fitted it, lo! with incredible swiftness seven arrows shot
through the air, and one by one each arrow split in two a knight's
yew-bow. The men looked at their broken bows amazed. And as they looked
at each other the dogs stopped baying, one by one.

One of the knights said, breathing heavily, "This must be seen to. The
man who could shoot like this has been playing with us since midsummer.
Let us come in and call him to account, and make him show us his Proud
Rosalind."

They made a single movement towards the opening; at the same moment
there was a great movement behind it, and they came face to face with
the hart-royal. It stood at bay, its terrible antlers lowered; its eyes
were danger-lights, as red as rubies. And the seven weaponless men
stood rooted there, and one said, "Where are the dogs?"

But they knew the dogs were dead.

So they turned and went out of that place, and found their horses and
rode away.

And when they had gone the hart too turned again, and went slowly down
a little slipping path through the bushes and came to the very inmost
chamber of its castle, a round and roofless shrine, walled half by the
bird-haunted cliffs and half by woods. Within on the grass lay the dead
hounds, each pierced by an arrow; and on a bowlder near them sat the
Rusty Knight, with drooping head and body, regarding them through the
vizard he was too weary to raise. He was exhausted past bearing
himself. The hart lay down beside him, as exhausted as he.

But a sound in the forest that thickly clothed the cliff made both look
up. And down between the trees, almost from the height of the cliff,
climbed Harding the Red Hunter, bow in hand. He strode across the
little space that divided them still, and stood over the Rusty Knight
and the white Hart-Royal. And both might have been petrified, for
neither stirred.

After a little Harding began to speak. "Are you satisfied, Rusty
Knight," said he, "with what you have done in Proud Rosalind's honor?"

The Rusty Knight did not answer.

"Did ever lady have a sorrier champion?" Harding laughed roughly. "She
would have beggared herself to get you a sword. And she got you a sword
the like of which no knight ever had before. And how have you used it?
All through a summer you have brought laughter upon her. She would have
beggared herself again to get you a bow that only a god was worthy to
draw. And how have you drawn it? For a month you have drawn it to men's
scorn of her and