f you are Death,
you may well have been."

"Perhaps you are right, Richard. Have I not just told you that we
all are one; yes, even the slayer and the slain. Therefore, if my
friend--did you call him Death?--was there, I was there, if you were
there I was there and it was my hand that drew yonder great black bow
of yours and my eye that guided the straight shaft which laid the
foulmouthed jester low. Why, did you not say as much yourself when your
master here bade farewell to his father in the ship at Calais? What were
the words? Oh, I remember them. You wondered how One I may not name,"
and he bowed his solemn head, "came to make that black bow and yours and
you 'the death that draw it.'"

Now at length Grey Dick's courage gave out.

"Of no man upon earth am I afraid," he said. "But from you, O god or
devil, who read the secret hearts of men and hear their secret words, my
blood flows backward as it did when first my eyes fell on you. You would
kill me because I dared to shoot at you. Well, kill, but do not torture.
It is unworthy of a knight, even if he took his accolade in hell," and
he placed his hands before his eyes and stood before him with bent head
waiting for the end.

"Why give me such high names, Richard the Fatherless, when you have
heard two humbler ones? Call me Murgh, as do my friends. Or call me 'The
Gate,' as do those who as yet know me less well. But talk not of gods or
devils, lest suddenly one of them should answer you. Nay, man, have no
fear. Those who seek Death he often flees, as I think he flees from you
to-night. Yet let us see if we cannot send a longer shaft, you and I,
than that which we loosed on Crecy field. Give me the bow."

Dick, although he had never suffered living man to shoot with it before,
handed him the black bow, and with it a war shaft, which he drew from
his quiver.

"Tell me, Archer Dick, have you any enemy in this town of Venice?
Because if so we might try a shot at him."

"One or two, Gate Murgh," answered Dick, "Still whatever your half of me
may do, my bit of you does not love to strike down men by magic in the
dark."

"Well said and better thought. Then bethink you of something that
belongs to an enemy which will serve as well for a test of shooting. Ah!
I thank you, well thought again. Yes, I see the mark, though 'tis far,
is it not? Now set your mind on it. But stay! First, will you know this
arrow again?"

"Surely," answered Dick, "I made it myself. Moreov