“Look here, MacIsaac, we’ll have to organize a search-party. And if there’s been any dirty work, you’ll have to take a few guns and round up these ruffians.”

The Chamberlain sighed. He had known all the while, he told himself, that the luck which had taken him to Fort William would not hold.

Once again Toker stepped forward.

“Excuse me, sir, but Alec reports that it’s generally believed in the staff quarters that Mr Fletcher and Mr Macdonald were shut up in the dungeon under the Raven’s Tower.”

“Well, why doesn’t one of the ninnies go and let them out?”

“That was the intention, sir, but it was frustrated by the absence of the necessary keys.”

“Trixie, I gave you the keys,” said Ben Nevis reproachfully.

“Donald dear, Duncan had the keys.”

“Well, for Heaven’s sake, somebody go and find out what is happening,” the Chieftain said irritably. “This sort of vagueness is wrecking our dinner.”

Another messenger from the back of the Castle brought word that banging on the door of Mac ’ic Eachainn’s Cradle and what sounded like the voice of Duncan Macdonald indicated definitely that somebody was shut up in the dungeon. The keys, however, were nowhere to be found.

“They must be found,” bellowed the Lord of Ben Nevis, Glenbogle, Glenbristle, Strathdiddle, Strathdun, Loch Hoch and Loch Hoo. “I expect these keys to have been found by the time we’ve finished dinner. I expect them to be brought to me with the coffee.”

Chapter 6

MAC ’IC EACHAINN’S CRADLE

ALAS, WHEN THE Chieftain was handed his coffee he was not handed the keys of the dungeons. The most widely accepted theory was that the hikers had carried them off, but when Ben Nevis proposed to dispatch a party to demand the return of them it was pointed out that by this time the keys had probably been flung into the Bogle.

“And we cannot leave poor Mr Fletcher in that horrid place indefinitely,” Mrs MacDonald urged.

“Oh, well, we shall have to break in the door of the Cradle. That’s all there is to it,” Ben Nevis ruled.

But it turned out that there was a good deal more than that to it. The lock defied any attempt to force it, and the iron-studded door two inches thick stolidly resisted the repeated assaults of the three heavy-weights that flung themselves against it, now one at a time, now all together.

“Some door,” declared Chester Royde, rubbing his shoulder.

The two hefty sons of Ben Nevis shook their heads, dazed by the ability of any substance to stand up against them for so long.

“We must try a battering ram,” the Chieftain decided. “Go and fetch a caber,” he shouted.