He was within fifty yards of them, when an arrow struck
him and he fell. He was up again, indeed, upon
the instant; but now he ran staggering, and, like
a blind man, turned aside from his direction.
Dick leaped to his feet and waved to him.
“Here!” he cried. “This way!
here is help! Nay, run, fellow— run!”
But just then a second arrow struck Selden in the
shoulder, between the plates of his brigandine, and,
piercing through his jack, brought him, like a stone,
to earth.
“O, the poor heart!” cried Matcham, with
clasped hands.
And Dick stood petrified upon the hill, a mark for
archery.
Ten to one he had speedily been shot—for
the foresters were furious with themselves, and taken
unawares by Dick’s appearance in the rear of
their position—but instantly, out of a quarter
of the wood surprisingly near to the two lads, a stentorian
voice arose, the voice of Ellis Duckworth.
“Hold!” it roared. “Shoot
not! Take him alive! It is young Shelton—Harry’s
son.”
And immediately after a shrill whistle sounded several
times, and was again taken up and repeated farther
off. The whistle, it appeared, was John Amend-All’s
battle trumpet, by which he published his directions.
“Ah, foul fortune!” cried Dick.
“We are undone. Swiftly, Jack, come swiftly!”
And the pair turned and ran back through the open
pine clump that covered the summit of the hill.
It was, indeed, high time for them to run. On
every side the company of the Black Arrow was making
for the hill. Some, being better runners, or
having open ground to run upon, had far outstripped
the others, and were already close upon the goal; some,
following valleys, had spread out to right and left,
and outflanked the lads on either side.
Dick plunged into the nearest cover. It was
a tall grove of oaks, firm under foot and clear of
underbrush, and as it lay down hill, they made good
speed. There followed next a piece of open, which
Dick avoided, holding to his left. Two minutes
after, and the same obstacle arising, the lads followed
the same course. Thus it followed that, while
the lads, bending continually to the left, drew nearer
and nearer to the high road and the river which they
had crossed an hour or two before, the great bulk of
their pursuers were leaning to the other hand, and
running towards Tunstall.
The lads paused to breathe. There was no sound
of pursuit. Dick put his ear to the ground,
and still there was nothing; but the wind, to be sure,
still made a turmoil in the trees, and it was hard
to make certain.
“On again,” said Dick; and, tired as they
were, and Matcham limping with his injured foot, they
pulled themselves together, and once more pelted down
the hill.
Three minutes later, they were breasting through a
low thicket of evergreen. High overhead, the
tall trees made a continuous roof of foliage.
It was a pillared grove, as high as a cathedral, and
except for the hollies among which the lads were struggling,
open and smoothly swarded.
