For a man variously known as Captain Mackie, 'Mah Kee', 'the Great One', 'the Baron of Skana', 'Mackie the Magician', 'the Beast', Honoured Sir, Mackie of Carrickbraith, 'King George', 'Am Fitheach', His Lordship, etc, it seems more probable that he would've been killed in a suspicious fencing match; or by imploding bagpipes; or while lost skiing to Shangrila; or by a tainted martini or home-made steak tartare; or after spying upon a Vodou ritual in a midnight graveyard; or mixing a suspect bowl of kava in Fiji; or in a stage illusion gone horribly wrong; or while swimming with sharks in the Caribbean; or in a fiery fighter-plane collision (all experiences of his life). On second thought, probably not the collision: he was too skilled and professional a pilot to allow himself to hit something while flying...