ars pass."

"Come then, are you not ready?" said the Brabanter, who had watched
with ill-concealed impatience the slow and methodic movements of his
antagonist.

"I will venture a rover with you, or try long-butts or hoyles," said old
Johnston. "To my mind the long-bow is a better weapon than the arbalest,
but it may be ill for me to prove it."

"So I think," quoth the other with a sneer. He drew his moulinet from
his girdle, and fixing it to the windlass, he drew back the powerful
double cord until it had clicked into the catch. Then from his quiver he
drew a short, thick quarrel, which he placed with the utmost care upon
the groove. Word had spread of what was going forward, and the rivals
were already surrounded, not only by the English archers of the Company,
but by hundreds of arbalestiers and men-at-arms from the bands of
Ortingo and La Nuit, to the latter of which the Brabanter belonged.

"There is a mark yonder on the hill," said he; "mayhap you can discern
it."

"I see something," answered Johnston, shading his eyes with his hand;
"but it is a very long shoot."

"A fair shoot--a fair shoot! Stand aside, Arnaud, lest you find a bolt
through your gizzard. Now, comrade, I take no flight shot, and I give
you the vantage of watching my shaft."

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. Whippi