At the halt next day, Roger had cut the notches for the string.
"Now, Bathalda," he said, "can you string this?"
"No, my lord; nor can any other man."
"I think it is about the strength of the bows we use at home," Roger said. "The stringing them is a matter of knack, as well as of strength."
And, to the amazement of the Aztec, he strung the bow.
"Now," said he, "let us make some arrows. They should be a cloth yard in length--that is, from the middle of my chest to the end of my middle finger."
A dozen of the light bamboos were cut to this length. The huntsman fitted the obsidian points to them, and Roger stepped back a hundred yards from the small tree, with a trunk some six inches in diameter, under whose shade they had been sitting. Then he fitted the arrow to the string, bent the bow to its head, and loosed the arrow. It struck the trunk, but glanced off.
"I am out of practice, indeed," he said, "or I should have hit that fair in the center."
To the huntsman, however, the shot seemed well-nigh miraculous, the distance being twice as great as the Mexican bows would carry, with anything like accuracy; while the speed with which the arrow flew, and the distance it went after glancing from the tree, showed that it would have been fatal at least fifty yards beyond the object aimed at. Taking the bow from Roger, he fitted another arrow in and tried to bend it; but with all his efforts could only draw the arrow four or five inches.
"It is wonderful," he said, returning the weapon to Roger. "If I had not seen it done, I could not have believed it."