"Place on the table supper for one, and a large flagon of wine."
When this was accomplished, the servant, who had throughout spoken no word, moving mechanically to and fro like one walking in a dream, stood once more before his angry master.
"Take your place with your back against that wall."
The man, breathing hard, but still silent, stood up at the end of the room, his wide eyes fastened in a hypnotism of fear on his master.
"Now, archer, I am ready. Notch a shaft on your string and pin me this deserter though the heart to the wall."
The archer, whose eyes had been riveted on the viands set on the table, impatiently waiting the word to set to, withdrew them with reluctance and turned them towards the victim who stood dumb and motionless at the other end of the room.
"I am as loath to keep good victuals waiting as any man in the Archbishopric, but, my Lord, I have failed to make plain to you the nature of my calling. I am no executioner, but a soldier. If you give yonder fellow a blade in his hand to protect himself, I will be glad to carve him into as many pieces as may please your Lordship, but to draw bow on an unarmed man at ten paces is a misuse of a noble weapon, and the request to do so, were it not that this good flagon yearns for lips to meet it, I would construe it into an insult to myself, warranting a hostile encounter."
"You were not so choice when you proposed to slaughter an innocent man on the walls. Here stands a traitor, who has deserted his post and richly earned his death, yet you——"
"The man on the wall, my Lord, was a soldier, at that moment bearing arms and enjoying pay for the risks he ran. When I myself mount guard I make no objection to your German cross-bowmen practising at my body with their bolts, taking whatever chance cares to offer, and holding it commendable that they should thus industriously attempt to perfect their marksmanship, but to send a shaft through a poor devil standing weaponless at arm's length, as one might say, is no work for an English archer, the which I will maintain, though you order this most tempting food back into the larder again."