“If mortal man it be who looks so like a speck on the saddle, he either rides with hot news to spur him on, or he has some enemy after him,” replied the man.
“By’r lady, but you have guessed right well,” said Sir John; “for see! there comes a straggling line of some dozen of horsemen rattling like thunder through the pass.”
“Methinks that the elf who flies bears some strange burden behind him,” said the man-at-arms.
“He doth so, indeed,” said Sir John.
“Some common thief, I’ll warrant me, who hath carried away a booty from some usurious burgher of Forres,” said the man-at-arms.
“Be he what he may, his white horse is no carrion,” said Sir John. “How the noble animal devours the ground!”
“He is as like old Gibbon More’s favourite horse as one egg is to another,” said the man-at-arms as he drew nearer.
“Gibbon More’s, saidst thou?” exclaimed Sir John; “and, by all that is good, he that rides is like my faithful page; but see, he turns this way. Let’s to the barbican,” and, taking three steps down the narrow stair at each stride, he was at the barbican in a few moments.
“What, ho!” cried Sir John, as the horse came galloping up to the gate. “What, ho! Archy Abhach, is it you? What news of thy mistress?”
“I have neither time nor breath to speak of her at present,” cried Archy, leaping from his horse, and hastily unbuckling the little charter-chest from behind the saddle of his reeking horse; “but here—catch!—there you have her charters and titles, being that which I reckon some of the people who are after me would think the best part of herself. There, catch, I say!” and with that, he threw the precious box clean over the top of the wall.