They paced the circuit of the battlements some five or six times, and played with the pigeons that crowded upon the merlons, and greeted them with soft cooing and much fluttering of soft-coloured pinions, for they knew well that Emma's gipsire was generally stored with peas for them.
Suddenly Emma caught her bower-maiden by the wrist.
'See!' she cried. 'My sail is in sight! Dost thou not catch the glint of a morion over yonder?'
They were on the southern side of the keep, and she indicated a far speck upon the course of the Ikenield way.
'Nay,' replied Eadgyth, 'mine eyes reach not so far, the more especially as this stinging wind brings unbidden tears into them.'
'I am right, Eadgyth—it is a horseman approaching! Ho, sentinel! thy vigil is no very keen one!'
'In sooth, lady, I can see naught,' answered the sentinel, with a respectful salutation.
It had been a favourite amusement with Emma, when a girl at Clifford Castle, to challenge her maidens and squires, and any noble visitor who might chance to be present, to a trial of sight, from the walls of that goodly fortress, and seldom had she found any who could rival her for length of vision. She proved to be right on this occasion. A horseman was approaching, and at a gallop, and the sentinels soon acknowledged his coming and gave the fitting signal.
A while later, and the traveller had reached the barbican, and, after a short parley, the portcullis was raised, the drawbridge lowered, and he rode forward into the courtyard of the castle.
Emma descended full of tremulous excitement. Sir Alain de Gourin met her, on his way to the courtyard, to question the new-comer.