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The Outlaw of Torn

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

December, 1995  [Etext #369]


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EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
THE OUTLAW OF TORN



To My Friend

JOSEPH E. BRAY




CHAPTER I


HERE is a story that has lain dormant for seven hun-
dred years.  At first it was suppressed by one of the
Plantagenet kings of England.  Later it was forgotten.  I
happened to dig it up by accident.  The accident being
the relationship of my wife's cousin to a certain Father
Superior in a very ancient monastery in Europe.

He let me pry about among a quantity of mildewed
and musty manuscripts and I came across this.  It is
very interesting--partially since it is a bit of hitherto
unrecorded history, but principally from the fact that it
records the story of a most remarkable revenge and the
adventurous life of its innocent victim--Richard, the
lost prince of England.

In the retelling of it I have left out most of the history.
What interested me was the unique character about
whom the tale revolves--the visored horseman who--
but let us wait until we get to him.

It all happened in the thirteenth century, and while
it was happening it shook England from north to south
and from east to west; and reached across the channel
and shook France.  It started, directly, in the London
palace of Henry III, and was the result of a quarrel
between the King and his powerful brother-in-law, Si-
mon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester.

Never mind the quarrel, that's history, and you can
read all about it at your leisure.  But on this June day in
the year of our Lord 1243, Henry so forgot himself as
to very unjustly accuse De Montfort of treason in the
presence of a number of the King's gentlemen.

De Montfort paled.  He was a tall, handsome man,
and when he drew himself to his full height and turned
those gray eyes on the victim of his wrath, as he did
that day, he was very imposing.  A power in England,
second only to the King himself, and with the heart of
a lion in him, he answered the King as no other man
in all England would have dared answer him.

"My Lord King," he cried, "that you be my Lord
King alone prevents Simon de Montfort from demand-
ing satisfaction for such a gross insult.  That you take
advantage of your kingship to say what you would
never dare say were you not king, brands me not a
traitor, though it does brand you a coward."

Tense silence fell upon the little company of lords
and courtiers as these awful words fell from the lips of
a subject, addressed to his king.  They were horrified,
for De Montfort's bold challenge was to them but little
short of sacrilege.

Henry, flushing in mortification and anger, rose to
advance upon De Montfort, but suddenly recollecting
the power which he represented, he thought better of
whatever action he contemplated, and with a haughty
sneer turned to his courtiers.

"Come, my gentlemen," he said, "methought that we
were to have a turn with the foils this morning.  Already
it waxeth late.  Come, De Fulm! Come, Leybourn!" and
the King left the apartment followed by his gentlemen,
all of whom had drawn away from the Earl of Leicester
when it became apparent that the royal displeasure was
strong against him.  As the arras fell behind the depart-
ing King, De Montfort shrugged his broad shoulders,
and turning, left the apartment by another door.

When the King, with his gentlemen, entered the
armory he was still smarting from the humiliation of
De Montfort's reproaches, and as he laid aside his sur-
coat and plumed hat to take the foils with De Fulm
his eyes alighted on the master of fence, Sir Jules de
Vac, who was advancing with the King's foil and helmet.
Henry felt in no mood for fencing with De Fulm, who,
like the other sycophants that surrounded him, always
allowed the King easily to best him in every encounter.

De Vac he knew to be too jealous of his fame as a
swordsman to permit himself to be overcome by aught
but superior skill, and this day Henry felt that he could
best the devil himself.

The armory was a great room on the main floor of
the palace, off the guard room.  It was built in a small
wing of the building so that it had light from three
sides.  In charge of it was the lean, grizzled, leather-
skinned Sir Jules de Vac, and it was he whom Henry
commanded to face him in mimic combat with the foils,
for the King wished to go with hammer and tongs at
someone to vent his suppressed rage.

So he let De Vac assume to his mind's eye the person
of the hated De Montfort, and it followed that De Vac
was nearly surprised into an early and mortifying defeat
by the King's sudden and clever attack.

Henry III had always been accounted a good swords-
man, but that day he quite outdid himself, and in his
imagination was about to run the pseudo De Montfort
through the heart, to the wild acclaim of his audience.
For this fell purpose he had backed the astounded De
Vac twice around the hall when, with a clever feint,
and backward step, the master of fence drew the King
into the position he wanted him, and with the sudden-
ness of lightning, a little twist of his foil sent Henry's
weapon clanging across the floor of the armory.

For an instant the King stood as tense and white as
though the hand of death had reached out and touched
his heart with its icy fingers.  The episode meant more
to him than being bested in play by the best swordsman
in England--for that surely was no disgrace--to Henry
it seemed prophetic of the outcome of a future struggle
when he should stand face to face with the real De
Montfort; and then, seeing in De Vac only the creature
of his imagination with which he had vested the like-
ness of his powerful brother-in-law, Henry did what he
should like to have done to the real Leicester.  Drawing
off his gauntlet he advanced close to De Vac.

"Dog!" he hissed, and struck the master of fence a
stinging blow across the face, and spat upon him.  Then
he turned on his heel and strode from the armory.

De Vac had grown old in the service of the kings of
England, but he hated all things English and all Eng-
lishmen.  The dead King John, though hated by all
others, he had loved, but with the dead King's bones
De Vac's loyalty to the house he served had been buried
in the Cathedral of Worcester.

During the years he had served as master of fence at
the English Court the sons of royalty had learned to
thrust and parry and cut as only De Vac could teach the
art; and he had been as conscientious in the discharge
of his duties as he had been in his unswerving hatred
and contempt for his pupils.

And now the English King had put upon him such
an insult as might only be wiped out by blood.

As the blow fell the wiry Frenchman clicked his heels
together, and throwing down his foil, he stood erect and
rigid as a marble statue before his master.  White and
livid was his tense drawn face, but he spoke no word.

He might have struck the King, but then there would
have been left to him no alternative save death by his
own hand; for a king may not fight with a lesser mor-
tal, and he who strikes a king may not live--the king's
honor must be satisfied.

Had a French king struck him De Vac would have
struck back, and gloried in the fate which permitted
him to die for the honor of France; but an English King
--pooh! a dog; and who would die for a dog? No, De
Vac would find other means of satisfying his wounded
pride, he would revel in revenge against this man for
whom he felt no loyalty.  If possible, he would harm
the whole of England if he could, but he would bide
his time.  He could afford to wait for his opportunity
if by waiting he could encompass a more terrible re-
venge.

De Vac had been born in Paris, the son of a French
officer reputed the best swordsman in France.  The son
had followed closely in the footsteps of his father until
on the latter's death, he could easily claim the title of
his sire.  How he had left France and entered the ser-
vice of John of England is not of this story.  All the bear-
ing that the life of Jules de Vac has upon the history
of England hinges upon but two of his many attributes
--his wonderful swordsmanship and his fearful hatred
for his adopted country.








CHAPTER II

SOUTH of the armory of Westminster Palace lay the
gardens, and here, on the third day following the King's
affront to De Vac, might have been a seen a black-
haired woman gowned in a violet cyclas, richly em-
broidered with gold about the yoke and at the bottom
of the loose-pointed sleeves, which reached almost to
the similar bordering on the lower hem of the garment.
A richly wrought leathern girdle, studded with precious
stones, and held in place by a huge carved buckle of
gold, clasped the garment about her waist so that the
upper portion fell outward over the girdle after the
manner of a blouse.  In the girdle was a long dagger
of beautiful workmanship.  Dainty sandals encased her
feet, while a wimple of violet silk bordered in gold
fringe, lay becomingly over her head and shoulders.

By her side walked a handsome boy of about three,
clad, like his companion, in gay colors.  His tiny surcoat
of scarlet velvet was rich with embroidery, while be-
neath was a close-fitting tunic of white silk.  His doublet
was of scarlet, while his long hose of white were cross-
gartered with scarlet from his tiny sandals to his knees.
On the back of his brown curls sat a flat-brimmed,
round-crowned hat in which a single plume of white
waved and nodded bravely at each move of the proud
little head.

The child's features were well molded, and his frank,
bright eyes gave an expression of boyish generosity to
a face which otherwise would have been too arrogant
and haughty for such a mere baby.  As he talked with
his companion, little flashes of peremptory authority
and dignity, which sat strangely upon one so tiny,
caused the young woman at times to turn her head
from him that he might not see the smiles which she
could scarce repress.

Presently the boy took a ball from his tunic, and,
pointing at a little bush near them, said, "Stand you
there, Lady Maud, by yonder bush, I would play at
toss."

The young woman did as she was bid, and when she
had taken her place and turned to face him the boy
threw the ball to her.  Thus they played beneath the
windows of the armory, the boy running blithely after
the ball when he missed it, and laughing and shouting
in happy glee when he made a particularly good catch.

In one of the windows of the armory overlooking the
garden stood a grim, gray, old man, leaning upon his
folded arms, his brows drawn together in a malignant
scowl, the corners of his mouth set in a stern, cold line.

He looked upon the garden and the playing child,
and upon the lovely young woman beneath him, but
with eyes which did not see, for De Vac was working
out a great problem, the greatest of all his life.

For three days the old man had brooded over his
grievance, seeking for some means to be revenged upon
the King for the insult which Henry had put upon him.
Many schemes had presented themselves to his shrewd
and cunning mind, but so far all had been rejected as
unworthy of the terrible satisfaction which his wounded
pride demanded.

His fancies had for the most part revolved about the
unsettled political conditions of Henry's reign, for from
these he felt he might wrest that opportunity which
could be turned to his own personal uses and to the
harm, and possibly the undoing, of the King.

For years an inmate of the palace, and often a listen-
er in the armory when the King played at sword with
his friends and favorites, De Vac had heard much
which passed between Henry III and his intimates that
could well be turned to the King's harm by a shrewd
and resourceful enemy.

With all England he knew the utter contempt in
which Henry held the terms of the Magna Charta
which he so often violated along with his kingly oath
to maintain it.  But what all England did not know De
Vac had gleaned from scraps of conversation dropped
in the armory: that Henry was even now negotiating
with the leaders of foreign mercenaries, and with Louis
IX of France, for a sufficient force of knights and men-
at-arms to wage a relentless war upon his own barons
that he might effectively put a stop to all future inter-
ference by them with the royal prerogative of the Plan-
tagenets to misrule England.

If he could but learn the details of this plan, thought
De Vac: the point of landing of the foreign troops;
their numbers; the first point of attack.  Ah, would it
not be sweet revenge indeed to balk the King in this
venture so dear to his heart!

A word to De Clare, or De Montfort would bring
the barons and their retainers forty thousand strong to
overwhelm the King's forces.

And he would let the King know to whom, and for
what cause, he was beholden for his defeat and dis-
comfiture.  Possibly the barons would depose Henry,
and place a new king upon England's throne, and then
De Vac would mock the Plantagenet to his face.  Sweet,
kind, delectable vengeance, indeed! and the old man
licked his thin lips as though to taste the last sweet
vestige of some dainty morsel.

And then Chance carried a little leather ball beneath
the window where the old man stood; and as the child
ran, laughing, to recover it, De Vac's eyes fell upon him,
and his former plan for revenge melted as the fog
before the noonday sun; and in its stead there opened
to him the whole hideous plot of fearsome vengeance
as clearly as it were writ upon the leaves of a great
book that had been thrown wide before him.  And, in
so far as he could direct, he varied not one jot from
the details of that vividly conceived masterpiece of
hellishness during the twenty years which followed.

The little boy who so innocently played in the garden
of his royal father was Prince Richard, the three-year-
old son of Henry III of England.  No published history
mentions this little lost prince; only the secret archives
of the kings of England tell the story of his strange
and adventurous life.  His name has been blotted from
the records of men; and the revenge of De Vac has
passed from the eyes of the world; though in his time it
was a real and terrible thing in the hearts of the Eng-
lish.





CHAPTER III

FOR nearly a month the old man haunted the palace,
and watched in the gardens for the little Prince until
he knew the daily routine of his tiny life with his nurses
and governesses.

He saw that when the Lady Maud accompanied him
they were wont to repair to the farthermost extremities
of the palace grounds where, by a little postern gate,
she admitted a certain officer of the Guards to whom
the Queen had forbidden the privilege of the court.

There, in a secluded bower, the two lovers whispered
their hopes and plans, unmindful of the royal charge
playing neglected among the flowers and shrubbery of
the garden.

Toward the middle of July De Vac had his plans
well laid.  He had managed to coax old Brus, the gar-
dener, into letting him have the key to the little postern
gate on the plea that he wished to indulge in a mid-
night escapade, hinting broadly of a fair lady who
was to be the partner of his adventure, and, what was
more to the point with Brus, at the same time slipping
a couple of golden zecchins into the gardener's palm.

Brus, like the other palace servants, considered De
Vac a loyal retainer of the house of Plantagenet.  What-
ever else of mischief De Vac might be up to, Brus was
quite sure that in so far as the King was concerned, the
key to the postern gate was as safe in De Vac's hands
as though Henry himself had it.

The old fellow wondered a little that the morose
old master of fence should, at his time in life, indulge
in frivolous escapades more befitting the younger sprigs
of gentility, but, then, what concern was it of his? Did
he not have enough to think about to keep the gardens
so that his royal master and mistress might find pleas-
ure in the shaded walks, the well-kept sward, and the
gorgeous beds of foliage plants and blooming flowers
which he set with such wondrous precision in the formal
garden?

Further, two gold zecchins were not often come by
so easily as this; and if the dear Lord Jesus saw fit, in
his infinite wisdom, to take this means of rewarding his
poor servant it ill became such a worm as he to ignore
the divine favor.  So Brus took the gold zecchins and
De Vac the key, and the little prince played happily
among the flowers of his royal father's garden, and all
were satisfied; which was as it should have been.

That night De Vac took the key to a locksmith on the
far side of London; one who could not possibly know
him or recognize the key as belonging to the palace.
Here he had a duplicate made, waiting impatiently
while the old man fashioned it with the crude instru-
ments of his time.

