But of a sudden, as he thus stooped,
drinking, something hissed past his ear, and struck with a splash into
the gravel and water beside him. Quick as a wink Robin sprang to his
feet, and, at one bound, crossed the stream and the roadside, and
plunged headlong into the thicket, without looking around, for he knew
right well that that which had hissed so venomously beside his ear was
a gray goose shaft, and that to tarry so much as a moment meant death.
Even as he leaped into the thicket six more arrows rattled among the
branches after him, one of which pierced his doublet, and would have
struck deeply into his side but for the tough coat of steel that he
wore. Then up the road came riding some of the King's men at headlong
speed. They leaped from their horses and plunged straightway into the
thicket after Robin. But Robin knew the ground better than they did,
so crawling here, stooping there, and, anon, running across some little
open, he soon left them far behind, coming out, at last, upon another
road about eight hundred paces distant from the one he had left. Here he
stood for a moment, listening to the distant shouts of the seven men
as they beat up and down in the thickets like hounds that had lost the
scent of the quarry. Then, buckling his belt more tightly around his
waist, he ran fleetly down the road toward the eastward and Sherwood.
But Robin had not gone more than three furlongs in that direction when
he came suddenly to the brow of a hill, and saw beneath him another band
of the King's men seated in the shade along the roadside in the valley
beneath.
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