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Now these MacNicol boys, again imitating the well-to-do among the fishermen, had each an account at the savings bank; and the pence they got were carefully hoarded up. For if they wanted a new Glengarry cap, or if they wanted to buy a book telling them of all kinds of tremendous adventures at sea, or if it became necessary to purchase some more fishing-hooks at the grocer’s shop, it was their own small store of wealth they had to look to; and so it came about that a penny was something to be seriously considered. When Rob MacNicol had to impose a fine of one penny, he knew it was a dire punishment; and if there was any alternative, the fine was rarely paid. The fund, therefore, which he had started for the purchase of an old and disused set of bagpipes, and which was to be made up of those fines, did not grow apace. Of course, being a chieftain, he must needs have a piper. The revels in the halls of Eilean-na-Rona lacked half their impressiveness through the want of the pipes. No doubt, Rob had a sort of suspicion that, if ever they should grow rich enough to buy the old set of bagpipes, he would have to play them himself; but even the most ignorant person can perceive that to be one’s own piper must at least be better than to have no piper at all.

And now the captive Nicol MacNicol was led to the edge of this black pit in the floor of the lower hall of the castle. On several occasions one or other of the boys had been lowered, for slighter offences, into this dungeon; but no one had ever been condemned to go to the bottom–if bottom there were. But Nicol did not flinch. He was satisfied of the justice of his sentence. He was aware he deserved the punishment. Above all he was determined to save that penny.

At the same time, when the other three had poised themselves so as to lower the rope gradually, and when he found himself descending into that black mole, he looked rather nervously below him. Of course he could see nothing. But there was a vague tradition that this dungeon was haunted by ghosts, vampires, warlocks, and other unholy things; and there was a chill, strange, earthy odour arising from it; and the walls that he scraped against were slimy and damp. He uttered no word, however; and those above kept slowly paying out the coil of rope.

Rob became somewhat concerned.

‘It’ll be no easy job to pull him back,’ he said in a whisper.

‘It’s as deep as the dungeon they put Donald Gorm Mor into,’ said his cousin Neil.

‘Maybe there’s no bottom at all,’ said Duncan, rather awe-stricken.

Suddenly a fearful thing happened. There was a cry from below–a quick cry of alarm; and at the same moment they were startled by a wild whizzing and whirring around them, as if a legend of fiends had rushed out of the pit. With a shriek of fright Duncan sprang back from the edge of the dungeon; and that with such force that he knocked over his two companions. Moreover, in falling, they let go the rope; when they rose again they looked round in the twilight, but could find no trace of it. It had slipped over the edge. And there was no sound from below.

Rob was the first to regain his senses. He rushed to the edge of the hole and stooped over.

‘Nicol, are ye there?’

His heart jumped within him when he heard his brother’s voice.

‘Yes, I am; and the rope too. How am I to get up?’

Rob turned quickly.

‘Duncan, down to the boat with ye! Loosen the lug-sail halyards, and bring them up–quick, quick!’

Duncan was off like a young roe. He slid down the crags; he dashed through the larch-wood; he jumped into the boat on the beach. Presently he was making his way as quickly back again, the halyards coiled round his arm so as not to prevent his climbing.