Alexander, and a solemn declaration that he would remain true to his
oaths. And then the barks departed for Coll.
Now young Harald of Islay having warned the people of Colonsay of the
approach of the invaders, bade his men take him at once to the isle of
Coll, whither, as it chanced, Earl Sweyn the Silent had gone, and there
the lad told the same tale of how Kenric of Bute was bent upon making
conquest of the isles, yet breathing no word of how King Alexander had
ordered the expedition. The men of Coll, thus warned, would not brook
that the ships of Bute should touch at their island, so ere Kenric had
yet arrived at Tiree they got their many galleys together, and joining
with the forces of Earl Sweyn they stood off behind the little isle of
Gunna, ready to make an onslaught upon the squadron that Kenric was leading.
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