As he spoke he raised his arbalest to his shoulder and was about to pull the trigger, when a large gray stork flapped heavily into view skimming over the brow of the hill, and then soaring up into the air to pass the valley. Its shrill and piercing cries drew all eyes upon it, and, as it came nearer, a dark spot which circled above it resolved itself into a peregrine falcon, which hovered over its head, poising itself from time to time, and watching its chance of closing with its clumsy quarry. Nearer and nearer came the two birds, all absorbed in their own contest, the stork wheeling upwards, the hawk still fluttering above it, until they were not a hundred paces from the camp. The Brabanter raised his weapon to the sky, and there came the short, deep twang of his powerful string. His bolt struck the stork just where its wing meets the body, and the bird whirled aloft in a last convulsive flutter before falling wounded and flapping to the earth. A roar of applause burst from the crossbowmen; but at the instant that the bolt struck its mark old Johnston, who had stood listlessly with arrow on string, bent his bow and sped a shaft through the body of the falcon. Whipping the other from his belt, he sent it skimming some few feet from the earth with so true an aim that it struck and transfixed the stork for the second time ere it could reach the ground. A deep-chested shout of delight burst from the archers at the sight of this double feat, and Aylward, dancing with joy, threw his arms round the old marksman and embraced him with such vigor that their mail tunics clanged again.
“Ah! camarade,” he cried, “you shall have a stoup with me for this! What then, old dog, would not the hawk please thee, but thou must have the stork as well. Oh, to my heart again!”
“It is a pretty piece of yew, and well strung,” said Johnston with a twinkle in his deep-set gray eyes. “Even an old broken bowman might find the clout with a bow like this.”
“You have done very well,” remarked the Brabanter in a surly voice. “But it seems to me that you have not yet shown yourself to be a better marksman than I, for I have struck that at which I aimed, and, by the three kings! no man can do more.”
“It would ill beseem me to claim to be a better marksman,” answered Johnston, “for I have heard great things of your skill. I did but wish to show that the longbow could do that which an arbalest could not do, for you could not with your moulinet have your string ready to speed another shaft ere the bird drop to the earth.”
“In that you have vantage,” said the crossbowman. “By Saint James! it is now my turn to show you where my weapon has the better of you. I pray you to draw a flight shaft with all your strength down the valley, that we may see the length of your shoot.”
“That is a very strong prod of yours,” said Johnston, shaking his grizzled head as he glanced at the thick arch and powerful strings of his rival’s arbalest. “I have little doubt that you can overshoot me, and yet I have seen bowmen who could send a cloth-yard arrow further than you could speed a quarrel.”
“So I have heard,” remarked the Brabanter; “and yet it is a strange thing that these wondrous bowmen are never where I chance to be. Pace out the distances with a wand at every five score, and do you, Arnaud, stand at the fifth wand to carry back my bolts to me.”
A line was measured down the valley, and Johnston, drawing an arrow to the very head, sent it whistling over the row of wands.
“Bravely drawn! A rare shoot!” shouted the bystanders.
“It is well up to the fourth mark.”
“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.
“Four 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 longbow,” 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 rattrap 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?”
“Easy and slow, Aylward. There are very many things which I cannot do, but there are also one
