Three Boys; Or, The Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai

by George Manville Fenn

“Sassenach” was the only word which Max could make out in the dialogue which followed, and this was at its height when a third fierce-looking man came in, and the three laid their heads together, glancing toward the door uneasily, and then at what seemed to be a great copper boiling over the fire.

As they stood together, with the ruddy glow playing upon their fierce countenances, it seemed to Max that he must have fallen into the hands of Scottish freebooters, and the next thing he felt was that he should be robbed and murdered, or the operations be performed in reverse fashion.

The men’s appearance was wild enough to have excited dread in one of stouter nerves than Max Blande, who, faint and exhausted, lay there in so helpless a plight that he was not in a condition to do more than anxiously watch his captors, as they talked loudly in Gaelic and gesticulated angrily.

To Max it seemed as if they were debating how he should be done to death; and, in spite of the horror of the thought, he was so stunned, as it were, his feelings were so deadened, that he did not feel the acute dread that might have been expected. There was almost as much curiosity in his feelings as fear, and he began at last to wonder why they did not take his watch and chain, purse and pocket-book, both of which latter were fairly well filled—his father having been generous to him when he started upon his journey, and there having been absolutely no means of spending money at Dunroe.

The debate grew more and more angry, the men evidently quarrelling fiercely, but not a word could Max make out. Their actions, however, seemed plain enough, as they all turned their eyes fiercely upon him, and the effect was peculiar, for the ruddy firelight was reflected from them, so that they seemed to glow as they suddenly made a dart at him, two of the men dragging him unresisting to his feet, while the third, before he could grasp his intention, flung the dingy old plaid which had muffled him before, over his head, twisting it tightly about his throat.

Max uttered a hoarse cry, but it was smothered directly, and he gave himself up for lost, as he was seized once more and hurried out into the darkness. This much he knew by the absence of the light dimly shining through the coarse woollen fabric which covered his head.

He was carried in this way for quite a quarter of an hour. Sometimes they were going upwards and sometimes downwards; while he could gather that the way chosen was terribly rough, from the manner in which he was jerked about.

This went on till a dull sound came in a muffled way through the plaid, and he gathered from this that they were approaching the falls he had heard before, or else some others.

The sound of roaring water grew louder and louder, and now he knew that they were climbing more slowly evidently upward, as if the ascent were exceedingly steep. Then the sound of the water falling—a deep bass, quivering roar—grew louder and louder; while, from being hot now almost to suffocation, the perspiration gathered on his brow grew cold, and, trembling with horror, he felt that the end was near, and that the wretches who held him were about to throw him off into the fall whose waters thundered in his ear.

He uttered a few wild cries for mercy, but they seemed to be unheard, and, just when his agony was strained to the highest pitch, the roar suddenly grew fainter, and the bearers paused on comparatively level ground.