“Methinks, Allan,” said Kenric, “that ’tis but a foolish thing we have done to come on this fruitless journey.  One might wander for a week upon these barren wastes and yet never encounter those whom we seek.  Better had we remained in Castle Ranza.  What say you to our returning?”

“Could we but get a shot at a good stag,” said Allan, “our journey might yet be well repaid.”

“And wherefore kill a stag, if we must needs leave his carcase for the carrion crows?  If ’tis practice with your bow you want, why, have we not that in abundance on our own island?”

“Ah, but to be up here as it were among the very clouds!” said Allan.  “Beats not your heart with quicker joy, Kenric, when you breathe the keen mountain air —­ when your eyes rest upon so vast a stretch of sea and land as we now behold?  I know no pleasure so sweet as this.”

“Methinks,” said Kenric, “that were Sir Piers de Currie here, and I had fulfilled my purpose in crossing to Arran, then this joy you speak of were not greater than my own.  But when I go out hunting, Allan, I like to hunt; when I come over to ask a question of our neighbour, it is not to my humour to be thus stranded upon a hilltop.  So now, if it please you, we will return to Ranza.”

“Nay, I go not from these mountains ere I have once drawn the bow,” said Allan. “’Tis a chance that I do not have too often; and now that we are so far I would go to yonder gully where but a while ago we saw that vast herd of deer enter.  Come.”

“Methinks, Allan Redmain,” said Kenric, “that ’tis you who have come with me to Arran, not I with you, and I beg you to at once return with me.”

Allan was about to turn round upon Kenric with an angry word, when suddenly he minded that the lad was his lord and king.

“Oh, my lord, my lord!” he cried, “pardon me —­ I beg you pardon me, for in truth I had forgotten your kingship.  It was wrong in me thus to oppose my will to yours.”

“Nay, Allan, believe me, I would not have you thus regard me at all times as your master, but rather as your friend.  Nevertheless, if my office is to be remembered, then methinks it is well that we should search for Sir Piers, and not think of hunting after stags.  Now take me back to Castle Ranza by the nearest way.”

Allan then turned and led the way across the eastern shoulder of the mountain and down a wild ravine towards Glen Catacol.  In the bed of the ravine there coursed a turbulent torrent, swollen by the rains of the night before.  They walked along a narrow goat track from which the rocky ground sloped sharply downward into the stream.  From beyond a turning in this path they heard the swelling roar of a waterfall.

Scarce had they made this turning, when, above the noise of the cataract, they heard the yelping of a deer hound.  Kenric was now in advance of his companion, and they were just above the point where the waterfall turned over into a deep chasm.