'By my hilt! it is over it,' cried Aylward. 'I can see where they have stooped to gather up the shaft.'
'We shall hear anon,' said Johnston quietly, and presently a young archer came running to say that the arrow had fallen twenty paces beyond the fourth wand.
'Pour hundred paces and a score,' cried Black Simon. 'I' faith it is a very long flight. Yet wood and steel may do more than flesh and blood.'
The Brabanter stepped forward with a smile of conscious triumph, and loosed the cord of his weapon. A shout burst from his comrades as they watched the swift and lofty flight of the heavy bolt.
'Over the fourth!' groaned Aylward. 'By my hilt! I think that it is well up to the fifth.'
'It is over the fifth!' cried a Gascon loudly, and a comrade came running with waving arms to say that the bolt had pitched eight paces beyond the mark of the five hundred.
'Which weapon hath the vantage now?' cried the Brabanter, strutting proudly about with shouldered arbalest, amid the applause of his companions.
'You can overshoot me,' said Johnston, gently.
'Or any other man who ever bent a long-bow,' cried his victorious adversary.
'Nay, not so fast,' said a huge archer, whose mighty shoulders and red head towered high above the throng of his comrades. 'I must have a word with you ere you crow so loudly. Where is my little popper? By sainted Dick of Hampole! it will be a strange thing if I cannot outshoot that thing of thine, which to my eyes is more like a rat-trap than a bow. Will you try another flight, or do you stand by your last?'
'Five hundred and eight paces will serve my turn,' answered the Brabanter, looking askance at this new opponent.
'Tut, John,' whispered Aylward, 'you never were a marksman. Why must you thrust your spoon into this dish?'
