his man and locked his leg round him. It was a grip that,
between men of equal strength, would mean a fall; but Hordle John tore
him off from him as he might a rat, and hurled him across the room, so
that his head cracked up against the wooden wall.

"Ma foi!" cried the bowman, passing his fingers through his curls, "you
were not far from the feather-bed then, mon gar. A little more and this
good hostel would have a new window."

Nothing daunted, he approached his man once more, but this time with
more caution than before. With a quick feint he threw the other off his
guard, and then, bounding upon him, threw his legs round his waist and
his arms round his bull-neck, in the hope of bearing him to the ground
with the sudden shock. With a bellow of rage, Hordle John squeezed him
limp in his huge arms; and then, picking him up, cast him down upon the
floor with a force which might well have splintered a bone or two,
had not the archer with the most perfect coolness clung to the other's
forearms to break his fall. As it was, he dropped upon his feet and
kept his balance, though it sent a jar through his frame which set every
joint a-creaking. He bounded back from his perilous foeman; but the
other, heated by the bout, rushed madly after him, and so gave the
practised wrestler the very vantage for which he had planned. As big
John flung himself upon him, the archer ducked under the great red hands
that clutched for him, and, catching his man round the thighs, hurled
him over his shoulder--helped as much by his own mad rush as by the
trained strength of the heave. To Alleyne's eye, it was as if John had
taken unto himself wings and flown. As he hurtled through the air, with
giant limbs revolving, the lad's heart was in his mouth; for surely no
man ever yet had such a fall and came scathless out of it. In truth,
hardy as the man was, his neck had been assuredly broken had he not
pitched head first on the very midriff of the drunken artist, who was
slumbering so peacefully in the corner, all unaware of these stirring
doings. The luckless limner, thus suddenly brought out from his dreams,
sat up with a piercing yell, while Hordle John bounded back into the
circle almost as rapidly as he had left it.

"One more fall, by all the saints!" he cried, throwing out his arms.

"Not I," quoth the archer, pulling on his clothes, "I have come well out
of the business. I would sooner wrestle with the great bear of Navarre."

"It was a t