The men from the open lists shot fairly true, but nervousness and fear of ridicule wrought their undoing.
Now all these five were to shoot again, and they were to be pitted against five other of the Queen's choosing--men who had not yet shot upon that day.
"A Gilbert, a Gilbert!" shouted all the crowd; and, "Now, by my faith," cried the Sheriff, smiting his hands together, "that is a shrewd shot."
Then Adam o' the Dell shot, carefully and cautiously, and his arrow lodged close beside the stranger's.
So saying, and without showing the least anxiety to pause upon his aim, Locksley stept to the appointed station, and
shot his arrow as carelessly in appearance as if he had not even looked at the mark.
Has holes in his ears, a scar on the right side of his forehead, has been
shot in the hind part of his legs, and is marked on the back with the whip.'
"But wouldn't the
shot be heard at the inn or somewhere?" asked March.
There was that tightness on my chest that I could hardly breathe; the thought of the two men I had
shot sat upon me like a nightmare; and all upon a sudden, and before I had a guess of what was coming, I began to sob and cry like any child.
“The time has been when I have
shot thirteen deer without counting the fa’ns standing in the door of my own hut; and for bear’s meat, if one wanted a ham or so, he had only to watch a-nights, and he could shoot one by moonlight, through the cracks of the logs, no fear of his oversleeping himself neither, for the howling of the wolves was sartin to keep his eyes open.
For instance, during the siege of Constantinople by Mahomet II., in 1453, stone
shot of 1,900 pounds weight were employed.
The recoil of the butt into the pit of the man's stomach had not been the most sanguinary result, for the charge of
shot, at a distance of a yard, had blown the head of one of the debaters into nothingness.
Some of the horses had been so badly wounded that they could scarcely move from the loss of blood; other noble creatures were trying on three legs to drag themselves along, and others were struggling to rise on their fore feet, when their hind legs had been shattered by
shot. After the battle the wounded men were brought in and the dead were buried."
