"O.K. - I mean, very well," Dickie replied coldly. "Now we know where we are. You're the first victim, Penny, and you've got to be blindfolded and come with me."

"Is it far, Dickie?" Penny pleaded. "I mean I get giddy when I'm blindfolded and I just can't stand it."

"You gotta stand it," Dickie said remorselessly. "That's the idea. And it's about a hundred miles."

"Oh dear!" Penny, wailed. "Look after me won't you, Dickie? Let's go now and get it over. Have I got to walk blindfolded? What will everybody think?"

"Doesn't matter what they think. You gotta do it. Come on!" and he grabbed a scarf from the hallstand and tied the knots at the back of Penny's head himself.

"You just wait here," he said darkly to Jon. "We'll come back for you."

Dickie grabbed his victim's arm and led her firmly down the steps into the street. Penny remembered turning to the right and then crossing the road several times, but after that she was hopelessly lost.

At last Penny felt grass under her shoes and realized that Dickie no longer held her arm. In a panic she stretched out her hands to find him.

"Where are you, Dickie? Don't be silly, come back here," and she raised her hands to the scarf round her eyes.

Immediately a horrid, croaking voice behind her said:

"Do not dare to touch that. If you give way now you will have failed the Club and can never be a member... I shall lead you farther in a minute, but for the last time I ask you whether you are prepared to suffer tortures and anything else just to be a member of this Club?"

Penny nodded feebly. She was trying in vain to recognize this voice, but as she was now really giddy all that she wanted was to get rid of the scarf and see again!

Then a hot hand grasped her own and began to lead her uphill. As they climbed Penny almost giggled at the thought of Jon having to undergo an experience like this.

"You are smiling," said the croaking voice at her side. "There is nothing to smile about now, for you must satisfy the Captain and the Vice-Captain that you can be a worthy member... Can you shed your own blood for the sake of the Club?"

This sounded rather alarming, but Penny gulped and said she thought she could, and then they stopped and she heard the whisper of other voices round her and suddenly she found herself blinking into Peter's laughing face and saw that she and David were leaning against an old grey wall. When she looked up she saw the wintry sky above the ruins of the great keep of the castle.

"Who brought me up here after Dickie?" she asked. "Who was it with that beastly voice?"

Jenny, in the background, turned triumphantly to David.