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. In the next breath we were down again. A flight of arrows clattered against the stone face of our fortress or passed close over our heads. The enemy must have been filled with bitterness that so many of them had fallen while they had not been able to touch one of us. They paused for a space to form again. This time they came on, not scattered as before, but rather in groups. The first of them shot their arrows and dropped to the ground. Those behind sent their missiles at us just at the moment when they expected we would raise our heads above the wall. They were coming in. There was no doubt of that. And so close on the heels of each other did their arrows fly that we were unable to look out long enough to take a good aim, for on the second try I shot wide of the mark and in ducking back an arrow almost ended my life, for it grazed the top of my head and cut into my scalp far enough to draw a few drops of blood. I began to fear for our safety. I knew the kind of enemy we had before us. If they could lay hands upon us they would tear us limb from limb. If we were to get out of our difficulty, it would be only by the death of them all. But how it was to come about was more than I could guess, for their numbers far surpassed ours. Even if we were to make off, there were more and more of them about us in the woods.