They halted. The horns resounded nearer, and soon afterward the baying of
dogs was heard.

"Stop!" repeated Zych. "They are coming toward us."

Zbyszko jumped from his horse and began to shout:

"Give me the crossbow! The beast may attack us! Hasten! Hasten!"

Having seized the crossbow from the servant's hands, he rested it against
the ground, pressed it against his abdomen, bent, stretched his back like
a bow, and having seized the string with the fingers of both hands, he
pulled it on to the iron hook; then placed an arrow and sprang into the
woods.

"He stretched it without a crank!" whispered Zych, astonished at such
great strength.

"Ho, he is a strong boy!" answered Macko, proudly.

Meanwhile, the sound of horns and the barking of dogs stole nearer; all
at once, at the right side of the forest, a heavy trampling resounded,
accompanied by the crackling of broken branches and bushes--then out of
the thicket rushed an old bearded urus, with his gigantic head lowered,
with bloody eyes and panting tongue, breathless and terrible. Coming to a
small ravine, he leaped it, but fell on his forelegs; but immediately he
arose, and a few seconds later he would have disappeared in the thicket
on the other side of the road, when the string of the crossbow twanged,
the whistling of the arrow resounded, the beast reared, turned, roared
dreadfully and fell on the ground as if he were struck by a thunderbolt.