From this little shop De Vac threaded his way
through the dirty lanes and alleys of ancient London,
lighted at far intervals by an occasional smoky lantern,
until he came to a squalid tenement but a short distance
from the palace.

A narrow alley ran past the building, ending abruptly
at the bank of the Thames in a moldering wooden dock,
beneath which the inky waters of the river rose and fell,
lapping the decaying piles and surging far beneath the
dock to the remote fastnesses inhabited by the great
fierce dock rats and their fiercer human antitypes.

Several times De Vac paced the length of this black
alley in search of the little doorway of the building he
sought.  At length he came upon it, and, after repeated
pounding with the pommel of his sword, it was opened
by a slatternly old hag.

"What would ye of a decent woman at such an un-
godly hour?" she grumbled.  "Ah, 'tis ye, my lord?" she
added, hastily, as the flickering rays of the candle she
bore lighted up De Vac's face.  "Welcome, my Lord,
thrice welcome.  The daughter of the devil welcomes
her brother."

"Silence, old hag," cried De Vac.  "Is it not enough
that you leech me of good marks of such a quantity
that you may ever after wear mantles of villosa and
feast on simnel bread and malmsey, that you must
needs burden me still further with the affliction of thy
vile tongue?

"Hast thou the clothes ready bundled and the key,
also, to this gate to perdition? And the room: didst set
to rights the furnishings I had delivered here, and
sweep the century-old accumulation of filth and cob-
webs from the floor and rafters? Why, the very air
reeked of the dead Romans who builded London twelve
hundred years ago.  Methinks, too, from the stink, they
must have been Roman swineherd who habited this sty
with their herds, an' I venture that thou, old sow, hast
never touched broom to the place for fear of disturb-
ing the ancient relics of thy kin."

"Cease thy babbling, Lord Satan," cried the woman.
"I would rather hear thy money talk than thou, for
though it come accursed and tainted from thy rogue
hand, yet it speaks with the same sweet and command-
ing voice as it were fresh from the coffers of the holy
church.

"The bundle is ready," she continued, closing the
door after De Vac, who had now entered, "and here be
the key; but first let us have a payment.  I know not
what thy foul work may be, but foul it is I know from
the secrecy which you have demanded, an' I dare say
there will be some who would pay well to learn the
whereabouts of the old woman and the child, thy sister
and her son you tell me they be, who you are so anxious
to hide away in old Til's garret.  So it be well for you,
my Lord, to pay old Til well and add a few guilders
for the peace of her tongue if you would that your
prisoner find peace in old Til's house."

"Fetch me the bundle, hag," replied De Vac, "and
you shall have gold against a final settlement; more
even than we bargained for if all goes well and thou
holdest thy vile tongue."

But the old woman's threats had already caused De
Vac a feeling of uneasiness, which would have been
reflected to an exaggerated degree in the old woman
had she known the determination her words had caused
in the mind of the old master of fence.

His venture was far too serious, and the results of
exposure too fraught with danger, to permit of his tak-
ing any chances with a disloyal fellow-conspirator.  True,
he had not even hinted at the enormity of the plot in
which he was involving the old woman, but, as she
had said, his stern commands for secrecy had told
enough to arouse her suspicions, and with them her
curiosity and cupidity.  So it was that old Til might
well have quailed in her tattered sandals had she but
even vaguely guessed the thoughts which passed in De
Vac's mind; but the extra gold pieces he dropped into
her withered palm as she delivered the bundle to him,
together with the promise of more, quite effectually
won her loyalty and her silence for the time being.

Slipping the key into the pocket of his tunic and
covering the bundle with his long surcoat, De Vac
stepped out into the darkness of the alley and hastened
toward the dock.

Beneath the planks he found a skiff which he had
moored there earlier in the evening, and underneath
one of the thwarts he hid the bundle.  Then, casting off,
he rowed slowly up the Thames until, below the palace
walls, he moored near to the little postern gate which
let into the lower end of the garden.

Hiding the skiff as best he could in some tangled
bushes which grew to the water's edge, set there by
order of the King to add to the beauty of the aspect
from the river side, De Vac crept warily to the postern
and, unchallenged, entered and sought his apartments
in the palace.

The next day he returned the original key to Brus,
telling the old man that he had not used it after all,
since mature reflection had convinced him of the folly
of his contemplated adventure, especially in one whose
youth was past, and in whose joints the night damp of
the Thames might find lodgement for rheumatism.

"Ha, Sir Jules," laughed the old gardener, "Virtue
and Vice be twin sisters who come running to do the
bidding of the same father, Desire.  Were there no
desire there would be no virtue, and because one man
desires what another does not, who shall say whether
the child of his desire be vice or virtue? Or on the other
hand if my friend desires his own wife and if that be
virtue, then if I also desire his wife, is not that likewise
virtue, since we desire the same thing? But if to obtain
our desire it be necessary to expose our joints to the
Thames' fog then it were virtue to remain at home."

"Right you sound, old mole," said De Vac, smiling,
"would that I might learn to reason by your wondrous
logic; methinks it might stand me in good stead before
I be much older."

"The best sword arm in all Christendom needs no
other logic than the sword, I should think," said Brus,
returning to his work.


That afternoon De Vac stood in a window of the
armory looking out upon the beautiful garden which
spread before him to the river wall two hundred yards
away.  In the foreground were box-bordered walks,
smooth, sleek lawns, and formal beds of gorgeous flow-
ering plants, while here and there marble statues of
wood nymph and satyr gleamed, sparkling in the bril-
liant sunlight, or, half shaded by an overhanging bush,
took on a semblance of life from the riotous play of
light and shadow as the leaves above them moved to
and fro in the faint breeze.  Farther in the distance the
river wall was hidden by more closely massed bushes,
and the formal, geometric precision of the nearer view
was relieved by a background of vine-colored bowers,
and a profusion of small trees and flowering shrubs
arranged in studied disorder.

Through this seeming jungle ran tortuous paths, and
the carved stone benches of the open garden gave place
to rustic seats, and swings suspended from the branches
of fruit trees.

Toward this enchanting spot slowly were walking the
Lady Maud and her little charge, Prince Richard; all
ignorant of the malicious watcher in the window be-
hind them.

A great peacock strutted proudly across the walk be-
fore them, and, as Richard ran, childlike, after it, Lady
Maud hastened on to the little postern gate which she
quickly unlocked admitting her lover who had been
waiting without.  Relocking the gate the two strolled
arm in arm to the little bower which was their trysting
place.

As the lovers talked, all self-engrossed, the little
Prince played happily about among the trees and flow-
ers, and none saw the stern, determined face which
peered through the foliage at a little distance from the
playing boy.

Richard was devoting his royal energies to chasing an
elusive butterfly which fate led nearer and nearer to the
cold, hard watcher in the bushes.  Closer and closer
came the little Prince, and in another moment he had
burst through the flowering shrubs, and stood facing
the implacable master of fence.

"Your Highness," said De Vac, bowing to the little
fellow, "let old De Vac help you catch the pretty insect."

Richard, having often seen De Vac, did not fear him,
and so together they started in pursuit of the butter-
fly which by now had passed out of sight.  De Vac
turned their steps toward the little postern gate, but
when he would have passed through with the tiny
Prince the latter rebelled.

"Come, My Lord Prince," urged De Vac, "methinks
the butterfly did but alight without the wall, we can
have it and return within the garden in an instant."

"Go thyself and fetch it," replied the Prince; "the
King, my father, has forbid me stepping without the
palace grounds."

"Come," commanded De Vac, more sternly, "no harm
can come to you."

But the child hung back and would not go with him
so that De Vac was forced to grasp him roughly by
the arm.  There was a cry of rage and alarm from the
royal child.

"Unhand me, sirrah," screamed the boy.  "How dare
you lay hands on a prince of England?"

De Vac clapped his hand over the child's mouth to
still his cries, but it was too late, the Lady Maud and
her lover had heard, and in an instant they were rush-
ing toward the postern gate, the officer drawing his
sword as he ran.

When they reached the wall De Vac and the Prince
were upon the outside, and the Frenchman had closed
and was endeavoring to lock the gate.  But handicapped
by the struggling boy he had not time to turn the key
before the officer threw himself against the panels and
burst out before the master of fence, closely followed
by the Lady Maud.

De Vac dropped the key and, still grasping the now
thoroughly affrightened Prince with his left hand, drew
his sword and confronted the officer.

There were no words, there was no need of words;
De Vac's intentions were too plain to necessitate any
parley, so the two fell upon each other with grim fury;
the brave officer facing the best swordsman that France
had ever produced in a futile attempt to rescue his
young prince.

In a moment De Vac had disarmed him, but, con-
trary to the laws of chivalry, he did not lower his point
until it had first plunged through the heart of his brave
antagonist.  Then with a bound he leaped between Lady
Maud and the gate, so that she could not retreat into
the garden and give the alarm.

Still grasping the trembling child in his iron grip he
stood facing the lady in waiting, his back against the
door.

"Mon Dieu, Sir Jules," she cried, "hast thou gone
mad?"

"No, My Lady," he answered, "but I had not thought
to do the work which now lies before me.  Why didst
thou not keep a still tongue in thy head and let his
patron saint look after the welfare of this princeling?
Your rashness has brought you to a pretty pass, for it
must be either you or I, My Lady, and it cannot be I.
Say thy prayers and compose thyself for death."


Henry III, King of England, sat in his council cham-
ber surrounded by the great lords and nobles who com-
posed his suit.  He awaited Simon de Montfort, Earl of
Leicester, whom he had summoned that he might heap
still further indignities upon him with the intention of
degrading and humiliating him that he might leave
England forever.  The King feared this mighty kinsman
who so boldly advised him against the weak follies
which were bringing his kingdom to a condition of
revolution.

What the outcome of this audience would have been
none may say, for Leicester had but just entered and
saluted his sovereign when there came an interruption
which drowned the petty wrangles of king and courtier
in a common affliction that touched the hearts of all.

There was a commotion at one side of the room, the
arras parted, and Eleanor, Queen of England, staggered
toward the throne, tears streaming down her pale
cheeks.

"Oh, My Lord! My Lord!' she cried, "Richard our
son, has been assassinated and thrown into the Thames."

In an instant all was confusion and turmoil, and it
was with the greatest difficulty that the King finally
obtained a coherent statement from his queen.

It seemed that when the Lady Maud had not returned
to the palace with Prince Richard at the proper time,
the Queen had been notified and an immediate search
had been instituted--a search which did not end for
over twenty years; but the first fruits of it turned the
hearts of the court to stone, for there beside the open
postern gate lay the dead bodies of Lady Maud and a
certain officer of the Guards, but nowhere was there a
sign or trace of Prince Richard, second son of Henry III
of England, and at that time the youngest prince of
the realm.


It was two days before the absence of De Vac was
noted, and then it was that one of the lords in waiting
to the King reminded his majesty of the episode of the
fencing bout, and a motive for the abduction of the
King's little son became apparent.

An edict was issued requiring the examination of
every child in England, for on the left breast of the little
Prince was a birthmark which closely resembled a lily,
and when after a year no child was found bearing such
a mark and no trace of De Vac uncovered, the search
was carried into France, nor was it ever wholly relin-
quished at any time for more than twenty years.

The first theory, of assassination, was quickly aban-
doned when it was subjected to the light of reason,
for it was evident that an assassin could have dispatched
the little Prince at the same time that he killed the Lady
Maud and her lover, had such been his desire.

The most eager factor in the search for Prince Richard
was Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, whose affec-
tion for his royal nephew had always been so marked
as to have been commented upon by the members of
the King's household.

Thus for a time the rupture between De Montfort
and his king was healed, and although the great noble-
man was divested of his authority in Gascony he suf-
fered little further oppression at the hands of his royal
master.











CHAPTER IV

AS De Vac drew his sword from the heart of the Lady
Maud he winced, for, merciless though he was, he had
shrunk from this cruel task.  Too far he had gone, how-
ever, to back down now, and, had he left the Lady
Maud alive, the whole of the palace guard and all the
city of London would have been on his heels in ten
minutes; there would have been no escape.

The little Prince was now so terrified that he could
but tremble and whimper in his fright.  So fearful was
he of the terrible De Vac that a threat of death easily
stilled his tongue, and so the grim, old man led him to
the boat hidden deep in the dense bushes.

De Vac did not dare remain in this retreat until dark,
as he had first intended.  Instead he drew a dingy,
ragged dress from the bundle beneath the thwart and
in this disguised himself as an old woman, drawing a
cotton wimple low over his head and forehead to hide
his short hair.  Concealing the child beneath the other
articles of clothing he pushed off from the bank, and,
rowing close to the shore, hastened down the Thames
toward the old dock where, the previous night, he had
concealed his skiff.  He reached his destination unno-
ticed, and, running in beneath the dock, worked the
boat far into the dark recess of the cave-like retreat.

Here he determined to hide until darkness had fallen,
for he knew that the search would be on for the little
lost Prince at any moment, and that none might traverse
the streets of London without being subject to the closest
scrutiny.

Taking advantage of the forced wait De Vac un-
dressed the Prince and clothed him in other garments,
which had been wrapped in the bundle hidden beneath
the thwart; a little red cotton tunic with hose to match,
a black doublet and a tiny leather jerkin and leather
cap.

The discarded clothing of the Prince he wrapped
about a huge stone torn from the disintegrating masonry
of the river wall, and consigned the bundle to the voice-
less river.

The Prince had by now regained some of his for-
mer assurance, and, finding that De Vac seemed not to
intend harming him, the little fellow commenced ques-
tioning his grim companion, his childish wonder at this
strange adventure getting the better of his former ap-
prehension.

"What do we here, Sir Jules?" he asked.  "Take me
back to the King's, my father's palace.  I like not this
dark hole nor the strange garments you have placed
upon me."

"Silence, boy!" commanded the old man.  "Sir Jules
be dead, nor are you a king's son.  Remember these
two things well, nor ever again let me hear you speak
the name Sir Jules, or call yourself a prince."

