Catriona got a grip on it, and the two sisters tugged and pulled, growling like a couple of sabre-toothed tigresses over the body of a palæolithic man. The trap-door had forgotten the days when it was opened for captured Macintoshes to be dropped into the safe keeping of Mac ’ic Eachainn’s Cradle. Years of idleness beneath gradually accumulating rubbish had sapped its morale. It lacked the resistance of the oaken door put in by Ben Nevis. The combined heftiness of Catriona and Mary MacDonald was too much for it. Five minutes after they had seized its iron ring the trap-door revealed the dungeon, on the floor of which Mr Fletcher and Duncan were sitting, a broken lantern between them, their heads buried between their knees in an attempt to muffle the deafening noise that caber, beam and crowbar were making in their assault upon the oaken door.

“Mr Fletcher!” Catriona called down triumphantly.

“Duncan!” cried Mary.

Neither of the bowed figures on the floor of the Cradle gave a sign of having heard the voices of their rescuers.

“Yoicks!” Catriona boomed.

“Yoicks!” her sister echoed.

The bowed figures some fifteen feet below remained unresponsive.

“They can’t hear us,” Mary said.

“I’m not surprised,” said Catriona. “I can hardly hear what you’re saying in my ear. The noise of that battering is pretty hefty.”

“Wait a jiffy,” Mary growled. She dropped an old sack to attract the attention of the prisoners. Unfortunately it fell on the broken lantern and extinguished it.

“That’s torn it,” Catriona observed severely. “Where’s the torch?”

Mary flashed the electric torch down into the dungeon.

“Look up, Mr Fletcher. The Lord has sent an angel to deliver us,” Duncan proclaimed. “Isn’t that wonderful? I was saying to myself like Daniel, ‘My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths,’ and right enough the Lord has sent an angel.”

“It isn’t an angel, Duncan,” Mary shouted down. “It’s Catriona and Mary MacDonald.”

“Well, well, it isn’t an angel at all, Mr Fletcher. It’s Miss Catriona and Miss Mary.”

The venerable chaplain peered up, shading his eyes against the glare of the torch.

“If we let down a rope, do you think you can climb up?” Catriona asked.

“No, I’m afraid that’s rather beyond me,” the chaplain replied. “And anyway I don’t think it’s worth while now. That door is bound to give way soon. It can’t hold out indefinitely against such battering.”

Catriona and Mary were not at all anxious to lose the honour of having rescued the prisoners and they pressed upon the chaplain the advantage of escaping from the Cradle by means of a rope.

“It’ll be quite easy,” Catriona assured him.

“Easy as pie,” Mary declared.