54 SCOTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 



followers, by a party of Mackenzies. To revenge his death, a strong body of 

 Glengarry men were despatched under Allan Mac Raonuill, of Lundy, who led 

 them immediately across the hills, into the country of their enemies. Marching 

 under favour of night, they reached the scene of premeditated revenge early 

 on Sunday morning ; and, having ascertained that a numerous company of 

 Mackenzies were then assembled in the chapel of Cillie-Christ, near Beauly, 

 resolved to take advantage of the circumstance for the execution of their 

 diabolical purpose. Having surrounded the sacred walls with sentinels, and 

 secured every door and aperture by which the unsuspecting congregation might 

 effect their escape, they set fire to the edifice in several places, and in a few 

 minutes the house of prayer was blazing like a funeral pile. Lips, on which 

 the orison was still unfinished, now gave vent to the wildest shrieks of despair. 

 The wail of women and children the groans of the men the glare of the flames, 

 as the crackling roof crumbled in their devouring grasp the dense volumes of 

 smoke checkered with red streaks, that at length concentrated into a blaze 

 the hurrying from aisle to altar, from door to window the ejaculations of 

 despair the gaspings for breath and finally the seething heart-streams bursting 

 their receptacles all formed a picture from which the mind shrinks appalled. 

 The sacrilege, also, with which it was accompanied, invests the scene with 

 a still deeper horror. The Macdonells looked on with complacence ; and 

 as the shrieks of their tortured and expiring victims rose wildly upon the ear, 

 they were answered by shouts of triumph and the shrill notes of the pibroch,* 

 which mocked their agony with a funeral dirge. Men, women, and children, 

 were sacrificed without distinction ; and what the fire would have spared, the 

 sword thrust back into the flames. Not an individual escaped. Those who 

 in the morning had met here, a numerous and happy congregation, were a mass 

 of smouldering ashes at noon. 



The perpetrators of this atrocious deed, enjoying the dastardly satisfaction 

 of having avenged their wrongs, retired from the scene like troops after a victory, 

 but like troops who dreaded reprisals. Vengeance, indeed, was already mus- 

 tering her strength: the fire in which the Mackenzies were sacrificed, served 

 as a gathering beacon to the clan. Every man who could bear a sword now 

 drew it forth, and, casting away the scabbard, rushed to the pursuit. Dividing 

 their force into two bodies, one followed the track along the south side of 

 Loch-Ness; while the other, crossing the mountains to the north bank of the lake, 



The miserable victims found all attempts at escape unavailing, and were, without a single exception 

 man, woman, or child swallowed up hy the devouring element, or indiscriminately massacred by the 

 swords of the relentless Macdonells; whilst a piper marched round the church, playing an extemporary piece 

 of music, which lias ever since been the pibroch of the Glengarry family. Anderson. 