The boy went silent, again cowed by the fierce tone
of his captor.  Presently he began to whimper, for he
was tired and hungry and frightened--just a poor little
baby, helpless and hopeless in the hands of this cruel
enemy all his royalty as nothing, all gone with the
silken finery which lay in the thick mud at the bottom
of the Thames--and presently he dropped into a fitful
sleep in the bottom of the skiff.

When darkness had settled, De Vac pushed the skiff
outward to the side of the dock and gathering the sleep-
ing child in his arms stood listening, preparatory to
mounting to the alley which led to old Til's place.

As he stood thus a faint sound of clanking armor
came to his attentive ears; louder and louder it grew
until there could be no doubt but that a number of
men were approaching.

De Vac resumed his place in the skiff, and again
drew it far beneath the dock.  Scarcely had he done so
ere a party of armored knights and men-at-arms clanked
out upon the planks above him from the mouth of the
dark alley.  Here they stopped as though for consulta-
tion and plainly could the listener below hear every
word of their conversation.

"De Montfort," said one, "what thinkest thou of it?
Can it be that the Queen is right and that Richard lies
dead beneath these black waters?"

"No, De Clare," replied a deep voice, which De Vac
recognized as that of the Earl of Leicester.  "The hand
that could steal the Prince from out of the very gardens
of his sire without the knowledge of Lady Maud or her
companion, which must evidently have been the case,
could more easily and safely have dispatched him with-
in the gardens had that been the object of this strange
attack.  I think, My Lord, that presently we shall hear
from some bold adventurer who holds the little Prince
for ransom.  God give that such may be the case, for
of all the winsome and affectionate little fellows I
have ever seen, not even excepting mine own dear son,
the little Richard was the most to be beloved.  Would
that I might get my hands upon the foul devil who has
done this horrid deed."

Beneath the planks, not four feet from where Leices-
ter stood, lay the object of his search.  The clanking
armor, the heavy spurred feet, and the voices above
him had awakened the little Prince and with a startled
cry he sat upright in the bottom of the skiff.  Instantly
De Vac's iron band clapped over the tiny mouth, but
not before a single faint wail had reached the ears of
the men above.

"Hark! What was that, My Lord?" cried one of the
men-at-arms.

In tense silence they listened for a repetition of the
sound and then De Montfort cried out:

"What ho, below there! Who is it beneath the dock?
Answer, in the name of the King!"

Richard, recognizing the voice of his favorite uncle,
struggled to free himself, but De Vac's ruthless hand
crushed out the weak efforts of the babe, and all was
quiet as the tomb, while those above stood listening
for a repetition of the sound.

"Dock rats," said De Clare, and then as though the
devil guided them to protect his own, two huge rats
scurried upward from between the loose boards, and
ran squealing up the dark alley.

"Right you are," said De Montfort, "but I could have
sworn 'twas a child's feeble wail had I not seen the
two filthy rodents with mine own eyes.  Come, let us
to the next vile alley.  We have met with no success
here, though that old hag who called herself Til seemed
overanxious to bargain for the future information she
seemed hopeful of being able to give us."

As they moved off, their voices grew fainter in the
ears of the listeners beneath the dock and soon were
lost in the distance.

"A close shave," thought De Vac, as he again took up
the child and prepared to gain the dock.  No further
noises occurring to frighten him he soon reached the
door to Til's house and inserting the key crept noise-
lessly to the garret room which he had rented from his
ill-favored hostess.

There were no stairs from the upper floor to the
garret above, this ascent being made by means of a
wooden ladder which De Vac pulled up after him,
closing and securing the aperture, through which he
climbed with his burden, by means of a heavy trap-
door equipped with thick bars.

The apartment which they now entered extended
across the entire east end of the building, and had
windows upon three sides.  These were heavily cur-
tained.  The apartment was lighted by a small cresset
hanging from a rafter near the center of the room.

The walls were unplastered and the rafters un-
ceiled; the whole bearing a most barnlike and unhos-
pitable appearance.

In one corner was a huge bed, and across the room a
smaller cot; a cupboard, a table, and two benches com-
pleted the furnishings.  These articles De Vac had pur-
chased for the room against the time when he should
occupy it with his little prisoner.

On the table were a loaf of black bread, an earthen-
ware jar containing honey, a pitcher of milk and two
drinking horns.  To these De Vac immediately gave
his attention, commanding the child to partake of what
he wished.

Hunger for the moment overcame the little Prince's
fears, and he set to with avidity upon the strange, rough
fare, made doubly coarse by the rude utensils and the
bare surroundings, so unlike the royal magnificence of
his palace apartments.

While the child ate, De Vac hastened to the lower
floor of the building in search of Til whom he now
thoroughly mistrusted and feared.  The words of De
Montfort, which he had overheard at the dock, con-
vinced him that here was one more obstacle to the
fulfillment of his revenge which must be removed as
had the Lady Maud; but in this instance there was
neither youth nor beauty to plead the cause of the
intended victim, or to cause the grim executioner a pang
of remorse.

When he found the old hag she was already dressed
to go upon the street, in fact he intercepted her at the
very door of the building.  Still clad as he was in the
mantle and wimple of an old woman, Til did not, at
first, recognize him, and when he spoke she burst into
a nervous, cackling laugh, as one caught in the perpe-
tration of some questionable act, nor did her manner
escape the shrewd notice of the wily master of fence.

"Whither, old hag?" he asked.

"To visit Mag Tunk at the alley's end, by the river,
My Lord," she replied, with more respect than she had
been wont to accord him.

"Then I will accompany you part way, my friend,
and, perchance, you can give me a hand with some
packages I left behind me in the skiff I have moored
there."

And so the two walked together through the dark
alley to the end of the rickety, dismantled dock; the
one thinking of the vast reward the King would lavish
upon her for the information she felt sure she alone
could give; the other feeling beneath his mantle for the
hilt of a long dagger which nestled there.

As they reached the water's edge De Vac was walking
with his right shoulder behind his companion's left, in
his hand was gripped the keen blade and as the woman
halted on the dock the point that hovered just below
her left shoulder-blade plunged, soundless, into her
heart at the same instant that De Vac's left hand swung
up and grasped her throat in a grip of steel.

There was no sound, barely a struggle of the con-
vulsively stiffening old muscles, and then, with a push
from De Vac, the body lunged forward into the Thames,
where a dull splash marked the end of the last hope
that Prince Richard might be rescued from the clutches
of his Nemesis.











CHAPTER V

FOR three years following the disappearance of Prince
Richard a bent old woman lived in the heart of London
within a stone's throw of the King's palace.  In a small
back room she lived, high up in the attic of an old
building, and with her was a little boy who never went
abroad alone, nor by day.  And upon his left breast was
a strange mark which resembled a lily.  When the bent
old woman was safely in her attic room, with bolted
door behind her, she was wont to straighten up, and
discard her dingy mantle for more comfortable and
becoming doublet and hose.

For years she worked assiduously with the little boy's
education.  There were three subjects in her curriculum;
French, swordsmanship and hatred of all things Eng-
lish, especially the reigning house of England.

The old woman had had made a tiny foil and had
commenced teaching the little boy the art of fence
when he was but three years old.

"You will be the greatest swordsman in the world
when you are twenty, my son," she was wont to say,
"and then you shall go out and kill many Englishmen.
Your name shall be hated and cursed the length and
breadth of England, and when you finally stand with
the halter about your neck--a--ha, then will I speak.
Then shall they know."

The little boy did not understand it all, he only knew
that he was comfortable, and had warm clothing, and
all he required to eat, and that he would be a great
man when he learned to fight with a real sword, and
had grown large enough to wield one.  He also knew
that he hated Englishmen, but why, he did not know.

Way back in the uttermost recesses of his little, child-
ish head he seemed to remember a time when his life
and surroundings had been very different; when, in-
stead of this old woman, there had been many people
around him, and a sweet faced woman had held him
in her arms and kissed him, before he was taken off to
bed at night; but he could not be sure, maybe it was
only a dream he remembered, for he dreamed many
strange and wonderful dreams.

When the little boy was about six years of age a
strange man came to their attic home to visit the little
old woman.  It was in the dusk of the evening but the
old woman did not light the cresset, and further, she
whispered to the little boy to remain in the shadows
of a far corner of the bare chamber.

The stranger was old and bent and had a great beard
which hid almost his entire face except for two piercing
eyes, a great nose and a bit of wrinkled forehead.  When
he spoke he accompanied his words with many shrugs
of his narrow shoulders and with waving of his arms
and other strange and amusing gesticulations.  The child
was fascinated.  Here was the first amusement of his
little starved life.  He listened intently to the conversa-
tion, which was in French.

"I have just the thing for madame," the stranger
was saying.  "It be a noble and stately hall far from the
beaten way.  It was built in the old days by Harold the
Saxon, but in later times death and poverty and the
disfavor of the King have wrested it from his descend-
ants.  A few years since Henry granted it to that spend-
thrift favorite of his, Henri de Macy, who pledged it
to me for a sum he hath been unable to repay.  Today
it be my property, and as it be far from Paris you may
have it for the mere song I have named.  It be a won-
drous bargain, madame."

"And when I come upon it I shall find that I have
bought a crumbling pile of ruined masonry, unfit to
house a family of foxes," replied the old woman peev-
ishly.

"One tower hath fallen, and the roof for half the
length of one wing hath sagged and tumbled in," ex-
plained the old Frenchman.  "But the three lower stories
be intact and quite habitable.  It be much grander even
now than the castles of many of England's noble barons,
and the price, madame--ah, the price be so ridiculously
low."

Still the old woman hesitated.

"Come," said the Frenchman, "I have it.  Deposit the
money with Isaac the Jew--thou knowest him?--and
he shall hold it together with the deed for forty days,
which will give thee ample time to travel to Derby and
inspect thy purchase.  If thou be not entirely satisfied
Isaac the Jew shall return thy money to thee and the
deed to me, but if at the end of forty days thou hast not
made demand for thy money then shall Isaac send the
deed to thee and the money to me.  Be not this an easy
and fair way out of the difficulty?"

The little old woman thought for a moment and at
last conceded that it seemed quite a fair way to ar-
range the matter.  And thus it was accomplished.

Several days later the little old woman called the
child to her.

"We start tonight upon a long journey to our new
home.  Thy face shall be wrapped in many rags, for
thou hast a most grievous toothache.  Dost understand?"

"But I have no toothache.  My teeth do not pain
me at all.  I--" expostulated the child.

"Tut, tut," interrupted the little old woman.  "Thou
hast a toothache, and so thy face must be wrapped in
many rags.  And listen, should any ask thee upon the
way why thy face be so wrapped thou art to say that
thou hast a toothache.  And thou do not do as I say the
King's men will take us and we shall be hanged, for
the King hateth us.  If thou hatest the English King and
lovest thy life do as I command."

"I hate the King," replied the little boy.  "For this
reason I shall do as thou sayest."

So it was that they set out that night upon their long
journey north toward the hills of Derby.  For many
days they travelled, riding upon two small donkeys.
Strange sights filled the days for the little boy who
remembered nothing outside the bare attic of his Lon-
don home and the dirty London alleys that he had
traversed only by night.

They wound across beautiful parklike meadows and
through dark, forbidding forests, and now and again
they passed tiny hamlets of thatched huts.  Occasionally
they saw armored knights upon the highway, alone or
in small parties, but the child's companion always man-
aged to hasten into cover at the road side until the
grim riders had passed.

Once, as they lay in hiding in a dense wood beside
a little open glade across which the road wound, the
boy saw two knights enter the glade from either side.
For a moment they drew rein and eyed each other in
silence, and then one, a great black mailed knight upon
a black charger, cried out something to the other which
the boy could not catch.  The other knight made no
response other than to rest his lance upon his thigh and
with lowered point ride toward his ebon adversary.  For
a dozen paces their great steeds trotted slowly toward
one another but presently the knights urged them into
full gallop, and when the two iron men on their iron
trapped chargers came together in the center of the
glade it was with all the terrific impact of full charge.

The lance of the black knight smote full upon the
linden shield of his foeman, the staggering weight of
the mighty black charger hurtled upon the gray who
went down with his rider into the dust of the highway.
The momentum of the black carried him fifty paces
beyond the fallen horseman before his rider could rein
him in, then the black knight turned to view the havoc
he had wrought.  The gray horse was just staggering
dizzily to his feet, but his mailed rider lay quiet and
still where he had fallen.

With raised visor the black knight rode back to the
side of his vanquished foe.  There was a cruel smile
upon his lips as he leaned toward the prostrate form.
He spoke tauntingly, but there was no response, then
he prodded the fallen man with the point of his spear.
Even this elicited no movement.  With a shrug of his
iron clad shoulders the black knight wheeled and rode
on down the road until he had disappeared from sight
within the gloomy shadows of the encircling forest.

The little boy was spell-bound.  Naught like this had
he ever seen or dreamed.

"Some day thou shalt go and do likewise, my son,"
said the little old woman.

"Shall I be clothed in armor and ride upon a great
black steed?" he asked.

"Yes, and thou shalt ride the highways of England
with thy stout lance and mighty sword, and behind thee
thou shalt leave a trail of blood and death, for every
man shalt be thy enemy.  But come, we must be on our
way."

They rode on leaving the dead knight where he had
fallen, but always in his memory the child carried the
thing that he had seen, longing for the day when he
should be great and strong like the formidable black
knight.

On another day as they were biding in a deserted
hovel to escape the notice of a caravan of merchants
journeying up-country with their wares, they saw a
band of ruffians rush out from the concealing shelter
of some bushes at the far side of the highway and fall
upon the surprised and defenseless tradesmen.

Ragged, bearded, uncouth villains they were, armed
mostly with bludgeons and daggers, with here and
there a cross-bow.  Without mercy they attacked the old
and the young, beating them down in cold blood even
when they offered no resistance.  Those of the caravan
who could escaped, the balance the highwaymen left
dead or dying in the road, as they hurried away with
their loot.

