"Archer," cried Heinrich, "there lies a gauntlet which is yours of right. I ask you for it."
"Indeed, my Lord," replied the archer, hastily gulping his food to make utterance possible, "if I have aught to say concerning it, it is yours with right good will."
"Then from where you stand, as I refused your formal proposal to judge your marksmanship, pin it for me to the floor."
The archer, nothing loath, drew bow, and with incredible swiftness shot one after another five shafts that pierced fingers and thumb of the glove, the first arrow still quivering while the last struck into its place.
For the only time that day the dark face of the Count Palatine lit up, in radiant admiration of the stout foreigner who stood with a smirk of self-satisfaction while he nodded familiarly to Captain Steinmetz as who would say:
"You see what would have happened if——"
Count Bertrich regarded him with wonder in his eyes, then pulling a purse from under his breast-plate, he said:
"Archer, I am in your debt for horse, armour and arms, and think it little shame to confess defeat to one so skilful. If you will accept this gold in payment, and leave me steed and accoutrements, I shall hold myself still your debtor. My excuse for tardy payment is that you did not wait to claim your own."
"My Lord," said the archer, "I am always willing to compound in gold for any service I can render, and only hope to have another opportunity of practising against your closed helmet with arrows which I shall shortly make a trifle thinner in the shank than those I used to-day. I have to apologise to your Lordship that my shafts were rather too thick at the point to give complete satisfaction either to you or to me."