Page:A C Doyle - The White Company.djvu/185

Rh of them into a little valley, and then, writhing up the heathy slope upon the other side, lost itself among the gaunt pine-trees. Far away between the black lines of trunks the quick glitter of steel marked where the Company pursued its way. To the north stretched the tree country, but to the south, between two swelling downs, a glimpse might be caught of the cold grey shimmer of the sea, with the white fleck of a galley sail upon the distant sky-line. Just in front of the travellers a horseman was urging his steed up the slope, driving it on with whip and spur as one who rides for a set purpose. As he clattered up, Alleyne could see that the roan horse was grey with dust and flecked with foam, as though it had left many a mile behind it. The rider was a stern-faced man, hard of mouth and dry of eye, with a heavy sword clanking at his side, and a stiff white bundle swathed in linen balanced across the pommel of his saddle.

'The king's messenger!' he bawled as he came up to them. 'The messenger of the king! Clear the causeway for the king's own man.'

'Not so loudly, friend,' quoth the little knight, reining his horse half round to bar the path. 'I have myself been the king's man for thirty years and more, but I have not been wont to halloo about it on a peaceful highway.'

'I ride in his service,' cried the other, 'and I carry that which belongs to him. You bar my path at your peril.'

'Yet I have known the king's enemies claim to ride in his name,' said Sir Nigel. 'The foul fiend may lurk beneath a garment of light. We must have some sign or warrant of your mission.'

'Then must I hew a passage,' cried the stranger, with his shoulder braced round and his hand upon his hilt. 'I am not to be stopped on the king's service by every gadabout.'

'Should you be a gentleman of s and coat-armour,' lisped Sir Nigel, 'I shall be very blithe to go further into the matter with you. If not, I have three very worthy