The crashing of the branches might now be heard distinctly, as they were separated by some body in swift motion; and next the laboring sobs of a beast overdone with toil and anguish; the waving of the coppice followed in a long, sinuous line, resembling in some degree the wake of a fleet ship among the rolling billows. Midway it furrowed the dense thicket between the king and Tyrrel, but with an inclination toward the former. His quick eye noted his advantage: his bow rose slowly and with a steady motion to its level; it was drawn to its full extent--the forked steel head pressing against the polished yew, the silken string stretched home to the right ear. The brambles were forced violently outward, and with a mighty but laborious effort the hunted stag dashed into the more open space. Scarcely had he cleared the thicket, before a sharp and ringing twang announced the shot of Rufus. So true had been his aim, that the barbed arrow grazed the withers of the game--a hart of grease, with ten tines on his noble antlers--leaving a gory line where it had razed the skin; and so strong was the arm that launched it, that the shaft, glancing downward, owing to the king’s elevation and the short distance of the mark at which he aimed, was buried nearly to the feathers in the soft, mossy greensward. The wounded stag bounded at least six feet into the air; and Tyrrel, deeming the work already done, lowered his weapon. But the king’s sight was truer. Raising his bridle-hand to screen his eyes from the rays, now nearly level, of the setting sun--“Ho!” he cried, “Tyrrel, shoot--in the fiend’s name shoot!” Before the words had reached his ear, the baron saw his error; for, instantly recovering, the gallant deer dashed onward, passing immediately beneath the oak-tree which Rufus had already mentioned. Raising his bow with a rapidity which seemed incredible, Tyrrel discharged his arrow. It struck, just at the correct elevation, against the gnarled trunk of the giant tree; but, swift as was its flight, the motion of the wounded deer was yet more rapid: he had already crossed the open glade, and was lost in the thicket opposite. Diverted from its course, but unabated in its force, the Norman shaft sped onward; full, full and fairly it plunged into the left side of the hapless monarch, unguarded by the arm which he had cast aloft. The keen point actually drove clear through his body, and through his stout buff coat, coming out over his right hip; while the goose-feather, which had winged it to its royal mark, was literally dabbled in his life-blood!