"Why do you make me your prisoner rather than another?" he continued?—"rather than that weaver over there, for instance?"
"Because you are fitted out better than the weaver," was the Englishman's reply.
"Oh, yes!" Arnauld retorted. "And by what right, please, do you arrest me?—you who are only a simple archer, I think."
"Oh, I am not acting on my own account, but in the name of my master, Lord Grey, who commands the English archers, and to whom Duke Philibert Emmanuel has allotted, as his share in the prize, three prisoners,—two noblemen and one bourgeois,—with whatever ransom he may be able to get for them. Now, my master, who knows that I have two hands and a pair of eyes, instructed me to follow the chase and ferret out three prisoners of value for him. You are the best game I have fallen in with yet; so I take you by the collar, Messire Bourgeois."
"It is a great honor for a poor squire," retorted Arnauld, modestly. "Will your master feed me well, do you think?"
"Blackguard! Do you suppose he proposes to feed you for long?" said the archer.
"Until it pleases him to set me at liberty, I imagine that he surely will not let me die of hunger."
"Hm!" said the archer. "Can it be that I have taken a poor old naked wolf for a fox with a magnificent pelt?"
"I am afraid so, my lord archer," said Arnauld; "and if Lord Grey, your master, has promised you a commission according to the value of the prizes you obtain for him, I fear that twenty or thirty blows with a club will be the only benefit you will derive from me. What I say is not for the purpose of deceiving you, and I advise you to try it."
"You rascal! It may well be that you are right!" rejoined the Englishman, examining the sly fellow more closely; "and I may lose with you what Lord Grey promised to give me,—one livre in every hundred that he realizes from his prisoners."