The voyage was long and perilous. Autumn had already far advanced. Equinoctial gales lashed the western sea into swelling billows, so that after struggling with difficulty up the stormy sounds of Mull and Sleat, the galley containing the Princess and her parents, at length became separated from all her convoys and stranded on the western coast of Raasay. The King, Queen, and Princess barely escaped with their lives; their attendants also were saved, but the choice treasures intended to propitiate the Enchanter were carried by mermaidens as spoil to the palace of the sea gods.
Drenched and perishing with cold, the unfortunate voyagers were rescued from the bleak shore, and hospitably entertained by the poor islanders, who little imagined that in these storm-beaten mariners they beheld the great King Murdoch, the wise Queen Margaret, and the unfortunate Princess Miranda.
It is true that the Queen, with that prudence and forethought which occasionally guided her smaller actions, had caused her chief dresser to sew their three second-best Crowns into a small package, which was still attached to her belt and concealed by her dress, but with this exception (which seemed of little practical use), nothing remained to mark the exalted station of the royal wanderers.
Great, however, was their satisfaction to find that they were shipwrecked on the very island where the Enchanter of the North had his lonely abode. They made many enquiries concerning him, and heard that his actions were beneficent, and his cures almost certain. They were, nevertheless, warned by the islanders that nothing more excited his indignation than the presence of many people at his gate. He had, indeed, been known to refuse aid altogether to their comrades, who, from superstition or folly, had gone in numbers to beset the Castle entrance.
It was now therefore customary among these simple yet considerate people, to convoy the suppliant within a short distance of Castle Brochel. They then remained waiting on the hill above, while their fellow descended and returned. So universal had this practice become, that a small shieling was gradually thrown together stone upon stone by islanders waiting on different occasions for some friend below; exposed for the time being to all the inclemency of that most variable climate.
Here then the King and Queen waited while their beloved daughter (bearing with her the white and silver tablets by means of which she was wont to communicate with others) was told to present herself at the wicket-gate of the Castle. She was moreover given money wherewith to propitiate the much-dreaded Donald—the stern one-eyed guardian of the Enchanter's abode.
It was one of those days in early November when the exquisite "Indian summer" sometimes casts a perfect halo of beauty over the "soft" north-western atmosphere of Scotland. The little group paused on the eminence immediately commanding the tall gaunt building below. In reality, the Castle top was above them; but to gain access to its portals, it was necessary to descend to a considerable depth, and then remount by a narrow cause-way to its frowning door.
The afternoon sun gilded the turrets with golden radiance, beyond slumbered the blue rippling waters, calm and treacherous, giving no sign of their cruel strength. Far in the distance like faint clouds, lay the curving outline of the Highland hills, tipped with snow, and dimly visible as they blushed pink in the parting rays of the monarch of day.
The last farewell spoken, and the afflicted child tenderly pressed to her parents' hearts; the gentle Miranda, with slow footstep, descended the fateful path.
In the meantime Eudæmon, by his consultations with the stars (an art partly taught him by his mother, who had carried away for her child, when she escaped from Valbiorn's terrible dwelling, strange manuscripts of astrological and magic lore), had become aware of the impending visit of a being whose fate was mysteriously connected with his own.