At first the child was horror-struck, but when he
turned to the little old woman for sympathy he found
a grim smile upon her thin lips.  She noted his expres-
sion of dismay.

"It is naught, my son.  But English curs setting upon
English swine.  Some day thou shalt set upon both--
they be only fit for killing."

The boy made no reply, but he thought a great deal
about that which he had seen.  Knights were cruel to
knights--the poor were cruel to the rich--and every
day of the journey had forced upon his childish mind
that everyone must be very cruel and hard upon the
poor.  He had seen them in all their sorrow and misery
and poverty--stretching a long, scattering line all the
way from London town.  Their bent backs, their poor
thin bodies and their hopeless, sorrowful faces attest-
ing the weary wretchedness of their existence.

"Be no one happy in all the world?" he once broke
out to the old woman.

"Only he who wields the mightiest sword," responded
the old woman.  "You have seen, my son, that all Eng-
lishmen are beasts.  They set upon and kill one another
for little provocation or for no provocation at all.  When
thou shalt be older thou shalt go forth and kill them all
for unless thou kill them they will kill thee."

At length, after tiresome days upon the road, they
came to a little hamlet in the hills.  Here the donkeys
were disposed of and a great horse purchased, upon
which the two rode far up into a rough and uninviting
country away from the beaten track, until late one eve-
ning they approached a ruined castle.

The frowning walls towered high against the moonlit
sky beyond, and where a portion of the roof had fallen
in, the cold moon, shining through the narrow unglazed
windows, gave to the mighty pile the likeness of a huge,
many eyed ogre crouching upon the flank of a deserted
world, for nowhere was there other sign of habitation.

Before this somber pile the two dismounted.  The
little boy was filled with awe and his childish imagina-
tion ran riot as they approached the crumbling barbican
on foot, leading the horse after them.  From the dark
shadows of the ballium they passed into the moonlit
inner court.  At the far end the old woman found the
ancient stables, and here with decaying planks she
penned the horse for the night, pouring a measure of
oats upon the floor for him from a bag which had bung
across his rump.

Then she led the way into the dense shadows of the
castle, lighting their advance with a flickering pine
knot.  The old planking of the floors, long unused,
groaned and rattled beneath their approach.  There
was a sudden scamper of clawed feet before them, and
a red fox dashed by in a frenzy of alarm toward the
freedom of the outer night.

Presently they came to the great hall.  The old wo-
man pushed open the great doors upon their creaking
hinges and lit up dimly the mighty, cavernous interior
with the puny rays of their feeble torch.  As they
stepped cautiously within an impalpable dust arose in
little spurts from the long rotted rushes that crumbled
beneath their feet.  A huge bat circled wildly with loud
fluttering wings in evident remonstrance at this rude
intrusion.  Strange creatures of the night scurried or
wriggled across wall and floor.

But the child was unafraid.  Fear had not been a part
of the old woman's curriculum.  The boy did not know
the meaning of the word, nor was he ever in his after
life to experience the sensation.  With childish eagerness
he followed his companion as she inspected the in-
terior of the chamber.  It was still an imposing room.
The boy clapped his hands in delight at the beauties of
the carved and panelled walls and the oak beamed
ceiling, stained almost black from the smoke of torches
and oil cressets that had lighted it in bygone days,
aided, no doubt, by the wood fires which had burned
in its two immense fireplaces to cheer the merry throng
of noble revellers that had so often sat about the great
table into the morning hours.

Here they took up their abode.  But the bent, old
woman was no longer an old woman--she had become
a straight, wiry, active old man.

The little boy's education went on--French, swords-
manship and hatred of the English--the same thing
year after year with the addition of horsemanship after
he was ten years old.  At this time the old man com-
menced teaching him to speak English, but with a
studied and very marked French accent.  During all his
life now he could not remember of having spoken to
any living being other than his guardian, whom he had
been taught to address as father.  Nor did the boy have
any name--he was just "my son."

His life in the Derby hills was so filled with the hard,
exacting duties of his education that he had little time
to think of the strange loneliness of his existence; nor
is it probable that he missed that companionship of
others of his own age of which, never having had ex-
perience in it, he could scarce be expected to regret or
yearn for.

At fifteen the youth was a magnificent swordsman
and horseman, and with an utter contempt for pain or
danger--a contempt which was the result of the heroic
methods adopted by the little old man in the training
of him.  Often the two practiced with razor-sharp
swords, and without armor or other protection of any
description.

"Thus only," the old man was wont to say, "mayst
thou become the absolute master of thy blade.  Of such
a nicety must be thy handling of the weapon that thou
mayst touch an antagonist at will and so lightly,
shouldst thou desire, that thy point, wholly under the
control of a master hand, mayst be stopped before it
inflicts so much as a scratch."

But in practice there were many accidents, and
then one or both of them would nurse a punctured
skin for a few days.  So, while blood was often let on
both sides, the training produced a fearless swordsman
who was so truly the master of his point that he could
stop a thrust within a fraction of an inch of the spot he
sought.

At fifteen he was a very strong and straight and
handsome lad.  Bronzed and hardy from his outdoor life;
of few words, for there was none that he might talk
with save the taciturn old man; hating the English, for
that he was taught as thoroughly as swordsmanship;
speaking French fluently and English poorly--and wait-
ing impatiently for the day when the old man should
send him out into the world with clanking armor and
lance and shield to do battle with the knights of Eng-
land.

It was about this time that there occurred the first
important break in the monotony of his existence.  Far
down the rocky trail that led from the valley below
through the Derby hills to the ruined castle, three
armored knights urged their tired horses late one after-
noon of a chill autumn day.  Off the main road and far
from any habitation, they had espied the castle's towers
through a rift in the hills, and now they spurred toward
it in search of food and shelter.

As the road led them winding higher into the hills
they suddenly emerged upon the downs below the
castle where a sight met their eyes which caused them
to draw rein and watch in admiration.  There before
them upon the downs a boy battled with a lunging,
rearing horse--a perfect demon of a black horse.  Strik-
ing and biting in a frenzy of rage it sought ever to
escape or injure the lithe figure which clung leech-like
to its shoulder.

The boy was on the ground.  His left hand grasped
the heavy mane; his right arm lay across the beast's
withers and his right hand drew steadily in upon a
halter rope with which he had taken a half hitch about
the horse's muzzle.  Now the black reared and wheeled,
striking and biting, full upon the youth, but the active
figure swung with him--always just behind the giant
shoulder--and ever and ever he drew the great arched
neck farther and farther to the right.

As the animal plunged hither and thither in great
leaps he dragged the boy with him, but all his mighty
efforts were unavailing to loosen the grip upon mane
and withers.  Suddenly he reared straight into the air
carrying the youth with him, then with a vicious lunge
he threw himself backward upon the ground.

"It's death!" exclaimed one of the knights, "he will
kill the youth yet, Beauchamp."

"No!" cried he addressed.  "Look! He is up again and
the boy still clings as tightly to him as his own black
hide."

"'Tis true," exclaimed another, "but he hath lost what
he had gained upon the halter--he must needs fight
it all out again from the beginning."

And so the battle went on again as before, the boy
again drawing the iron neck slowly to the right--the
beast fighting and squealing as though possessed of a
thousand devils.  A dozen times as the head bent far-
ther and farther toward him the boy loosed his hold
upon the mane and reached quickly down to grasp the
near fore pastern.  A dozen times the horse shook off
the new hold, but at length the boy was successful, and
the knee was bent and the hoof drawn up to the elbow.

Now the black fought at a disadvantage, for he was
on but three feet and his neck was drawn about in an
awkward and unnatural position.  His efforts became
weaker and weaker.  The boy talked incessantly to him
in a quiet voice, and there was a shadow of a smile
upon his lips.  Now he bore heavily upon the black
withers pulling the horse toward him.  Slowly the beast
sank upon his bent knee--pulling backward until his off
fore leg was stretched straight before him.  Then with a
final surge the youth pulled him over upon his side, and
as he fell slipped prone beside him.  One sinewy hand
shot to the rope just beneath the black chin--the other
grasped a slim, pointed ear.

For a few minutes the horse fought and kicked to
gain his liberty, but with his head held to the earth he
was as powerless in the hands of the boy as a baby
would have been.  Then he sank panting and exhausted
into mute surrender.

"Well done!" cried one of the knights.  "Simon de
Montfort himself never mastered a horse in better or-
der, my boy.  Who be thou?"

In an instant the lad was upon his feet his eyes
searching for the speaker.  The horse, released, sprang
up also, and the two stood--the handsome boy and the
beautiful black--gazing with startled eyes, like two wild
things, at the strange intruder who confronted them.

"Come, Sir Mortimer!" cried the boy, and turning
he led the prancing but subdued animal toward the
castle and through the ruined barbican into the court
beyond.

"What ho, there, lad!" shouted Paul of Merely.  "We
wouldst not harm thee--come, we but ask the way to
the castle of De Stutevill."

The three knights listened but there was no answer.

"Come, Sir Knights," spoke Paul of Merely, "we will
ride within and learn what manner of churls inhabit
this ancient rookery."

As they entered the great courtyard, magnificent
even in its ruined grandeur, they were met by a little,
grim old man who asked them in no gentle tones what
they would of them there.

"We have lost our way in these devilish Derby hills
of thine, old man," replied Paul of Merely.  "We seek
the castle of Sir John de Stutevill."

"Ride down straight to the river road, keeping the
first trail to the right, and when thou hast come there
turn again to thy right and ride north beside the river--
thou canst not miss the way--it be plain as the nose
before thy face," and with that the old man turned to
enter the castle.

"Hold, old fellow!" cried the spokesman.  "It be nigh
onto sunset now, and we care not to sleep out again
this night as we did the last.  We will tarry with you
then till morn that we may take up our journey re-
freshed, upon rested steeds."

The old man grumbled, and it was with poor grace
that he took them in to feed and house them over night.
But there was nothing else for it, since they would have
taken his hospitality by force had he refused to give it
voluntarily.

From their guests the two learned something of the
conditions outside their Derby hills.  The old man
showed less interest than he felt, but to the boy, not-
withstanding that the names he heard meant nothing
to him, it was like unto a fairy tale to hear of the won-
drous doings of earl and baron, bishop and king.

"If the King does not mend his ways," said one of
the knights, "we will drive his whole accursed pack of
foreign blood-suckers into the sea."

"De Montfort has told him as much a dozen times,
and now that all of us, both Norman and Saxon barons,
have already met together and formed a pact for our
mutual protection the King must surely realize that the
time for temporizing be past, and that unless he would
have a civil war upon his hands he must keep the
promises he so glibly makes, instead of breaking them
the moment De Montfort's back be turned."

"He fears his brother-in-law," interrupted another of
the knights, "even more than the devil fears holy water.
I was in attendance on his majesty some weeks since
when he was going down the Thames upon the royal
barge.  We were overtaken by as severe a thunder storm
as I have ever seen, of which the King was in such
abject fear that he commanded that we land at the
Bishop of Durham's palace opposite which we then
were.  De Montfort, who was residing there, came to
meet Henry, with all due respect, observing, 'What do
you fear, now, Sire, the tempest has passed?' And what
thinkest thou old 'waxen heart' replied? Why, still trem-
bling, he said, 'I do indeed fear thunder and lightning
much, but, by the hand of God, I tremble before you
more than for all the thunder in Heaven!'"

"I surmise," interjected the grim, old man, "that De
Montfort has in some manner gained an ascendancy
over the King.  Think you he looks so high as the throne
itself?"

"Not so," cried the oldest of the knights.  "Simon de
Montfort works for England's weal alone--and methinks,
nay knowest, that he would be first to spring to arms
to save the throne for Henry.  He but fights the King's
rank and covetous advisers, and though he must needs
seem to defy the King himself, it be but to save his
tottering power from utter collapse.  But, gad, how the
King hates him.  For a time it seemed that there might
be a permanent reconciliation when, for years after the
disappearance of the little Prince Richard, De Mont-
fort devoted much of his time and private fortune to
prosecuting a search through all the world for the little
fellow, of whom he was inordinately fond.  This self-
sacrificing interest on his part won over the King and
Queen for many years, but of late his unremitting hos-
tility to their continued extravagant waste of the na-
tional resources has again hardened them toward him."

The old man, growing uneasy at the turn the con-
versation threatened, sent the youth from the room on
some pretext, and himself left to prepare supper.

As they were sitting at the evening meal one of the
nobles eyed the boy intently, for he was indeed good to
look upon; his bright handsome face, clear, intelligent
gray eyes, and square strong jaw framed in a mass of
brown waving hair banged at the forehead and falling
about his ears, where it was again cut square at the
sides and back, after the fashion of the times.

His upper body was clothed in a rough under tunic
of wool, stained red, over which he wore a short leath-
ern jerkin, while his doublet was also of leather, a soft
and finely tanned piece of undressed doeskin.  His long
hose, fitting his shapely legs as closely as another layer
of skin, were of the same red wool as his tunic, while
his strong leather sandals were cross-gartered half way
to his knees with narrow bands of leather.

A leathern girdle about his waist supported a sword
and a dagger and a round skull cap of the same materi-
al, to which was fastened a falcon's wing, completed
his picturesque and becoming costume.

"Your son?" he asked, turning to the old man.

"Yes," was the growling response.

"He favors you but little, old fellow, except in his
cursed French accent.

"'S blood, Beauchamp," he continued, turning to one
of his companions, "an' were he set down in court I
wager our gracious Queen would he hard put to it to
tell him from the young Prince Edward.  Dids't ever see
so strange a likeness?"

"Now that you speak of it, My Lord, I see it plainly.
It is indeed a marvel," answered Beauchamp.

Had they glanced at the old man during this colloquy
they would have seen a blanched face, drawn with
inward fear and rage.

Presently the oldest member of the party of three
knights spoke in a grave quiet tone.

"And how old might you be, my son?" he asked the
boy.

"I do not know."

"And your name?"

"I do not know what you mean.  I have no name.
My father calls me son and no other ever before ad-
dressed me."

