But the Highland pride of Ben Nevis would not allow him to give his parole to a man like Percy Buckham. So he and Chester Royde and old Duncan were left trussed up in the Prince’s Cave. Iain and the two gillies were taken down to the camp, for Buckham did not want to maintain too large a guard up at the cave because if by chance one of them should get out of his ropes and set the others free he was doubtful of the guard’s ability to hold all the six.

“I feel quite sure we shall soon be rescued,” said Ben Nevis when he and Chester Royde and Duncan were by themselves. “There’ll be a hue and cry for us down in the glen when we don’t come back. You think we shall soon be rescued, don’t you, Donald?”

The old keeper shook his head.

“It rests with the Lord, Ben Nevis. If it please the Lord to set us free we will be set free.”

“When Johnnie Macpherson finds we don’t come back at one o’clock, he’ll wait about for an hour or two, and then he’ll go back to the Castle and give the alarm.”

“Och, Johnnie Macpherson will go back to the Castle right enough,” Duncan agreed. “But what will be the use of that? He won’t be able to tell where we are. We might be anywhere. We might be nowhere at all. Who is to say?”

“What makes me so mad,” said Chester Royde, “is to think that this is the second time that guy with the chin has made a fool of me. It’s humiliating.”

The afternoon wore away. About five o’clock the prisoners were unbound and given tea.

“It makes my gorge rise to eat their food,” said Ben Nevis. “But I suppose we can’t starve.”

“It’s very good tea,” Duncan observed. “I wouldn’t have believed such people as these hikers could make such good tea as this.”

“All tea tastes alike to me,” said Chester Royde. “And it’s not any too good a taste either.”

After the meal they were roped up again and sat in gloomy silence for an hour.

Suddenly Duncan muttered something in Gaelic, and the others looked. At the entrance of the cave a magnificent stag was gazing at them.

“It’s himself,” Duncan gasped.

“The muckle hart,” Ben Nevis whispered hoarsely.

“The muckle hart himself,” Duncan confirmed. “Look at the antlers on him.”

“Do you mean to tell me that beast staring at us is the beast we stalked in the rain?” Chester Royde asked.

“The very same, Mr Royde.”

“There’s not another stag within a twenty-mile radius with a head like that,” Ben Nevis declared.