icance of the message, which I hoped would move Red Murdo and his
merry men--his master waited "to hear how the night's work had fared!"

If the Black Colonel was behind the business it would seem a natural
message, nay, a command, and my messenger went off with it. When he
had gone, I picked out a dozen of our best soldiers, and, hinting the
mission, without explaining it, we followed at a distance. We halted
behind the last peak of the hill which looks down on Lonach Tower and
awaited events.

We saw the receding Highland figure wend slowly towards the bare, lean
turret, and, when he reached it, my eyes lifted to its queer little
windows, seeking to look through them. They gave no sign of anybody
inside, and, indeed, the mullioning of time had so dimmed them that,
perhaps, the outside world could hardly be seen from within.

My Highlander hammered at the one entrance door, and he had to hammer a
while before it opened to him. Then it only opened partly, as if the
guardian kept a shoulder to it, while he spoke the visitor. Next it
shut again, leaving my man outside, but evidently the colloquy had not
finished, for he waited.

Ten minutes more and the door drew wide, as we could see, and Red Murdo
came out, his comrades with him, and there was more questioning of the
bringer of news. Evidently he played his part well, perhaps because,
knowing nothing of what lay behind, he simply stuck to the terms of his
delivery, for presently Red Murdo's party set off towards the
meeting-place I had named for them.

Here was my time to act, and I only waited until the coast, or rather
the valley, was clear. When the tartans of Red Murdo's party had
fluttered out of sight, in obedience, as they fancied, to the commands
of their chief, I got my fellows quickly a-foot for Lonach Tower and
she who was a captive there.

The heavy oaken, iron-clasped door had been locked by the departed
raiders, and no sign of any tenant within fluttered out to us.
Half-measures are no more useful in opening bolted doors, of which you
have not the key, than they are in accomplishing other difficult
things. So, finally, we put our collective weights against it, pushed
hard and steadily, and when the weather-worn bars and hinges gave way,
tumbled headlong into the old keep.

Nobody was in the ground-room floor, nothing, except the untidiness
left by half-a-dozen rough men, and I mounted the narrow stair and
tried the room above. Again we had