ength. He
had looked on with amusement when Roger cut the bamboo, making it,
as was the custom of English archers, of his own height.

"My lord is not intending that, surely, for a bow?" he said.

"Yes, Bathalda, I think that will do well," Roger said, trying with
his knee the stiffness of the cane.

At the halt next day, Roger had cut the notches for the string.

"Now, Bathalda," he said, "can you string this?"

"No, my lord; nor can any other man."

"I think it is about the strength of the bows we use at home,"
Roger said. "The stringing them is a matter of knack, as well as of
strength."

And, to the amazement of the Aztec, he strung the bow.

"Now," said he, "let us make some arrows. They should be a cloth
yard in length--that is, from the middle of my chest to the end of
my middle finger."

A dozen of the light bamboos were cut to this length. The huntsman
fitted the obsidian points to them, and Roger stepped back a
hundred yards from the small tree, with a trunk some six inches in
diameter, under whose shade they had been sitting. Then he fitted
the arrow to the string, bent the bow to its head, and loosed the
arrow. It struck the trunk, but glanced off.

"I am out of practice, indeed," he said, "or I should have hit that
fair in the center."

To the huntsman, however, the shot seemed well-nigh miraculous, the
distance being twice as great as the Mexican bows would carry, with
anything like accuracy; while the speed with which the arrow flew,
and the distance it went after glancing from the tree, showed that
it would have been fatal at least fifty yards beyond the object
aimed at. Taking the bow from Roger, he fitted another arrow in and
tried to bend it; but with all his efforts could only draw the
arrow four or five inches.

"It is wonderful," he said, returning the weapon to Roger. "If I
had not seen it done, I could not have believed it."

"It is merely a matter of practice," Roger said. "My people are
famous for their dexterity with the bow, and I have seen men hit a
mark no bigger than the palm of my hand, ten times in succession,
at that distance."

The next time they halted, Bathalda made the rest of the bamboos
into arrows and, making a quiver of the bark of a tree, hung them
over his shoulder. Roger left his spear behind; using the bow,
which he had unstrung, as a walking staff. Bathalda offered to
carry the spear, in addition to his own weapon, but Roger told him
that he did not care