“Nay, by my halydom,” Rufus replied with a gay smile, “but we will have it so. We two will ride in company, each shooting his own shaft for his own hand. I dare uphold my arrow for twenty marks of gold, and my white Alan, against thy Barbary bay. Darest thou, Sir Walter?” “I know not _that_--I dare not!” answered Tyrrel; “but your grace wagers high, nor will I lightly lose Bay Barbary: if so our wager stand, I shoot no roving shaft.” “Shoot as thou wilt, so stands it!” “Amen!” cried Tyrrel, “and I doubt not to hear your grace confess Tyrrel hath struck the lordlier quarry.” “Away, then, all! away!” and, setting spurs to his curveting horse, the monarch led the way at a hard gallop, followed by all his train--a long and bright procession, their gay plumes and many-colored garments offering a lively contrast to the deep, leafy verdure of July, and their clear weapons glancing lifelike to the sunshine. They had careered along, with merriment and music, perhaps three miles into the forest, when the deep baying of a hound was heard, at some short distance to the right, from a thick verge of coppice. Instantly the king curbed in his fiery horse, and raised his hand on high, waving a silent halt. “Ha! have we outlaws here?” he whispered close in the ear of Tyrrel. “’Fore God, but they shall rue it!” Scarcely had he spoken, when a buck burst from a thicket, and, ere it made three bounds, leaped high into the air and fell, its heart pierced through and through by the unerring shaft of an outlying ranger, who the next instant stepped out of his covert, and, catching sight of the gay cavalcade confronting him--the sounds of whose approach he must have overlooked entirely in the excitement of his sport--turned hastily as if to fly. But it was all too late: a dozen of the king’s retainers had dashed their rowels into their horses’ flanks the instant he appeared, and scarcely had he discovered their advance before he was their prisoner.