Lay me with my face toward the East, Little John, and see that my resting place be kept green, and that my weary bones be not disturbed." As he finished speaking, he raised himself of a sudden and sat upright.
His old strength seemed to come back to him, and, drawing the bowstring to his ear, he sped the arrow out of the open casement.

As the shaft flew, his hand sank slowly with the bow till it lay across his knees, and his body likewise sank back again into Little John's loving arms; but something had sped from that body, even as the winged arrow sped from the bow.
For some minutes Little John sat motionless, but presently he laid that which he held gently down, then, folding the hands upon the breast and covering up the face, he turned upon his heel and left the room without a word or a sound.
Upon the steep stairway he met the Prioress and some of the chief among the sisters.

To them he spoke in a deep, quivering voice, and said he, "An ye go within a score of feet of yonder room, I will tear down your rookery over your heads so that not one stone shall be left upon another.

Bear my words well in mind, for I mean them." So saying, he turned and left them, and they presently saw him running rapidly across the open, through the falling of the dusk, until he was swallowed up by the forest.
The early gray of the coming morn was just beginning to lighten the black sky toward the eastward when Little John and six more of the band came rapidly across the open toward the nunnery.

They saw no one, for the sisters were all hidden away from sight, having been frightened by Little John's words.