Suddenly the great sandstone walls which flanked the stream began to close in upon us, rising sheer from the water edge. The stream thus confined into straiter bounds became a broiling torrent. To make progress we were compelled to bestride it, finding precarious foothold in little niches on the opposing walls. After a few more difficult steps the narrow defile widened out and we stood upon the edge of a great broad cup which was being steadily filled by an inrush of water through a gorge at its upper end similar to that along which we had come. In shape the cup was almost circular and looked like a huge misshapen bowl of earthenware. From its sides the sandstone cliffs rose almost perpendicularly, but a few feet above the water was a ledge broad enough to walk upon. It was a curious natural formation. The basin at our feet was deep, so deep that I could not see the bottom. The water leaped into it through the upper defile, churning its nearer edge into yellow froth; but the turbulence of the leaping stream swooned into quietness when it came under the spell of the still water that lay deep and impassive in the heart of the pool. Half-way round its circumference, poised on the ledge and heaped one upon another in seeming disorder, stood a pile of boulders. Hector seized one of them with both hands. He tugged at it vigorously and it moved, disclosing a cleft in the wall of the precipice through which a man might crawl. "We’re here at last," said Hector. "Doon on your hands and knees, and crawl in; there’s naething to fear." I did as he bade me, and, carefully feeling the way with my hands, thrust head and neck and shoulders into the aperture. After the light of the outer world the interior of the cave was impenetrably dark. Steadying myself with my hands, I proceeded to drag my body after me and was about to rise to my feet when suddenly something leaped upon me. A pair of hot hands closed upon my throat from behind and a great weight hurled itself upon my back. I tried to scream, but the lithe fingers gripped my neck and stifled me. There was a clamour in my head as though a thousand drums were rattling; lights danced before my eyes. Again I tried to scream, but my tongue hung helpless out of my mouth and I could hardly breathe. I struggled fiercely, but the hands that gripped my throat did not relax and suddenly I seemed to be falling through infinite space and then ceased to know anything. I remembered nothing until, at last, I felt somebody chafing my hands. Then out of the darkness I heard the voice of Hector say quite cheerfully: "Ye’ll do. Ye’ll be a’ richt in a minute or twa. Noo I maun ha’e a look at the minister." "What has happened?" I asked, but Hector did not reply, so I raised myself and found him stooping over the body of another man lying not far from me. "Thank God," he said, "I ha’ena killed him. His skull is evidently as soond as his doctrine, and that’s sayin’ a lot."