The Queen smiled gently.
“Yea, my lord,” she said. “But the twain who are left are able to do the shooting. You forget that I still have Little John and Robin Hood.”
“And you forget, my lady, that I still have Tepus and Gilbert.”
So each turned again to the lists and awaited the next rounds in silent eagerness. I ween that King Harry had never watched the invasion of an enemy with more anxiety than he now felt.
Tepus was chosen to go next and he fell into the same error with Will Scarlet. He held the string a moment too long, and both his first and second arrows came to grief. One of them, however, came within the black rim, and he followed it up by placing his third in the full center, just as Stutely had done in his last. These two centers were the fairest shots that had been made that day; and loud was the applause which greeted this second one. But the shouting was as nothing to the uproar which followed Little John’s shooting. That good-natured giant seemed determined to outdo Tepus by a tiny margin in each separate shot; for the first and the second shafts grazed his rival’s on the inner side, while for the third Little John did the old trick of the forest: he shot his own arrow in a graceful curve which descended from above upon Tepus’s final center shaft with a glancing blow that drove the other out and left the outlaw’s in its place.
The King could scarce believe his eyes. “By my halidom!” quoth he, “that fellow deserves either a dukedom or a hanging! He must be in league with Satan himself! Never saw I such shooting.”
“The score is tied, my lord,” said the Queen; “we have still to see Gilbert and Robin Hood.”
Gilbert now took his stand and slowly shot his arrows, one after another, into the bull’s-eye. ‘Twas the best shooting he had yet done, but there was still the smallest of spaces left—if you looked closely—at the very center.
“Well done, Gilbert!” spoke up Robin Hood. “You are a foeman worthy of being shot against.” He took his own place as he spoke. “Now if you had placed one of your shafts there”—loosing one of his own—“and another there”—out sped the second—“and another there”—the third was launched—“mayhap the King would have declared you the best bowman in all England!”
But the last part of his merry speech was drowned in the wild tumult of applause which followed his exploit. His first two shafts had packed themselves into the small space left at the bull’s-eye; while his third had split down between them, taking half of each, and making all three appear from a distance, as one immense arrow.