"
"It makes a strange sound, archer, does it not?" said Nigel
wistfully.
"So I have heard, fair sir--even as the bow twangs, so it also
has a sound when you loose it."
"There is no one to hear, since we are alone upon the rampart, nor
can it do scathe, since it points to sea. I pray you to loose it
and I will listen to the sound." He bent over the bombard with an
attentive ear, while Aylward, stooping his earnest brown face over
the touch-hole, scraped away diligently with a flint and steel. A
moment later both he and Nigel were seated some distance off upon
the ground while amid the roar of the discharge and the thick
cloud of smoke they had a vision of the long black snakelike
engine shooting back upon the recoil. For a minute or more they
were struck motionless with astonishment while the reverberations
died away and the smoke wreaths curled slowly up to the blue
heavens.
"Good lack!" cried Nigel at last, picking himself up and looking
round him. "Good lack, and Heaven be my aid! I thank the Virgin
that all stands as it did before. I thought that the castle had
fallen."
"Such a bull's bellow I have never heard," cried Aylward, rubbing
his injured limbs. "One could hear it from Frensham Pond to
Guildford Castle. I would not touch one again--not for a hide of
the best land in Puttenham!"
"It may fare ill with your own hide, archer, if you do," said an
angry voice behind them.
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