"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.
"A stag! a stag!" cried Kenric as he promptly took an arrow and fixed it to his bowstring.
Allan followed his example. Kenric knelt down on one knee and levelled his arrow. Allan made ready to shoot over Kenric's shoulder. A noble stag, with wide-spreading antlers of twelve points, seemed almost to be flying towards them along the narrow path. An arrow was half buried in his bleeding flank; a pair of shaggy deer hounds were behind in mad pursuit.
"Now!" cried Kenric.
The bowstrings twanged, and the two arrows speeding in their deadly flight plunged side by side into the stag's broad chest. The noble animal stumbled, regained his footing, and ran on. Nearer and nearer he came, panting, moaning, glaring with wild and frightened eyes. To his right was a steep wall of rock, to his left a fall of thirty feet into the surging waters below the cataract. At his heels were the dogs, in front of him the two youths ready with another charge of arrows. There was no way of escape.