At this juncture the old man arose and left the room,
saving he would fetch more food from the kitchen, but
he turned immediately he had passed the doorway and
listened from without.

"The lad appears about fifteen," said Paul of Merely,
lowering his voice, "and so would be the little lost
Prince Richard, if he lives.  This one does not know
his name, or his age, yet he looks enough like Prince
Edward to be his twin."

"Come, my son," he continued aloud, "open your
jerkin and let us have a look at your left breast, we
shall read a true answer there."

"Are you Englishmen?" asked the boy without mak-
ing a move to comply with their demand.

"That we be, my son," said Beauchamp.

"Then it were better that I die than do your bidding,
for all Englishmen are pigs and I loathe them as be-
comes a gentleman of France.  I do not uncover my
body to the eyes of swine."

The knights, at first taken back by this unexpected
outbreak, finally burst into uproarious laughter.

"Indeed," cried Paul of Merely, "spoken as one of
the King's foreign favorites might speak, and they ever
told the good God's truth.  But come lad, we would
not harm you--do as I bid."

"No man lives who can harm me while a blade hangs
at my side," answered the boy, "and as for doing as
you bid, I take orders from no man other than my
father."

Beauchamp and Greystoke laughed aloud at the dis-
comfiture of Paul of Merely, but the latter's face hard-
ened in anger, and without further words he strode
forward with outstretched hand to tear open the boy's
leathern jerkin, but met with the gleaming point of a
sword and a quick sharp, "En garde!" from the boy.

There was naught for Paul of Merely to do but
draw his own weapon, in self-defense, for the sharp
point of the boy's sword was flashing in and out against
his unprotected body, inflicting painful little jabs, and
the boy's tongue was murmuring low-toned taunts and
insults as it invited him to draw and defend himself
or be stuck "like the English pig you are."

Paul of Merely was a brave man and he liked not the
idea of drawing against this stripling, but he argued
that he could quickly disarm him without harming the
lad, and he certainly did not care to be further humili-
ated before his comrades.

But when he had drawn and engaged his youthful
antagonist he discovered that, far from disarming him,
he would have the devil's own job of it to keep from
being killed.

Never in all his long years of fighting had he faced
such an agile and dexterous enemy, and as they backed
this way and that about the room great beads of sweat
stood upon the brow of Paul of Merely, for he realized
that he was fighting for his life against a superior
swordsman.

The loud laughter of Beauchamp and Greystoke soon
subsided to grim smiles, and presently they looked on
with startled faces in which fear and apprehension were
dominant.

The boy was fighting as a cat might play with a
mouse.  No sign of exertion was apparent, and his
haughty confident smile told louder than words that he
had in no sense let himself out to his full capacity.

Around and around the room they circled, the boy
always advancing, Paul of Merely always retreating.
The din of their clashing swords and the heavy breath-
ing of the older man were the only sounds, except as
they brushed against a bench or a table.

Paul of Merely was a brave man, but he shuddered
at the thought of dying uselessly at the hands of a mere
boy.  He would not call upon his friends for aid, but
presently, to his relief, Beauchamp sprang between
them with drawn sword, crying "Enough, gentlemen,
enough! You have no quarrel.  Sheathe your swords."

But the boy's only response was, "En garde, cochon,"
and Beauchamp found himself taking the center of the
stage in the place of his friend.  Nor did the boy neglect
Paul of Merely, but engaged them both in swordplay
that caused the eyes of Greystoke to bulge from their
sockets.

So swiftly moved his flying blade that half the time
it was a sheet of gleaming light, and now he was driving
home his thrusts and the smile had frozen upon his
lips--grim and stern.

Paul of Merely and Beauchamp were wounded in a
dozen places when Greystoke rushed to their aid, and
then it was that a little, wiry, gray man leaped agilely
from the kitchen doorway, and with drawn sword took
his place beside the boy.  It was now two against
three and the three may have guessed, though they
never knew, that they were pitted against the two
greatest swordsmen in the world.

"To the death," cried the little gray man, "a mort,
mon fils." Scarcely had the words left his lips ere, as
though it had but waited permission, the boy's sword
flashed into the heart of Paul of Merely, and a Saxon
gentleman was gathered to his fathers.

The old man engaged Greystoke now, and the boy
turned his undivided attention to Beauchamp.  Both
these men were considered excellent swordsmen, but
when Beauchamp heard again the little gray man's
"a mort, mon fils," he shuddered, and the little hairs at
the nape of his neck rose up, and his spine froze, for
he knew that he had heard the sentence of death
passed upon him; for no mortal had yet lived who could
vanquish such a swordsman as he who now faced him.

As Beauchamp pitched forward across a bench, dead,
the little old man led Greystoke to where the boy
awaited him.

"They are thy enemies, my son, and to thee belongs
the pleasure of revenge; a mort, mon fils."

Greystoke was determined to sell his life dearly, and
he rushed the lad as a great bull might rush a teasing
dog, but the boy gave back not an inch and when
Greystoke stopped there was a foot of cold steel pro-
truding from his back.

Together they buried the knights at the bottom of the
dry moat at the back of the ruined castle.  First they
had stripped them, and when they took account of
the spoils of the combat they found themselves richer
by three horses with full trappings, many pieces of gold
and silver money, ornaments and jewels, as well as the
lances, swords and chain mail armor of their erstwhile
guests.

But the greatest gain, the old man thought to him-
self, was that the knowledge of the remarkable resem-
blance between his ward and Prince Edward of Eng-
land had come to him in time to prevent the undoing
of his life's work.

The boy, while young, was tall and broad shouldered,
and so the old man had little difficulty in fitting one of
the suits of armor to him, obliterating the devices so
that none might guess to whom it had belonged.  This
he did, and from then on the boy never rode abroad
except in armor, and when he met others upon the high
road his visor was always lowered that none might see
his face.

The day following the episode of the three knights
the old man called the boy to him, saying,

"It is time, my son, that thou learned an answer to
such questions as were put to thee yestereve by the
pigs of Henry.  Thou art fifteen years of age, and thy
name be Norman, and so, as this be the ancient castle
of Torn, thou mayst answer those whom thou desire to
know it that thou art Norman of Torn; that thou be a
French gentleman whose father purchased Torn and
brought thee hither from France on the death of thy
mother, when thou wert six years old.

"But remember, Norman of Torn, that the best an-
swer for an Englishman is the sword; naught else may
penetrate his thick wit."

And so was born that Norman of Torn whose name
in a few short years was to strike terror to the hearts
of Englishmen, and whose power in the vicinity of
Torn was greater than that of the King or the barons.











CHAPTER VI

FROM now on the old man devoted himself to the
training of the boy in the handling of his lance and
battle-axe, but each day also a period was allotted to
the sword, until, by the time the youth had turned six-
teen, even the old man himself was as but a novice
by comparison with the marvelous skill of his pupil.

During these days the boy rode Sir Mortimer abroad
in many directions until he knew every bypath within
a radius of fifty miles of Torn.  Sometimes the old man
accompanied him, but more often he rode alone.

On one occasion he chanced upon a hut at the out-
skirts of a small hamlet not far from Torn, and, with
the curiosity of boyhood, determined to enter and have
speech with the inmates, for by this time the natural
desire for companionship was commencing to assert it-
self.  In all his life he remembered only the company
of the old man, who never spoke except when necessity
required.

The hut was occupied by an old priest, and as the
boy in armor pushed in, without the usual formality
of knocking the old man looked up with an expression
of annoyance and disapproval.

"What now," he said, "have the King's men respect
neither for piety nor age that they burst in upon the
seclusion of a holy man without so much as a 'by your
leave'?"

"I am no king's man," replied the boy quietly, "I am
Norman of Torn, who has neither a king nor a god,
and who says 'by your leave' to no man.  But I have
come in peace because I wish to talk to another than
my father.  Therefore you may talk to me, priest," he
concluded with haughty peremptoriness.

"By the nose of John, but it must be a king has
deigned to honor me with his commands," laughed the
priest.  "Raise your visor, My Lord, I would fain look
upon the countenance from which issue the commands
of royalty."

The priest was a large man with beaming, kindly
eyes, and a round jovial face.  There was no bite in
the tones of his good-natured retort, and so, smiling,
the boy raised his visor.

"By the ear of Gabriel," cried the good father, "a
child in armor!"

"A child in years, mayhap," replied the boy, "but a
good child to own as a friend, if one has enemies who
wear swords."

"Then we shall be friends, Norman of Torn, for albeit
I have few enemies no man has too many friends, and
I like your face and your manner, though there be
much to wish for in your manners.  Sit down and eat
with me, and I will talk to your heart's content, for be
there one other thing I more love than eating, it is
talking."

With the priest's aid the boy laid aside his armor, for
it was heavy and uncomfortable, and together the two
sat down to the meal that was already partially on the
board.

Thus began a friendship which lasted during the
lifetime of the good priest.  Whenever he could do so
Norman of Torn visited his friend, Father Claude.  It
was he who taught the boy to read and write in French,
English and Latin at a time when but few of the nobles
could sign their own names.

French was spoken almost exclusively at court and
among the higher classes of society, and all public docu-
ments were inscribed either in French or Latin, al-
though about this time the first proclamation written in
the English tongue was issued by an English king to
his subjects.

Father Claude taught the boy to respect the rights
of others, to espouse the cause of the poor and weak, to
revere God and to believe that the principal reason for
man's existence was to protect woman.  All of virtue
and chivalry and true manhood which his old guardian
had neglected to inculcate in the boy's mind the good
priest planted there, but he could not eradicate his
deep-seated hatred for the English or his belief that
the real test of manhood lay in a desire to fight to
the death with a sword.

An occurrence which befell during one of the boy's
earlier visits to his new friend rather decided the latter
that no arguments he could bring to bear could ever
overcome the bald fact that to this very belief of the
boy's, and his ability to back it up with acts, the good
father owed a great deal, possibly his life.

As they were seated in the priest's hut one afternoon
a rough knock fell upon the door which was immedi-
ately pushed open to admit as disreputable a band of
ruffians as ever polluted the sight of man.  Six of them
there were, clothed in dirty leather, and wearing swords
and daggers at their sides.

The leader was a mighty fellow with a great shock
of coarse black hair and a red, bloated face almost con-
cealed by a huge matted black beard.  Behind him
pushed another giant with red hair and a bristling
mustache; while the third was marked by a terrible scar
across his left cheek and forehead and from a blow
which had evidently put out his left eye, for that socket
was empty, and the sunken eyelid but partly covered
the inflamed red of the hollow where his eye had been.

"A ha, my hearties," roared the leader, turning to his
motley crew, "fine pickings here indeed.  A swine of
God fattened upon the sweat of such poor honest
devils as we, and a young shoat who, by his looks, must
have pieces of gold in his belt.

"Say your prayers, my pigeons," he continued, with
a vile oath, "for The Black Wolf leaves no evidence
behind him to tie his neck with a halter later, and dead
men talk the least."

"If it be The Black Wolf," whispered Father Claude
to the boy, "no worse fate could befall us for he preys
ever upon the clergy, and when drunk as he now is,
he murders his victims.  I will throw myself before them
while you hasten through the rear doorway to your
horse, and make good your escape." He spoke in French,
and held his hands in the attitude of prayer, so that
he quite entirely misled the ruffians, who had no idea
that he was communicating with the boy.

Norman of Torn could scarce repress a smile at this
clever ruse of the old priest, and, assuming a similar
attitude, he replied in French:

"The good Father Claude does not know Norman of
Torn if he thinks he runs out the back door like an
old woman because a sword looks in at the front door."

Then rising he addressed the ruffians.

"I do not know what manner of grievance you hold
against my good friend here, nor neither do I care.  It
is sufficient that he is the friend of Norman of Torn,
and that Norman of Torn be here in person to acknowl-
edge the debt of friendship.  Have at you, sir knights of
the great filth and the mighty stink!" and with drawn
sword he vaulted over the table and fell upon the sur-
prised leader.

In the little room but two could engage him at once,
but so fiercely did his blade swing and so surely did he
thrust that in a bare moment The Black Wolf lay dead
upon the floor and the red  giant, Shandy, was badly
though not fatally wounded.  The four remaining ruffi-
ans backed quickly from the hut, and a more cautious
fighter would have let them go their way in peace, for
in the open four against one are odds no man may pit
himself against with impunity.  But Norman of Torn saw
red when he fought and the red lured him ever on
into the thickest of the fray.  Only once before had he
fought to the death, but that once had taught him the
love of it, and ever after until his death it marked his
manner of fighting; so that men who loathed and hated
and feared him were as one with those who loved him
in acknowledging that never before had God joined
in the human frame absolute supremacy with the sword
and such utter fearlessness.

So it was, now, that instead of being satisfied with
his victory he rushed out after the four knaves.  Once
in the open, they turned upon him, but he sprang
into their midst with his seething blade, and it was as
though they faced four men rather than one, so quickly
did he parry a thrust here and return a cut there.  In a
moment one was disarmed, another down, and the
remaining two fleeing for their lives toward the high
road with Norman of Torn close at their heels.

Young, agile and perfect in health he outclassed them
in running as well as in swordsmanship, and ere they
had made fifty paces both had thrown away their
swords and were on their knees pleading for their lives.

"Come back to the good priest's hut, and we shall
see what he may say," replied Norman of Torn.

On the way back they found the man who had been
disarmed bending over his wounded comrade.  They
were brothers, named Flory, and one would not desert
the other.  It was evident that the wounded man was
in no danger, so Norman of Torn ordered the others
to assist him into the hut, where they found Red Shandy
sitting propped against the wall while the good father
poured the contents of a flagon down his eager throat.

The villain's eyes fairly popped from his head when
he saw his four comrades coming, unarmed and prison-
ers, back to the little room.

"The Black Wolf dead, Red Shandy and John Flory
wounded, James Flory, One Eye Kanty and Peter the
Hermit prisoners!" he ejaculated.

"Man or devil! By the Pope's hind leg, who and
what be ye?" he said, turning to Norman of Torn.

