Miserably he was blaming himself for his rash stupidity in not waiting for the ferry, when suddenly Midnight’s hoofs ground into something hard. Her great shoulders climbed, looming up into the air above him, and in the same second his own feet touched bottom. They had reached a shoal.
The shore was still a long way off. Near, around them, nothing but darkness and water. It seemed it was a gravel bar they must be standing on, risen with happy unexpectedness from out the river’s gloomy heart to hold them up. Over this hidden island, though, the tide was rushing out with a force that threatened to knock them down again any moment. Wading, staggering, floundering waist-deep, Giles felt and hunted till he found a shallower spot where they might rest and get their breath. Here the stream raced even faster still, but not deep enough to be dangerous. Midnight shook the water from her flanks with a sighing, thankful snort. While Giles, too breathless to speak, too weary to stand alone, leant upon her withers.
So for a while they stood, horse and man, under the stars out there, like ghostly statues in a flat and empty world. No sound broke the peace of their grateful rest but the gurgling of the river round their ankles and their own breath pumping in and out.
Giles was the first to move. Still dead weary, he was itching to hurry on. The very idea of food was long since forgotten. But, at that, he had had an easier fight than Midnight. The mare’s neck was still stretched downward and forward in that hangdog fashion that shows a horse badly spent. There was no telling whether there would be more swimming ahead, or if the shore could be reached by wading. In spite of the pressing need for haste he dared not, and would not, risk ruining her wind. She must have some minutes at least.
Meanwhile, what of Barbara? Had she gone into the convent by now? His work was difficult enough already without added difficulties with the nuns. He clenched his hands in desperate, powerless impatience. What would he do? What could be done besides wait!
But the shell! Maybe he might learn something more from that quarter.
In an instant he had felt along his horse’s back and was tugging at the wet tunic, trying to get it out of the saddle-bag. How stubbornly it stuck! Then, as so often happens, it came flying out of a sudden, like a crumpled flag.
There was a flash—and a splash. In the tussle the shell had fallen from the tunic-pocket into the rushing stream. Giles leapt for it, grabbing and snatching on his knees in the wet gloom. But the pale starlight had given him only one glimpse: when it first struck the water, turned over like a fish—green above and white below—then sped away, in the rolling tumbling ebb-tide, downstream.
For a moment, still on his hands and knees in the water he gazed after it wide-eyed and dazed—while the truth slowly took shape in his mind. The Whispering Shell was gone—and with it the secret of its power—for ever! Who now would ever learn whether it were magical or no? Underneath that flat wet darkness it was rolling along the gravel floor of the river, rolling back to the home from which it came, the sea!
Giles lifted his dripping body upright.
‘Well,’ he muttered, ‘for good or bad, that means its work is done.’
A bell tinkled softly from the convent on the hill. Barbara, perhaps, ringing to be let in.
He looked again at Midnight. Dared he push on yet? Brave Midnight! She seemed somewhat less droopy, and her breathing calmer. A light breeze came whispering down the river, very chilly to wet skins. Suddenly the mare raised her head and pawed the water as though she would be glad to be out of this.
Taking her by a long bridle, Giles set off towards the shore. Going ahead very, very carefully he felt out every yard of the way with his feet, on guard for hidden holes or sudden drops. And though the depths kept changing—sometimes breast-high, sometimes no more than a few inches—he finally crossed the whole distance to the land without mishap.
Directly he was clear of the mud and reeds along the water’s edge, he swung himself into the saddle and patted Midnight on the neck.
‘Now, old friend,’ he whispered, gathering the reins in his hands, ‘you’ve shown a brave spirit. But your trickiest work still lies ahead. We’ve got to get to the top of that hill, to the main gate of the convent, as fast as it can possibly be done. And it’s very little help that I can give you. Get to it now and warm yourself up.’
The mare, as though she understood his words and knew the great importance of her help, never showed her sure-footed cleverness better than she did that night. Her rider barely once drew the bit against her mouth. In a moment, as if by magic, she had found a trail. It might have been an old disused tow-path or something of the kind. And, while it had plenty of breaks and wash-outs along it, it led in the right direction, inland. Midnight turned her back to the sea and followed it. There were stretches where trees and high alders, overhanging the way, shut out even the poor light of stars and waning moon. But not even the pitch-dark seemed to hinder her greatly. She covered the ground in short, quick rushes. Every once in a while she would pull up sharp, sniffing, snorting and pawing—as though by some unknown sense, she knew that here a bad place lay, some hidden danger or a bend in the trail. Then in a moment, full of comfortable confidence, she would rattle along again—over gravel, turf or rock—a man could only tell the nature of the going by the sound.
Giles had often said that his beloved mare could see in the dark. Certainly anyone who had watched her then must have admitted that for this sort of work she had no equal. The King never gave a finer gift than this queen among horses—nor named one better, Midnight.
12 The Abbess of Saint Bridget’s
The tow-path and the sparsely wooded river-land had now been left behind. On the open, windswept slope of the hill, horse and rider stood out against the deep, night-blue sky. The road leading up to the convent was well made and had not been hard to find. But it had soon become so steep in places that the impatient Giles had from time to time been forced to bring the pace down to a walk.
As he drew nearer to the hill-top his mind grew more and more uneasy and his heart seemed to be beating in a silly, fluttery sort of way. Not only was he feverishly worried about his success (many slips and mischances were yet possible, he knew), but the thought of seeing Barbara again, of taking her back to the palace, disquieted and upset him terribly. In her talk with Mollie he had thought he heard sounds of weeping. What would be her mood when he met her? He would have to be on his guard against his own feelings, against woman’s tears, against anything and everything.
No, this was something that had to be done and done quickly. The fewer words he used over it the better. His own wishes and opinions must be downed and silenced. He would come to her as nothing more than one of His Majesty’s servants with orders to carry out.
But what if she should refuse to go back with him?
Well, he would have to be stern—that’s all—stony-hearted and stern. No weakness now.
The poor man’s fear that, with the end of the quest so near at hand, his love for this beautiful girl might interfere with his duty to the King was very real. So that he was not only all prepared to be stern and businesslike, but he actually had his teeth set with determination when at last he did see her.
This was exactly where he had expected. At the very top of the hill he had found a flat lawn, very wide and smooth, stretching the whole way along the front of the convent buildings. He could not yet see where the main gate was. But he heard Mollie bark in the distance. By following this sound he soon came upon a beautiful archway in a high stone wall, curving over a wooden door. Near by he saw a white figure seated on the grass, holding a growling black spaniel by the collar. His quick-beating heart gave one enormous thump and then raced on again faster than ever. So, she had not yet gone in!