It was on a day in the month of August, 1262, that the armament of twelve gallant ships of war, under Sir Piers de Currie and Earl Kenric of Bute, entered the sound of Kilbrannan on their voyage to the outer isles. There had passed six weeks of busy preparation, for there were stores to be got ready and put on board, small boats to be made trim, timbers to be caulked, sails to be mended, many hundreds of arrows to be cut, pointed, and feathered, and longbows to be strung, swords and battle-axes to be forged and sharpened, and bucklers to be stretched. And now, with all these matters duly completed, the twelve vessels, with their sails brailed up to the yards, and their long oars moving with regular stride, crept down the channel between Kintyre and Arran. Leading them was the great Dragon -- the same that had sailed to Dumbarton -- commanded by Earl Kenric himself, who stood on the poop clothed in armour of iron network and with the sword of Somerled at his side, and wearing his shining brass helm crested with gold wings. The lion banner of Scotland, woven in silk, fluttered at his bark's masthead. In his ship's waist, toiling at the heavy oars, were two score of well-trained retainers, with a reserve of yet another two score and ten of his sturdy islanders crowded at the prow. Side by side with the Dragon was the Eagle, the galley of Sir Piers de Currie, having on board young Harald the hostage; and in their wake sailed two other ships of Arran and four of Bute, one of Dunoon, and three of Galloway, and they were the stoutest and tallest ships that had ever sailed in those deep blue waters. On the /Kraken/ of Rothesay was Allan Redmain. Right proud was he of his command, for even until the fifth week he had dreaded that he might not be of this expedition by reason of his being bound as watcher of the farmstead of Scalpsie. Night by night, in starlight or rainstorm, he had duly fulfilled his unwilling charge, albeit he ofttimes slept through half the night, and it so befell that on each occasion that he had slept, on the next day thereafter the farmer claimed that he had lost yet another two or three of his ewe lambs, and Sir Oscar Redmain was perforce bound to make good the loss. Now, as time went on this thing happened so often that Allan began to think strange thoughts, for never but on the first night of his watching had he seen aught of either wolf or fox. Seeking for a reason, he found that on those nights that he had slept it was then that he had drunk deepest of the crafty farmer's strong posset, and he was thereafter wary of that drink. One night, having thrown the posset away without tasting it, he made pretence of sleeping, and as he lay there on the heather and watched with one eye open, behold the wolf came and carried off two young goats.