"But we have no quarrel with the Archbishop, John."
"Indeed, my Lord," answered Surrey, bitterly, "you forgot that, when you ordered me to bend bow against his two men-at-arms on the hill yonder."
"True, true, so I did, and right well you acquitted yourself. Can you do the same from this height?"
"Can I? My fingers were just getting beyond my control when you came up. No man could wish better shooting than is here to his hand."
"We will wait a little and see if they cannot do better with the catapult. They need some practice, and will never have a finer opportunity."
"Look you, my Lord, at the crossbow shooting. Did you ever see the air so thick and so little damage done? 'Tis a most contemptible instrument, as I have before averred to you, and now you can see its uselessness for yourself. A body of English archers would have had the castle taken and the Count well hanged long ere this."
"I hardly see how archers alone could scale the battlements, however expert they might be; but perhaps they project each other over stone walls attached to their arrows; they do such wonderful things in England."
"I make bold to inform you, my Lord, that——"
"I do not doubt it. Let us watch the fight."
When the cheer went up that greeted the hurling of the stone, and the very precipitate flight of the jeopardised crossbow man, the Emperor turned to the offended and silent archer and said: