[Illustration: Duart Castle, chief stronghold of the MacLeans.] Ardnamurchan Castle, seat of the MacIans and the MacDonalds. ====================================================================== It would be tiresome to relate much more of this ensanguined, interminable game of give and take which was the chief business of the Highland clans in that century. The clan of the MacIans whose seat was at Ardnamurchan Castle on Mull later sided actively with the MacDonalds and the feud became three-cornered. Lachlan Mo'r MacLean was no petty warrior, and his men were numbered by the thousand when he was in the prime of his power. Once he fell upon the island of Islay and put to the sword as many as five hundred of his foes, "all the men capable of bearing arms belonging to the Clan-donald," says an old account. Angus himself was chased into his castle and forced to give over half of Islay to Lachlan to save his skin. Now, indeed, was there a mustering of the MacDonalds from near and far to invade Mull. They gathered under the chiefs of Kintyre, Skye and Islay, with the lesser clans under MacNeil of Gigha, the MacAllisters of Loupe, and the MacPhees of Colonsay. Bold Lachlan Mo'r MacLean was outnumbered, but a singular stroke of luck enabled him to win a decisive battle. That MacDonald who was called the Red Knight of Sleat, was much disturbed and shaken by a dream in which a voice chanted a very doleful prophecy of which this is a sample: "Dire are the deeds the fates have doomed on thee! Defeated by the sons of Gillean the invading host shall be. On thee, Gearna-Dubh,[1] streams of blood shall flow; And the bold Red Knight shall die ere a sword is sheathed." This message caused the Red Knight to sound the retreat soon after the fray began, and his example spread panic among the force which broke and ran for their boats, and the best MacDonald was he who first reached the beach. The claymores of the MacLeans hewed them down without mercy and their heads were chopped off and thrown into a well which has since borne a Gaelic name descriptive of the event. It would seem that these clans must have exterminated each other by this time, but the bleak moors and rocky slopes of these western islands bore a wonderful crop of fighting men, and soon the MacLeans were invading the coast of Lorn and spreading havoc among the MacDonalds with great slaughter.