"I be your master and ye be my men," said Norman
of Torn.  "Me ye shall serve in fairer work than ye
have selected for yourselves, but with fighting a plenty
and good reward."

The sight of this gang of ruffians banded together to
prey upon the clergy had given rise to an idea in the
boy's mind, which had been revolving in a nebulous
way within the innermost recesses of his subconscious-
ness since his vanquishing of the three knights had
brought him, so easily, such riches in the form of horses,
arms, armor and gold.  As was always his wont in his
after life, to think was to act.

"With The Black Wolf dead, and may the devil pull
out his eyes with red hot tongs, we might look farther
and fare worse, mates, in search of a chief," spoke Red
Shandy, eyeing his fellows, "for verily any man, be he
but a stripling, who can vanquish six such as we, be
fit to command us."

"But what be the duties?" said he whom they called
Peter the Hermit.

"To follow Norman of Torn where he may lead, to
protect the poor and the weak, to lay down your lives
in defence of woman, and to prey upon rich Englishmen
and harass the King of England."

The last two clauses of these articles of faith ap-
pealed to the ruffians so strongly that they would have
subscribed to anything, even daily mass, and a bath,
had that been necessary to admit them to the service
of Norman of Torn.

"Aye, aye!" they cried.  "We be your men indeed."

"Wait," said Norman of Torn, "there is more.  You
are to obey my every command on pain of instant death,
and one-half of all your gains are to be mine.  On my
side I will clothe and feed you, furnish you with mounts
and armor and weapons and a roof to sleep under, and
fight for and with you with a sword arm which you
know to be no mean protector.  Are you satisfied?"

"That we are," and "Long live Norman of Torn,"
and "Here's to the chief of the Torns" signified the
ready assent of the burly cut-throats.

"Then swear it as ye kiss the hilt of my sword and
this token," pursued Norman of Torn catching up a
crucifix from the priest's table.

With these formalities was born the Clan Torn, which
grew in a few years to number a thousand men, and
which defied a king's army and helped to make Simon
de Montfort virtual ruler of England.

Almost immediately commenced that series of out-
law acts upon neighboring barons, and chance members
of the gentry who happened to be caught in the open
by the outlaws, that filled the coffers of Norman of
Torn with many pieces of gold and silver, and placed
a price upon his head ere he had scarce turned eighteen.

That he had no fear of or desire to avoid responsi-
bility for his acts he grimly evidenced by marking with
a dagger's point upon the foreheads of those who fell
before his own sword the initials NT.

As his following and wealth increased he rebuilt and
enlarged the grim Castle of Torn, and again dammed
the little stream which had furnished the moat with
water in bygone days.

Through all the length and breadth of the country
that witnessed his activities his very name was wor-
shipped by poor and lowly and oppressed.  The money
he took from the King's tax gatherers he returned to
the miserable peasants of the district, and once when
Henry III sent a little expedition against him he sur-
rounded and captured the entire force, and, stripping
them, gave their clothing to the poor, and escorted
them naked back to the very gates of London.

By the time he was twenty Norman the Devil, as the
King himself had dubbed him, was known by reputa-
tion throughout all England, though no man had seen
his face and lived, other than his friends and followers.
He bad become a power to reckon with in the fast
culminating quarrel between King Henry and his for-
eign favorites on one side, and the Saxon and Norman
barons on the other.

Neither side knew which way his power might be
turned, for Norman of Torn had preyed almost equally
upon royalist and insurgent.  Personally, he had decided
to join neither party, but to take advantage of the tur-
moil of the times to prey without partiality upon both.


As Norman of Torn approached his grim castle home
with his five filthy ragged cut-throats on the day of his
first meeting with them, the old man of Torn stood
watching the little party from one of the small towers
of the barbican.

Halting beneath this outer gate, the youth winded
the horn which hung at his side in mimicry of the
custom of the times.

"What ho, without there!" challenged the old man
entering grimly into the spirit of the play.

"'Tis Sir Norman of Torn," spoke up Red Shandy,
"with his great host of noble knights and men-at-arms
and squires and lackeys and sumpter beasts.  Open in
the name of the good right arm of Sir Norman of Torn."

"What means this, my son?" said the old man as
Norman of Torn dismounted within the ballium.

The youth narrated the events of the morning, con-
cluding with, "These, then, be my men, father; and
together we shall fare forth upon the highways and
into the byways of England, to collect from the rich
English pigs that living which you have ever taught me
was owing us."

"'Tis well, my son, and even as I myself would have
it; together we shall ride out, and where we ride a
trail of blood shall mark our way.

"From now, henceforth, the name and fame of Nor-
man of Torn shall grow in the land, until even the King
shall tremble when he hears it, and shall hate and
loathe ye as I have even taught ye to hate and loathe
him.

"All England shall curse ye and the blood of Saxon
and Norman shall never dry upon your blade."

As the old man walked away toward the great gate
of the castle after this outbreak, Shandy, turning to
Norman of Torn, with a wide grin, said:

"By the Pope's hind leg, but thy amiable father loveth
the English.  There should be great riding after such as
he."

"Ye ride after ME, varlet," cried Norman of Torn, "an'
lest ye should forget again so soon who be thy master,
take that, as a reminder," and he struck the red giant
full upon the mouth with his clenched fist--so that the
fellow tumbled heavily to the earth.

He was on his feet in an instant, spitting blood, and
in a towering rage.  As he rushed, bull-like, toward
Norman of Torn, the latter made no move to draw;
he but stood with folded arms, eyeing Shandy with cold,
level gaze; his head held high, haughty face marked
by an arrogant sneer of contempt.

The great ruffian paused, then stopped, slowly a
sheepish smile overspread his countenance and going
upon one knee he took the hand of Norman of Torn and
kissed it, as some great and loyal noble knight might
have kissed his king's hand in proof of his love and
fealty.  There was a certain rude, though chivalrous
grandeur in the act; and it marked not only the begin-
ning of a lifelong devotion and loyalty on the part of
Shandy toward his young master, but was prophetic of
the attitude which Norman of Torn was to inspire in
all the men who served him during the long years that
saw thousands pass the barbicans of Torn to crave a
position beneath his grim banner.

As Shandy rose, one by one, John Flory, James, his
brother, One Eye Kanty, and Peter the Hermit knelt
before their young lord and kissed his hand.  From the
Great Court beyond a little, grim, gray, old man had
watched this scene, a slight smile upon his old, mali-
cious face.

"'Tis to transcend even my dearest dreams," he
muttered.  "'S death, but he be more a king than Henry
himself.  God speed the day of his coronation, when,
before the very eyes of the Plantagenet hound, a black
cap shall be placed upon his head for a crown; beneath
his feet the platform of a wooden gibbet for a throne."











CHAPTER VII

IT WAS a beautiful spring day in May, 1262, that Nor-
man of Torn rode alone down the narrow trail that led
to the pretty cottage with which he had replaced the
hut of his old friend Father Claude.

As was his custom he rode with lowered visor, and
nowhere upon his person or upon the trappings of his
horse were sign or insignia of rank or house.  More
powerful and richer than many nobles of the court he
was without rank or other title than that of outlaw and
he seemed to assume what in reality he held in little
esteem.

He wore armor because his old guardian bad urged
him to do so, and not because he craved the protection
it afforded.  And for the same cause he rode always
with lowered visor, though he could never prevail upon
the old man to explain the reason which necessitated
this precaution.

"It is enough that I tell you, my son," the old fellow
was wont to say, "that for your own good as well as
mine you must not show your face to your enemies
until I so direct.  The time will come and soon now,
I hope, when you shall uncover your countenance to
all England."

The young man gave the matter but little thought,
usually passing it off as the foolish whim of an old
dotard; but he humored it nevertheless.

Behind him, as he rode down the steep declivity
that day, loomed a very different Torn from that which
he had approached sixteen years before, when, as a
little boy he had ridden through the darkening shadows
of the night, perched upon a great horse behind the
little old woman, whose metamorphosis to the little grim,
gray, old man of Torn their advent to the castle had
marked.

Today the great, frowning pile loomed larger and
more imposing than ever in the most resplendent days
of its past grandeur.  The original keep was there with
its huge buttressed Saxon towers whose mighty fifteen
foot walls were pierced with stairways and vaulted
chambers, lighted by embrasures which, mere slits in the
outer periphery of the walls, spread to larger dimen-
sions within, some even attaining the area of small
triangular chambers.

The moat, widened and deepened, completely en-
circled three sides of the castle, running between the
inner and outer walls, which were set at intervals with
small projecting towers so pierced that a flanking fire
from long bows, cross bows and javelins might be di-
rected against a scaling party.

The fourth side of the walled enclosure overhung a
high precipice, which natural protection rendered tow-
ers unnecessary upon this side.

The main gateway of the castle looked toward the
west and from it ran the tortuous and rocky trail, down
through the mountains toward the valley below.  The
aspect from the great gate was one of quiet and rugged
beauty.  A short stretch of barren downs in the fore-
ground only sparsely studded with an occasional gnarled
oak gave an unobstructed view of broad and lovely
meadow-land through which wound a sparkling tribu-
tary of the Trent.

Two more gateways let into the great fortress, one
piercing the north wall and one the east.  All three
gates were strongly fortified with towered and but-
tressed barbicans which must be taken before the main
gates could be reached.  Each barbican was portcullised,
while the inner gates were similarly safeguarded in
addition to the drawbridges which, spanning the moat
when lowered, could be drawn up at the approach of
an enemy, effectually stopping his advance.

The new towers and buildings added to the ancient
keep under the direction of Norman of Torn and the
grim, old man whom he called father, were of the Nor-
man type of architecture, the windows were larger, the
carving more elaborate, the rooms lighter and more
spacious.

Within the great enclosure thrived a fair sized town,
for, with his ten hundred fighting-men, the Outlaw of
Torn required many squires, lackeys, cooks, scullions,
armorers, smithies, farriers, hostlers and the like to care
for the wants of his little army.

Fifteen hundred war horses, beside five hundred
sumpter beasts, were quartered in the great stables,
while the east court was alive with cows, oxen, goats,
sheep, pigs, rabbits and chickens.

Great wooden carts drawn by slow, plodding oxen
were daily visitors to the grim pile, fetching provender
for man and beast from the neighboring farm lands of
the poor Saxon peasants to whom Norman of Torn paid
good gold for their crops.

These poor serfs, who were worse than slaves to the
proud barons who owned the land they tilled, were for-
bidden by royal edict to sell or give a pennysworth of
provisions to the Outlaw of Torn, upon pain of death,
but nevertheless his great carts made their trips regu-
larly and always returned full laden, and though the
husbandmen told sad tales to their overlords of the
awful raids of the Devil of Torn in which he seized
upon their stuff by force, their tongues were in their
cheeks as they spoke and the Devil's gold in their pock-
ets.

And so, while the barons learned to hate him the
more, the peasants' love for him increased.  Them he
never injured; their fences, their stock, their crops, their
wives and daughters were safe from molestation even
though the neighboring castle of their lord might be
sacked from the wine cellar to the ramparts of the
loftiest tower.  Nor did anyone dare ride rough shod
over the territory which Norman of Torn patrolled.  A
dozen bands of cut-throats he had driven from the Der-
by hills, and though the barons would much rather
have had all the rest than he, the peasants worshipped
him as a deliverer from the lowborn murderers who had
been wont to despoil the weak and lowly and on whose
account the women of the huts and cottages had never
been safe.

Few of them had seen his face and fewer still had
spoken with him, but they loved his name and his
prowess and in secret they prayed for him to their
ancient god Wodin and the lesser gods of the forest
and the meadow and the chase, for though they were
confessed Christians, still in the hearts of many beat
a faint echo of the old superstitions of their ancestors;
and while they prayed also to the Lord Jesus and to
Mary, yet they felt it could do no harm to be on the
safe side with the others, in case they did happen to
exist.

A poor, degraded, downtrodden, ignorant, supersti-
tious people, they were; accustomed for generations to
the heel of first one invader and then another and in
the interims, when there were any, the heels of their
feudal lords and their rapacious monarchs.

No wonder then that such as these worshipped the
Outlaw of Torn, for since their fierce Saxon ancestors
had come, themselves as conquerors, to England no
other hand had ever been raised to shield them from
oppression.

On this policy of his toward the serfs and freedmen
Norman of Torn and the grim, old man whom he
called father had never agreed.  The latter was for
carrying his war of hate against all Englishmen, but
the young man would neither listen to it, nor allow any
who rode out from Torn to molest the lowly.  A ragged
tunic was a surer defence against this wild horde than
a stout lance or an emblazoned shield.

So, as Norman of Torn rode down from his mighty
castle to visit Father Claude, the sunlight playing on his
clanking armor and glancing from the copper boss of
his shield, the sight of a little group of woodmen kneel-
ing uncovered by the roadside as he passed was not
so remarkable after all.

Entering the priest's study, Norman of Torn removed
his armor and lay back moodily upon a bench with his
back against a wall and his strong, lithe legs stretched
out before him.

"What ails you, my son?" asked the priest, "that
you look so disconsolate on this beautiful day?"

"I do not know, Father," replied Norman of Torn,
"unless it be that I am asking myself the question,
'What it is all for?' Why did my father train me ever
to prey upon my fellows? I like to fight, but there is
plenty of fighting which is legitimate, and what good
may all my stolen wealth avail me if I may not enter
the haunts of men to spend it? Should I stick my head
into London town it would doubtless stay there, held
by a hempen necklace.

"What quarrel have I with the King or the gentry?
They have quarrel enough with me it is true, but, nath-
less, I do not know why I should have hated them so
before I was old enough to know how rotten they really
are.  So it seems to me that I am but the instrument
of an old man's spite, not even knowing the grievance
to the avenging of which my life has been dedicated
by another.

"And at times, Father Claude, as I grow older, I doubt
much that the nameless old man of Torn is my father,
so little do I favor him, and never in all my life have
I heard a word of fatherly endearment or felt a caress,
even as a little child.  What think you, Father Claude?"

