“That settles it,” said Rob as he listened to the rustling of the leaves and twigs; “but I must have gone pretty near for it to have leaped off the bough in such a hurry. I’ll be bound to say poor old Joe would have made a better shot. Italian! Genoese archers!” he continued thoughtfully. “No, they were cross-bow-men. Poor old Joe, though! Oh, how shocking it does seem for a bright handsome lad like he was to—”
“Here! hi! T’other way, my lad! He dropped down like a stone.”
“No, no; leaped like a deer off the branch. I saw him.”
“Well, so did I,” cried Shaddy, hurrying up. “The arrow went clean through him.”
“Nonsense!”
“Nonsense, sir? What do you mean?”
“I did not go near him.”
“What? Why, you shot him right through the shoulder. I haven’t got much to boast about except my eye, and I’ll back that against some people’s spy-glasses. That iguana’s lying down there at the bottom of the tree dead as a last year’s butterfly, and I can put my foot right on the place. Come along.”
Rob smiled, raised his eyebrows a little, and followed.
“Better let him convince himself,” he thought; and as Shaddy forced back the low boughs and held them apart for his companion to follow, he went on talking.