“Something very like it, but McDonald apparently didn’t know how kind to be to his guest, and pressed him to eat and drink galore, as we say. McDonald even showed McLeod to his bedroom, and, for the first time perhaps in his lifetime, poor McLeod began to quake when he found himself within the donjon-keep.
“‘There is your bedroom,’ said the stern McDonald. ‘Yonder is where your body will lie, and yonder is where your bones will repose when the rats have done with them.’
“McLeod would have tried to rush out, but strong arms were there to thrust him back. No one came near the prisoner for two days, then through the barred window food was handed him, salt-sodden flesh and a flask of water. He ate greedily, then applied the jar to his lips to quench his thirst. Horror! the water was seawater.”
“And he perished of thirst?” inquired Ralph.
“So the story goes,” replied McBain.
“A chief of the McLeods,” said McBain, “one of the very, very oldest of the chiefs, had a large family of grown-up daughters, and they wouldn’t always obey the old man, and one day, instead of attending upon him—for he was blind—they went to bathe and disport themselves among the billows, but a sea-nymph came and turned them all into stone.”
“And served them right,” said Rory.
“And there they stand; those tall black rocks, well in towards the point yonder, with the white waves dashing among their feet. They are called McLeod’s maidens until this day.”
“Well,” said Ralph, with a quiet smile, “there is no mistake about it—there were giants in those days.”
They were nearly at Dunvegan Head by this time, standing, in fact, well in towards it on the port tack, for the waters are deep even close in-shore. When they had left it on the beam they opened out broad Loch Follart, when McBain, pointing landwards, said,—