"I have thought much of it, my son," answered the
priest.  "It has ever been a sore puzzle to me, and I
have my suspicions, which I have held for years, but
which even the thought of so frightens me that I shud-
der to speculate upon the consequences of voicing
them aloud.  Norman of Torn, if you are not the son of
the old man you call father may God forfend that Eng-
land ever guesses your true parentage.  More than this
I dare not say except that as you value your peace of
mind and your life, keep your visor down and keep
out of the clutches of your enemies."

"Then you know why I should keep my visor down?"

"I can only guess, Norman of Torn, because I have
seen another whom you resemble."

The conversation was interrupted by a commotion
from without; the sound of horses' hoofs, the cries of
men and the clash of arms.  In an instant both men
were at the tiny unglazed window.  Before them on the
highroad five knights in armor were now engaged in
furious battle with a party of ten or a dozen other steel-
clad warriors, while crouching breathless on her palfry
a young woman sat a little apart from the contestants.

Presently one of the knights detached himself from
the melee and rode to her side with some word of com-
mand, at the same time grasping roughly at her bridle
rein.  The girl raised her riding whip and struck repeat-
edly but futilely against the iron headgear of her assail-
ant while he swung his horse up the road, and, drag-
ging her palfrey after him, galloped rapidly out of
sight.

Norman of Torn sprang to the door, and, reckless of
his unarmored condition, leaped to Sir Mortimer's back
and spurred swiftly in the direction taken by the girl
and her abductor.

The great black was fleet, and, unencumbered by the
usual heavy armor of his rider, soon brought the fugi-
tives to view.  Scarce a mile had been covered ere the
knight, turning to look for pursuers, saw the face of
Norman of Torn not ten paces behind him.

With a look of mingled surprise, chagrin and incredu-
lity the knight reined in his horse, exclaiming as he
did so, "Mon Dieu, Edward!"

"Draw and defend yourself," cried Norman of Torn.

"But, Your Highness," stammered the knight.

"Draw, or I stick you as I have stuck an hundred
other English pigs," cried Norman of Torn.

The charging steed was almost upon him and the
knight looked to see the rider draw rein, but like a
black bolt the mighty Sir Mortimer struck the other
horse full upon the shoulder, and man and steed rolled
in the dust of the roadway.

The knight arose, unhurt, and Norman of Torn dis-
mounted to give fair battle upon even terms.  Though
handicapped by the weight of his armor the knight also
had the advantage of its protection, so that the two
fought furiously for several minutes without either gain-
ing an advantage.

The girl sat motionless and wide-eyed at the side of
the road watching every move of the two contestants.
She made no effort to escape, but seemed riveted to
the spot by the very fierceness of the battle she was
beholding, as well, possibly, as by the fascination of the
handsome giant who had espoused her cause.  As she
looked upon her champion she saw a lithe, muscular,
brown-haired youth whose clear eyes and perfect fig-
ure, unconcealed by either bassinet or hauberk, re-
flected the clean, athletic life of the trained fighting
man.

Upon his face hovered a faint, cold smile of haughty
pride as the sword arm, displaying its mighty strength
and skill in every move, played with the sweating,
puffing, steel-clad enemy who hacked and hewed so
futilely before him.  For all the din of clashing blades
and rattling armor, neither of the contestants had in-
flicted much damage, for the knight could neither force
nor insinuate his point beyond the perfect guard of his
unarmored foe, who, for his part, found difficulty in
penetrating the other's armor.

Finally by dint of his mighty strength, Norman of
Torn drove his blade through the meshes of his adver-
sary's mail, and the fellow with a cry of anguish sank
limply to the ground.

"Quick, Sir Knight!" cried the girl.  "Mount and flee;
yonder come his fellows."

And surely, as Norman of Torn turned in the direc-
tion from which he had just come, there, racing toward
him at full tilt, rode three steel-armored men on their
mighty horses.

"Ride, madam," cried Norman of Torn, "for fly I
shall not, nor may I, alone, unarmored, and on foot
hope more than to momentarily delay these three fel-
lows, but in that time you should easily make your
escape--their heavy burdened animals could never
o'ertake your fleet palfrey."

As he spoke he took note for the first time of the
young woman.  That she was a lady of quality was
evidenced not alone by the richness of her riding ap-
parel and the trappings of her palfrey, but as well in
her noble and haughty demeanor and the proud ex-
pression of her beautiful face.

Although at this time nearly twenty years had passed
over the head of Norman of Torn he was without knowl-
edge or experience in the ways of women, nor had he
ever spoken with a female of quality or position.  No
woman graced the castle of Torn nor had the boy,
within his memory, ever known a mother.

His attitude therefore was much the same toward
women as it was toward men, except that he had sworn
always to protect them.  Possibly in a way he looked
up to womankind, if it could be said that Norman of
Torn looked up to anything: God, man or devil.  It
being more his way to look down upon all creatures
whom he took the trouble to notice at all.

As his glance rested upon this woman, whom fate
had destined to alter the entire course of his life, Nor-
man of Torn saw that she was beautiful, and that she
was of that class against whom he had preyed for
years with his band of outlaw cut-throats.  Then he
turned once more to face her enemies with the strange
inconsistency which had ever marked his methods.

Tomorrow he might be assaulting the ramparts of
her father's castle, but today he was joyously offering
to sacrifice his life for her--had she been the daughter
of a charcoal burner he would have done no less--it
was enough that she was a woman and in need of pro-
tection.

The three knights were now fairly upon him, and
with fine disregard for fair play charged with couched
spears the unarmored man on foot.  But as the leading
knight came close enough to behold his face, he cried
out in surprise and consternation:

"Mon Dieu, le Prince!"  He wheeled his charging
horse to one side.  His fellows, hearing his cry, followed
his example, and the three of them dashed on down
the high road in as evident anxiety to escape as they
had been keen to attack.

"One would think they had met the devil," muttered
Norman of Torn, looking after them in unfeigned aston-
ishment.

"What means it, lady?" he asked turning to the dam-
sel, who had made no move to escape.

"It means that your face is well known in your fath-
er's realm, my Lord Prince," she replied.  "And the King's
men have no desire to antagonize you even though
they may understand as little as I why you should
espouse the cause of a daughter of Simon de Montfort."

"Am I then taken for Prince Edward of England?"
he asked.

"An' who else should you be taken for, my Lord?"

"I am not the Prince," said Norman of Torn.  "It is
said that Edward is in France."

"Right you are, sir,"    exclaimed the girl.  "I had not
thought on that; but you be enough of his likeness that
you might well deceive the Queen herself.  And you
be of a bravery fit for a king's son.  Who are you then,
Sir Knight, who has bared your steel and faced death
for Bertrade, daughter of Simon de Montfort, Earl of
Leicester?"

"Be you De Montfort's daughter, niece of King
Henry?" queried Norman of Torn, his eyes narrowing
to mere slits and face hardening.

"That I be," replied the girl, "an' from your face I
take it you have little love for a De Montfort," she
added, smiling.

"An' whither may you be bound, Lady Bertrade de
Montfort?  Be you niece or daughter of the devil, yet
still you be a woman, and I do not war against women.
Wheresoever you would go will I accompany you to
safety."

"I was but now bound, under escort of five of my
father's knights, to visit Mary, daughter of John de
Stutevill of Derby."

"I know the castle well," answered Norman of Torn,
and the shadow of a grim smile played about his lips,
for scarce sixty days had elapsed since he had reduced
the stronghold, and levied tribute on the great baron.
"Come, you have not far to travel now, and if we make
haste you shall sup with your friend before dark."

So saying, he mounted his horse and was turning to
retrace their steps down the road when he noticed the
body of the dead knight lying where it had fallen.

"Ride on," he called to Bertrade de Montfort, "I will
join you in an instant."

Again dismounting he returned to the side of his late
adversary, and lifting the dead knight's visor drew upon
the forehead with the point of his dagger the letters NT.

The girl turned to see what detained him, but his
back was toward her and he knelt beside his fallen foe-
man, and she did not see his act.  Brave daughter of a
brave sire though she was, had she seen what he did
her heart would have quailed within her and she would
have fled in terror from the clutches of this scourge of
England, whose mark she had seen on the dead fore-
heads of a dozen of her father's knights and kinsmen.

Their way to Stutevill lay past the cottage of Father
Claude, and here Norman of Torn stopped to don his
armor.  Now he rode once more with lowered visor,
and in silence, a little to the rear of Bertrade de Mont-
fort that he might watch her face, which, of a sudden,
had excited his interest.

Never before, within the scope of his memory, had
he been so close to a young and beautiful woman for
so long a period of time, although he had often seen
women in the castles that had fallen before his vicious
and terrible attacks.  While stories were abroad of his
vile treatment of women captives, there was no truth
in them.  They were merely spread by his enemies to
incite the people against him.  Never had Norman of
Torn laid violent hand upon a woman, and his cut-
throat band were under oath to respect and protect
the sex, on penalty of death.

As he watched the semi-profile of the lovely face
before him, something stirred in his heart which had
been struggling for expression for years.  It was not love,
nor was it allied to love, but a deep longing for com-
panionship of such as she, and such as she represented.
Norman of Torn could not have translated this feeling
into words for he did not know, but it was the far faint
cry of blood for blood and with it, mayhap, was
mixed not alone the longing of the lion among jackals
for other lions, but for his lioness.

They rode for many miles in silence when suddenly
she turned, saying:

"You take your time, Sir Knight, in answering my
query.  Who be ye?"

"I am Nor--" and then he stopped.  Always before
he had answered that question with haughty pride.
Why should he hesitate, he thought.  Was it because
he feared the loathing that name would inspire in the
breast of this daughter of the aristocracy he despised?
Did Norman of Torn fear to face the look of seem and
repugnance that was sure to be mirrored in that lovely
face?

"I am from Normandy," he went on quietly.  "A
gentleman of France."

"But your  name?" she said peremptorily.  "Are you
ashamed of your name?"

"You may call me Roger," he answered.  "Roger de
Conde."

"Raise your visor, Roger de Conde," she commanded.
"I do not take pleasure in riding with a suit of armor;
I would see that there is a man within."

Norman of Torn smiled as he did her bidding, and
when he smiled thus, as he rarely did, he was good
to look upon.

"It is the first command I have obeyed since I
turned sixteen, Bertrade de Montfort," he said.

The girl was about nineteen, full of the vigor and
gaiety of youth and health; and so the two rode on
their journey talking and laughing as they might have
been friends of long standing.

She told him of the reason for the attack upon her
earlier in the day, attributing it to an attempt on the
part of a certain baron, Peter of Colfax, to abduct her,
his suit for her hand having been peremptorily and
roughly denied by her father.

Simon de Montfort was no man to mince words,
and it is doubtless that the old reprobate who sued for
his daughter's hand heard some unsavory truths from
the man who had twice scandalized England's nobility
by his rude and discourteous, though true and candid,
speeches to the King.

"This Peter of Colfax shall be looked to," growled
Norman of Torn.  "And as you have refused his heart
and hand, his head shall be yours for the asking.  You
have but to command, Bertrade de Montfort."

"Very well," she laughed, thinking it but the idle
boasting so much indulged in in those days.  "You may
bring me his head upon a golden dish, Roger de
Conde."

"And what reward does the knight earn who brings
to the feet of his princess the head of her enemy?" he
asked lightly.

"What boon would the knight ask?"

"That whatsoever a bad report you hear of your
knight, of whatsoever calumnies may be heaped upon
him, you shall yet ever be his friend, and believe in
his honor and his loyalty."

The girl laughed gaily as she answered, though some-
thing seemed to tell her that this was more than play.

"It shall be as you say, Sir Knight," she replied.  "And
the boon once granted shall be always kept."

Quick to reach decisions and as quick to act, Norman
of Torn decided that he liked this girl and that he
wished her friendship more than any other thing he
knew of.  And wishing it, he determined to win it by
any means that accorded with his standard of honor; an
honor which in many respects was higher than that of
the nobles of his time.

They reached the castle of De Stutevill late in the
afternoon, and there Norman of Torn was graciously
welcomed and urged to accept the Baron's hospitality
over night.

The grim humor of the situation was too much for
the outlaw, and, when added to his new desire to be
in the company of Bertrade de Montfort, he made
no effort to resist, but hastened to accept the warm
welcome.

At the long table upon which the evening meal was
spread sat the entire household of the Baron, and here
and there among the men were evidences of painful
wounds but barely healed, while the host himself still
wore his sword arm in a sling.

"We have been through grievous times," said Sir
John, noticing that his guest was glancing at the vari-
ous evidences of conflict.  "That fiend, Norman the
Devil, with his filthy pack of cut-throats besieged us
for ten days, and then took the castle by storm and
sacked it.  Life is no longer safe in England with the
King spending his time and money with foreign fa-
vorites and buying alien soldiery to fight against his
own barons, instead of insuring the peace and protec-
tion which is the right of every Englishman at home.

"But," he continued, "this outlaw devil will come to
the end of a short halter when once our civil strife is
settled, for the barons themselves have decided upon
an expedition against him, if the King will not subdue
him."

"An' he may send the barons naked home as he did
the King's soldiers," laughed Bertrade de Montfort.
"I should like to see this fellow; what may he look
like--from the appearance of yourself, Sir John, and
many of your men-at-arms there should be no few
here but have met him."

"Not once did he raise his visor while he was among
us," replied the Baron, "but there are those who claim
they had a brief glimpse of him and that he is of
horrid countenance, wearing a great yellow beard and
having one eye gone, and a mighty red scar from his
forehead to his chin."

"A fearful apparition," murmured Norman of Torn.
"No wonder he keeps his helm closed."

"But such a swordsman," spoke up a son of De Stute-
vill.  "Never in all the world was there such sword
play as I saw that day in the courtyard."

"I, too, have seen some wonderful sword play," said
Bertrade de Montfort, "and that today.  O he!" she
cried, laughing gleefully, "verily do I believe I have
captured the wild Norman of Torn, for this very knight,
who styles himself Roger de Conde, fights as I ne'er
saw man fight before, and he rode with his visor down
until I chid him for it."

