“Ho, ho!” roared the great archer. “How many cows wilt buy my mother, if I set thee free?”
“Hush that bull's bellowing!” cried Sir Nigel impatiently. “Bring the man here. By St. Paul! it is not the first time that we have met; for, if I mistake not, it is Don Diego Alvarez, who was once at the prince's court.”
“It is indeed I,” said the Spanish knight, speaking in the French tongue, “and I pray you to pass your sword through my heart, for how can I live—I, a caballero of Castile—after being dragged from my horse by the base hands of a common archer?”
“Fret not for that,” answered Sir Nigel. “For, in sooth, had he not pulled you down, a dozen cloth-yard shafts had crossed each other in your body.”
“By St. James! it were better so than to be polluted by his touch,” answered the Spaniard, with his black eyes sparkling with rage and hatred. “I trust that I am now the prisoner of some honorable knight or gentleman.”
“You are the prisoner of the man who took you, Sir Diego,” answered Sir Nigel. “And I may tell you that better men than either you or I have found themselves before now prisoners in the hands of archers of England.”
“What ransom, then, does he demand?” asked the Spaniard.
Big John scratched his red head and grinned in high delight when the question was propounded to him. “Tell him,” said he, “that I shall have ten cows and a bull too, if it be but a little one. Also a dress of blue sendall for mother and a red one for Joan; with five acres of pasture-land, two scythes, and a fine new grindstone. Likewise a small house, with stalls for the cows, and thirty-six gallons of beer for the thirsty weather.”
“Tut, tut!” cried Sir Nigel, laughing. “All these things may be had for money; and I think, Don Diego, that five thousand crowns is not too much for so renowned a knight.”
“It shall be duly paid him.”