It began to dawn on me that the Dwarf was a bit of a fool. He was deformed, of course, but his imagination had played on him so that he pictured himself as the ugliest man on earth. I saw, too, that he was sensitive to a degree. It was this that caused him to boast about the strength of his arms and hands. His continual dwelling on his marksmanship with the bow was a balance to his shortcomings.
My thoughts were interrupted by a cry from Charles. He grasped me by the shoulder and drew me down behind the wall of stone.
“Look!” he cried. “There are a dozen of them moving through the woods!”
Sure enough. I raised my head a little above the wall. I saw the forms of several men passing from tree to tree. They darted as though they feared to trust themselves in the open.
“I have roused them!” cried the Dwarf. “I have stung them to the quick. They are forming for an attack. They will come forward with a rush.”
He was right. No sooner had he spoken when a dozen arrows sped towards us. Their white feathers were like streaks in the air. We hid behind the wall as near to the earth as we could crouch. Two or three hard clicks against the rock in front of us showed that they had gotten the range. The flight of half a dozen others over our heads was warning enough that they were determined to drive us from our fortress at the cost of their lives.
Charles and I raised our bows and peeped out through a crevice in the rock. Our heads were scarcely above the top line of the wall when three arrows in quick succession whizzed past. One of them came so near that the point of it clipped a tiny piece from the stone and sent it flying into my face.
“Now!” cried the Dwarf. “Hold ready!”
I heard a shout. A score of our enemies rushed out from behind the trees. They raised their bows. The arrows came as thick as hail. Another shout and the men strung their bows and shot again. It was now or never. The three of us raised ourselves each on one knee. I cannot speak for the others. As for myself I singled out a fellow who was darting forward from one tree to seek the cover of the next. My arrow caught him in the shoulder between the arm and the neck. His bow dropped from his grasp. As well as I could see, an expression of intense pain crossed his features. He clapped his hand to the wound and reeled back to the tree from which he had just come.
Charles must have hit his man, and even with more accuracy than I hit mine. I saw a fellow spin around like a top and fall staggering to the earth a little to the left. In the turning of my head I caught the flash of hatred on the Dwarf’s face. The bow he carried was of unusual size and the string of great strength. The missile went so fast I could not even see its passage in the air. But the twang had hardly reached my ear when the arrow pierced the neck of an enemy as he was running past a tree. It stopped him in full career. It pierced him through and through, and fastened him to the trunk as firmly as if he were tied with a taut rope.