'Shall I set this steel in the lintel
of the buttery door yonder?'
'Yea, if thou canst,' she said.
He smiled and took the spear from her, and poised it and shook it
till it quivered again, then suddenly drew back his arm and cast, and
the shaft sped whistling down the dim hall, and smote the aforesaid
door-lintel and stuck there quivering: then he sprang down from the
dais, and ran down the hall, and put forth his hand and pulled it
forth from the wood, and was on the dais again in a trice, and cast
again, and the second time set the spear in the same place, and then
took his other spear from the board and cast it, and there stood the
two staves in the wood side by side; then he went soberly down the
hall and drew them both out of the wood and came back to her, while
she stood watching him, her cheek flushed, her lips a little parted.
She said: 'Good spear-casting, forsooth! and far above what our folk
can do, who be no great throwers of the spear.'
Gold-mane laughed: 'Sooth is that,' said he, 'or hardly were I here
to teach thee spear-throwing.'
'Wilt thou NEVER be paid for that simple onslaught?' she said.
Pages:
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177