Drawing back for a moment he looked once more at the strange image. The rounded cheeks were white as snow; the eyes were motionless and glassy; the beautiful bloodless lips, slightly parted, revealed a row of pearly teeth. It was the face of Aasta the Fair.
Kenric tried to touch her, to take her in his arms. But the intervening ice inclosed her as in a crystal casket. He saw that the stray locks of her long hair, floating in the clear water, had been caught by the quick frost, and that they were now held within the firm thick ice. Upon her fair white throat there were marks as of a man's rough fingers. She held her right hand upon her breast, and in its grasp there was a long sharp dirk.
Kenric rose and stood looking down upon the beautiful form of the dead girl. He was as one who had been stunned by a terrible blow. For many minutes he stood there mute and motionless, with folded hands and bowed head. Soon a snowy cloud passed before the moon and cast a dark shadow upon the ice. The imprisoned image seemed to melt away. Yet Kenric knew that what he had seen was no illusion, but that Aasta the Fair lay lifeless in her frost-bound tomb.
Then Kenric thought of his enemy -- who was surely Aasta's enemy even more than his own -- and he gripped his sword.
"I will come back," he murmured sadly as he cast once more a lingering glance upon the now indistinct figure beneath the ice. "I will come back, Aasta. And now, a truce to all fear. Let me now meet this man and slay him, for there is no one who can now mourn for his death. It is right that he should die, for the hour of retribution has surely come!"
[CHAPTER XXXI. THE LAST DREAD FIGHT.]
Not long was Kenric in covering the few miles between Loch Ascog and Garroch Head. He feared to be too late, for it was already but one short hour before midnight. But his limbs were cold, and he had therefore a double reason for running. Soon, instead of being too cold he became over-hot; his heavy sheepskin cloak oppressed him, and he threw it off, leaving it lying upon the ground. Thus relieved, he slung his sword under his arm and ran on and on past the silent farmsteads, over hard ploughed fields and bare moorland, past the desolate Circle of Penance, and past the little chapel of St. Blane's, where many islanders were already gathered to join in the New Year service. Then for another short mile beyond the abbey he hastened, until from the rising ground he came in sight of the murmuring, moonlit sea.
Now he slackened his pace to a brisk walk, and skirting the line of cliffs he presently came upon the rocky headland of Garroch.
His whole body was in a warm glow; his breath came regular and strong from the depths of his broad chest. He felt himself better fitted for battle, more powerful of limb than he had ever done before, and never had he entered into combat with a fuller sense of the justice of the approaching encounter.
He looked about the bald headland to left and right, but Roderic was not yet to be seen. Kenric's heart sank within him in anxious disappointment. But as he approached the extreme angle of the cape, he saw a tall cloaked figure appear from behind the shelter of a dark rock.