A life for a life
was no bad bargain.
But it was only a short respite which the skill of his comrades
had given to the young archer. Over the parapet there appeared a
ball of brass, then a pair of great brazen shoulders, and lastly
the full figure of an armored man. He walked to the edge and they
heard his hoarse guffaw of laughter as the arrows clanged and
clattered against his impenetrable mail. He slapped his
breast-plate, as he jeered at them. Well he knew that at the
distance no dart ever sped by mortal hands could cleave through
his plates of metal. So he stood, the great burly Butcher of La
Brohiniere, with head uptossed, laughing insolently at his foes.
Then with slow and ponderous tread he walked toward his boy
victim, seized him by the ear, and dragged him across so that the
rope might be straight. Seeing that the noose had slipped across
the face, he tried to push it down, but the mail glove hampering
him he pulled it off, and grasped the rope above the lad's head
with his naked hand.
Quick as a flash old Wat's arrow had sped, and the Butcher sprang
back with a howl of pain, his hand skewered by a cloth-yard shaft.
As he shook it furiously at his enemies a second grazed his
knuckles. With a brutal kick of his metal-shod feet he hurled
young Alspaye over the edge, looked down for a few moments at his
death agonies, and then walked slowly from the parapet, nursing
his dripping hand, the arrows still ringing loudly upon his
back-piece as he went.
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