I did not dare venture an inquiry for fear of arousing suspicion by evident ignorance of something which as a yellow man I should have known; but before we reached the city gate I was to learn the purpose of that grim
shaft and the meaning of the mighty accumulation beneath it.
When Robin was a youth of eighteen, stout of sinew and bold of heart, the Sheriff of Nottingham proclaimed a shooting match and offered a prize of a butt of ale to whosoever should shoot the best
shaft in Nottinghamshire.
As he sat speculating on the nature and uses of this strange passage and its terminal
shaft, the moon topped the opening above, letting a flood of soft, silvery light into the shadowy place.
Every time he twanged the string of the long bow against his shoulder and heard the gray goose
shaft sing, it told him of happy days that he could not recall.
The smaller fliers were commencing to rise toward us when Xodar shouted: "The
shaft! The
shaft!
In the world of my birth I never had drawn a
shaft, but since our escape from Phutra I had kept the party supplied with small game by means of my arrows, and so, through necessity, had developed a fair degree of accuracy.
In my right leg is a burning pain; and from the flesh, protruding head and
shaft from either side, is an arrow of the Fire-Man.
``I will notch his
shaft for him, however,'' replied Locksley.
Damon kept watch at the top of the
shaft, Tom and Ned went out into the jungle to hunt.
Again Nikita tugged at the
shaft on his side, and Vasili Andreevich did the same on the other.
Seeing where the head of the monster was, the two men ventured a little further forward, and saw that the hidden mass at the base of the
shaft was composed of vast coils of the great serpent's body, forming a base from which the upright mass rose.
I had some thought of trying to go up the
shaft again, and leave the Under-world alone.
