instance of private vengeance could have been carried out so recent as the beginning of the seventeenth century, without any notice being taken of it, even, in those days of general blood and rapine. Notwithstanding the hideousness of sacrilege and murder, which, certainly, in magnitude of atrocity, was scarcely ever equalled, there are many living, even in the immediate neighbourhood, who are ignorant of the cause of the act. Macranuil of Lundi, captain of the clan, whose personal prowess was only equalled by his intense ferocity, made many incursions into the Mackenzie country, sweeping away their cattle, and otherwise doing them serious injury; but these were but preludes to that sanguinary act on which his soul gloated, and by which he hoped effectually to avenge the loss of influence and property of which his clan were deprived by the Mackenzies, and more particularly wash out the records of death of his chief and clansmen at Kyleakin. In order to form his plans more effectually he wandered for some time as a mendicant among the Mackenzies in order the more successfully to fix on the best means and spot for his revenge. A solitary life offered up to expiate the manes of his relatives was not sufficient in his estimation, but the life's blood of such a number of his bitterest foemen, and an act at which the country should stand aghast was absolutely necessary. Returning home he gathered together a number of the most desperate of his clan, and by a forced march across the hills arrived at the Church of Cilliechriost on a Sunday forenoon, when it was filled by a crowd of worshippers of the clan Mackenzie. Without a moments delay, without a single pang of remorse, and while the song of praise ascended to heaven from fathers, mothers, and children, he surrounded the church with his band, and with lighted torches set fire to the roof. The building was thatched, and while a gentle breeze from the east fanned the fire, the song of praise, mingled with the crackling of the flames, until the imprisoned congregation, becoming conscious of their situation, rushed to the doors and windows, where they were met by a double row of bristling swords. Now, indeed, arose the wild wail of despair, the shrieks of women, the infuriated cries of men, and the helpless screaming of children, these mingled with the roaring of the flames appalled even the Macdonalds, but not so Allan Dubh. "Thrust them back into the flames" cried he, "for he that suffers ought to escape alive from Cilliechriost shall be branded as a traitor to his clan"; and they were thrust back or mercilessly hewn down within the narrow porch, until the dead bodies piled on each other opposed an unsurmountable barrier to the living. Anxious for the preservation of their young children, the scorching mothers threw them from the windows in the vain hope that the feelings of parents awakened in the breasts of the Macdonalds would induce them to spare them, but not so.