With his sgian dubh the poet cut the bonds of the captives, and urged a speedy retreat before Buckham could raise the alarm. There were two hikers on guard further along the narrow path leading round from the cave, but unlike Professor Moriarty they were not prepared to risk a struggle so near the edge of that precipice and scrambled away in the other direction crying, ‘Wolla-wolla-wolla!’ to summon help from the camp.

An hour later the prisoners had reached the Austin.

“I’ll drive you back to the Castle,” Carrie volunteered. “Myrtle and Alan will have to walk.”

Perhaps their sufferings in the cave had reduced their bulk. Otherwise it is difficult to know how Ben Nevis, Chester Royde and big Duncan Macdonald all managed to get into that little Austin.

“What did Chester say to you, Alan?” Myrtle asked.

“He was pleased about my hitting that fellow on the chin.”

“What did he say when you told him about you and me?”

“I didn’t tell him about you and me.”

“Alan, you really can be terribly dumb, darling. Never mind. I guess Carrie’ll tell him all about you and me. Oh, what’s that sweet scent on the air?”

“Bog-myrtle,” he told her.

“And you and I are wandering along together in the scent of it,” she sighed happily.

“The warm dark-brown water of life

Whose sweet breath blows in the wind

Bringing bog-myrtle,”

he whispered.

And they stood there in the gloaming, lost in a long kiss.

Chapter 20

BEN NEVIS FOR EVER

IT WAS UNDOUBTEDLY a shock to Ben Nevis when he found that he had been rescued from the cave by a Scottish Nationalist, that the said Scottish Nationalist was engaged to the girl he had fetched his eldest son back from India to marry, and finally that the defence of Glenbogle Castle itself must depend on a body of Scottish Nationalists now being mustered in Glasgow.

“But, Donald, if you feel as strongly about these people as you do, why don’t you call in the help of the police?” his wife asked.

“My dear Trixie, do you seriously think I’ll give Lindsay-Wolseley such an opportunity of scoring off me? I can’t say I like the idea of what amounts to an alliance with Scottish Nationalists. It’s as if the British Government were to listen to those pestilential Labour fellows and make an alliance with the Bolshies. But sometimes a situation calls for desperate measures, and we must remember that Iain, Mary and Catriona are still in the hands of these foul hikers, not to mention Lachy Macdonald and Roddy Maclean.”

“It’s really lamentable,” Mrs MacDonald boomed plaintively. “I still think it would be advisable to get info communication with the police.”