Norman of Torn led in the laugh which followed,
and of all the company he most enjoyed the joke.

"An' speaking of the Devil," said the Baron, "how
think you he will side should the King eventually force
war upon the barons? With his thousand hell-hounds
the fate of England might well he in the palm of his
bloody hand."

"He loves neither King nor baron," spoke Mary de
Stutevill, "and I rather lean to the thought that he
will serve neither, but rather plunder the castles of
both rebel and royalist whilst their masters be absent
at war."

"It be more to his liking to come while the master
be home to welcome him," said De Stutevill, ruthfully.
"But yet I am always in fear for the safety of my wife
and daughters when I be away from Derby for any
time.  May the good God soon deliver England from
this Devil of Torn."

"I think you may have no need of fear on that score,"
spoke Mary, "for Norman of Torn offered no violence
to any woman within the wall of Stutevill, and when
one of his men laid a heavy hand upon me, it was
the great outlaw himself who struck the fellow such
a blow with his mailed hand as to crack the ruffian's
helm, saying at the time, 'Know you, fellow, Norman
of Torn does not war upon women?'"

Presently the conversation turned to other subjects
and Norman of Torn heard no more of himself during
that evening.

His stay at the castle of Stutevill was drawn out to
three days, and then, on the third day, as he sat with
Bertrade de Montfort in an embrasure of the south
tower of the old castle, he spoke once more of the
necessity for leaving and once more she urged him to
remain.

"To be with you, Bertrade of Montfort," he said
boldly, "I would forego any other pleasure, and endure
any privation, or face any danger, but there are others
who look to me for guidance and my duty calls me
away from you.  You shall see me again, and at the
castle of your father, Simon de Montfort, in Leicester.
Provided," he added, "that you will welcome me there."

"I shall always welcome you, wherever I may be,
Roger de Conde," replied the girl.

"Remember that promise," he said smiling.  "Some
day you may be glad to repudiate it."

"Never," she insisted, and a light that shone in her
eyes as she said it would have meant much to a man
better versed in the ways of women than was Norman
of Torn.

"I hope not," he said gravely.  "I cannot tell you,
being but poorly trained in courtly ways, what I
should like to tell you, that you might know how much
your friendship means to me.  Goodbye, Bertrade de
Montfort," and he bent to one knee, as he raised her
fingers to his lips.

As he passed over the drawbridge and down toward
the highroad a few minutes later on his way back to
Torn, he turned for one last look at the castle and there
in an embrasure in the south tower stood a young
woman who raised her hand to wave, and then, as
though by sudden impulse, threw a kiss after the de-
parting knight, only to disappear from the embrasure
with the act.

As Norman of Torn rode back to his grim castle in
the hills of Derby he had much food for thought upon
the way.  Never till now had he realized what might
lie in another manner of life, and he felt a twinge of
bitterness toward the hard old man whom he called
father, and whose teachings from the boy's earliest
childhood had guided him in the ways that had out him
off completely from the society of other men, except
the wild horde of outlaws, ruffians and adventurers
that rode beneath the grisly banner of the young chief
of Torn.

Only in an ill-defined, nebulous way did he feel that
it was the girl who had come into his life  that caused
him for the first time to feel shame for his past deeds.
He did not know the meaning of love, and  so he could
not know that he loved Bertrade de Montfort.

And another thought which now filled his mind was
the fact of his strange likeness to the Crown Prince of
England.  This, together with the words of Father
Claude, puzzled him sorely.  What might it mean? Was
it a heinous offence to own an accidental likeness to
a king's son?

But now that he felt he had solved the reason that
he rode always with closed helm he was for the first
time anxious himself to hide his face from the sight of
men.  Not from fear, for he knew not fear, but from
some inward impulse which he did not attempt to
fathom.







CHAPTER VIII

AS Norman of Torn rode out from the castle of De
Stutevill, Father Claude dismounted from his sleek
donkey within the ballium of Torn.  The austere strong-
hold, notwithstanding its repellent exterior and un-
savory reputation, always extended a warm welcome to
the kindly, genial priest; not alone because of the deep
friendship which the master of Torn felt for the good
father, but through the personal charm, and lovable-
ness of the holy man's nature, which shone alike on
saint and sinner.

It was doubtless due to his unremitting labors with
the youthful Norman, during the period that the boy's
character was most amenable to strong impressions,
that the policy of the mighty outlaw was in many re-
spects pure and lofty.  It was this same influence,
though, which won for Father Claude his only enemy
in Torn; the little, grim, gray, old man whose sole aim
in life seemed to have been to smother every finer
instinct of chivalry and manhood in the boy, to whose
training he had devoted the past nineteen years of
his life.

As Father Claude climbed down from his donkey--
fat people do not "dismount"--a half dozen young
squires ran forward to assist him, and to lead the animal
to the stables.

The good priest called each of his willing helpers
by name, asking a question here, passing a merry joke
there with the ease and familiarity that bespoke mu-
tual affection and old acquaintance.

As he passed in through the great gate the men-at-
arms threw him laughing, though respectful, welcomes
and within the great court, beautified with smooth
lawn, beds of gorgeous plants, fountains, statues and
small shrubs and bushes, he came upon the giant, Red
Shandy, now the principal lieutenant of Norman of
Torn.

"Good morrow, Saint Claude!" cried the burly ruf-
fian.  "Hast come to save our souls, or damn us? What
manner of sacrilege have we committed now, or have
we merited the blessings of Holy Church? Dost come
to scold, or praise?"

"Neither, thou unregenerate villain," cried the priest,
laughing.  "Though methinks ye merit chiding for the
grievous poor courtesy with which thou didst treat the
great Bishop of Norwich the past week."

"Tut, tut, Father," replied Red Shandy.  "We did but
aid him to adhere more closely to the injunctions and
precepts of Him whose servant and disciple he claims
to be.  Were it not better for an Archbishop of His
Church to walk in humility and poverty among His
people, than to be ever surrounded with the tempta-
tions of fine clothing, jewels and much gold, to say
nothing of two sumpter beasts heavy laden with runlets
of wine?"

"I warrant his temptations were less by at least as
many runlets of wine as may be borne by two sumpter
beasts when thou, red robber, had finished with him,"
exclaimed Father Claude.

"Yes, Father," laughed the great fellow, "for the sake
of Holy Church I did indeed confiscate that tempta-
tion completely, and if you must needs have proof in
order to absolve me from my sins, come with me now
and you shall sample the excellent discrimination which
the Bishop of Norwich displays in the selection of
his temptations."

"They tell me you left the great man quite destitute
of finery, Red Shandy, " continued Father Claude, as
he locked his arm in that of the outlaw and proceeded
toward the castle.

"One garment was all that Norman of Torn would
permit him, and as the sun was hot overhead he se-
lected for the Bishop a bassinet for that single article
of apparel, to protect his tonsured pate from the rays
of old sol.  Then fearing that it might be stolen from
him by some vandals of the road he had One Eye
Kanty rivet it at each side of the gorget so that it
could not be removed by other than a smithy, and
thus, strapped face to tail upon a donkey, he sent the
great Bishop of Norwich rattling down the dusty road
with his head, at least, protected from the idle gaze
of whomsoever he might chance to meet.  Forty stripes
he gave to each of the Bishop's retinue for being
abroad in bad company; but come, here we are where
you shall have the wine as proof of my tale."

As the two sat sipping the Bishop's good Canary the
little old man of Torn entered.  He spoke to Father
Claude in a surly tone, asking him if he knew aught
of the whereabouts of Norman of Torn.

"We have seen nothing of him since, some three
days gone, he rode out in the direction of your cottage,"
he concluded.

"Why, yes," said the priest, "I saw him that day.  He
had an adventure with several knights from the castle
of Peter of Colfax, from whom he rescued a damsel
whom I suspect from the trappings of her palfrey to
be of the house of Montfort.  Together they rode north,
but thy son did not say whither or for what purpose.
His only remark, as he donned his armor, while the
girl waited without, was that I should now behold the
falcon guarding the dove.  Hast he not returned?"

"No," said the old man, "and doubtless his adven-
ture is of a nature in line with thy puerile and effemi-
nate teachings.  Had he followed my training, without
thy accurst priestly interference, he had made an iron-
barred nest in Torn for many of the doves of thy
damned English nobility.  An' thou leave him not alone
he will soon be seeking service in the household of
the King."

"Where, perchance, he might be more at home than
here," said the priest quietly.

"Why say you that?" snapped the little old  man,  eye-
ing Father Claude narrowly.

"Oh," laughed the priest, "because he whose power
and mien be even more kingly than the King's would
rightly grace the royal palace," but he had not failed
to note the perturbation his remark had caused, nor
did his off-hand reply entirely deceive the old man.

At this juncture a squire entered to say that Shandy's
presence was required at the gates, and that worthy,
with a sorrowing and regretful glance at the unemptied
flagon, left the room.

For a few moments the two men sat in meditative
silence, which was presently broken by the old man of
Torn.

"Priest," he said, "thy ways with my son are, as you
know, not to my liking.  It were needless that he should
have wasted so much precious time from sword play
to learn the useless art of letters.  Of what benefit may
a knowledge of Latin be to one whose doom looms
large before him.  It may be years and again it may
be but months, but as sure as there be a devil in hell
Norman of Torn will swing from a king's gibbet.  And
thou knowst it, and he too, as well as I. The things
which thou hast taught him be above his station, and
the hopes and ambitions they inspire will but make
his end the bitterer for him.  Of late I have noted that
he rides upon the highway with less enthusiasm than
was his wont, but he has gone too far ever to go back
now; nor is there where to go back to.  What has he
ever been other than outcast and outlaw? What hopes
could you have engendered in his breast greater than
to be hated and feared among his blood enemies?"

"I knowst not thy reasons, old man," replied the
priest, "for devoting thy life to the ruining of his, and
what I guess at be such as I dare not voice; but let us
understand each other once and for all.  For all thou
dost and hast done to blight and curse the nobleness of
his nature, I have done and shall continue to do all in
my power to controvert.  As thou hast been his bad
angel, so shall I try to be his good angel, and when all
is said and done and Norman of Torn swings from the
King's gibbet, as I only too well fear he must, there
will be more to mourn his loss than there be to curse
him.

"His friends are from the ranks of the lowly, but so
too were the friends and followers of our Dear Lord
Jesus; so that shall be more greatly to his honor than
had he preyed upon the already unfortunate.

"Women have never been his prey; that also will be
spoken of to his honor when he is gone, and that he
has been cruel to men will be forgotten in the greater
glory of his mercy to the weak.

"Whatever be thy object: whether revenge or the
natural bent of a cruel and degraded mind, I know not;
but if any be curst because of the Outlaw of Torn it
will be thou--I had almost said, unnatural father; but
I do not believe a single drop of thy debased blood
flows in the veins of him thou callest son."

The grim old man of Torn had sat motionless through-
out this indictment, his face, somewhat pale, was drawn
into lines of malevolent hatred and rage, but he per-
mitted Father Claude to finish without interruption.

"Thou hast made thyself and thy opinions quite
clear," he said bitterly, "but I be glad to know just how
thou standeth.  In the past there has been peace be-
tween us, though no love; now let us both understand
that it be war and hate.  My life work is cut out for
me. Others, like thyself, have stood in my path, yet
today I am here, but where are they? Dost understand
me, priest?" And the old man leaned far across the
table so that his eyes, burning with an insane fire of
venom, blazed but a few inches from those of the priest.

Father Claude returned the look with calm level gaze.

"I understand," he said, and, rising, left the castle.

Shortly after he had reached his cottage a loud knock
sounded at the door, which immediately swung open
without waiting the formality of permission.  Father
Claude looked up to see the tall figure of Norman of
Torn, and his face lighted with a pleased smile of
welcome.

"Greetings, my son," said the priest.

"And to thee, Father," replied the outlaw, "And what
may be the news of Torn, I have been absent for several
days; is all well at the castle?"

"All be well at the castle," replied Father Claude,
"if by that you mean have none been captured or
hanged for their murders.  Ah, my boy, why wilt thou
not give up this wicked life of thine? It has never
been my way to scold or chide thee, yet always hath
my heart ached for each crime laid at the door of
Norman of Torn."

"Come, come, Father," replied the outlaw, "what
dost I that I have not good example for from the barons,
and the King, and Holy Church.  Murder, theft, rapine!
Passeth a day over England which sees not one or all
perpetrated in the name of some of these?

"Be it wicked for Norman of Torn to prey upon the
wolf, yet righteous for the wolf to tear the sheep? Me-
thinks not.  Only do I collect from those who have more
than they need, from my natural enemies; while they
prey upon those who have naught.

"Yet," and his manner suddenly changed, "I do not
love it, Father.  That thou know.  I would that there
might be some way out of it, but there is none.

"If I told you why I wished it you would be sur-
prised indeed, nor can I myself understand; but, of a
verity, my greatest wish to be out of this life is due to
the fact that I crave the association of those very ene-
mies I have been taught to hate.  But it is too late,
Father, there can be but one end and that the lower
end of a hempen rope."

"No, my son, there is another way, an honorable
way," replied the good Father.  "In some foreign clime
there be opportunities abundant for such as thee.  France
offers a magnificent, future to such a soldier as Norman
of Torn.  In the court of Louis you would take your
place among the highest of the land.  You be rich and
brave and handsome, nay do not raise your hand, you
be all these and more, for you have learning far beyond
the majority of nobles, and you have a good heart and
a true chivalry of character.  With such wondrous gifts
naught could bar your way to the highest pinnacles of
power and glory, while here you have no future beyond
the halter.  Canst thou hesitate, Norman of Torn?"

The young man stood silent for a moment, then he
drew his hand across his eyes as though to brush away
a vision.

"There be a reason, Father, why I must remain in
England for a time at least, though the picture you
put is indeed wondrous alluring."

And the reason was Bertrade de Montfort.







CHAPTER IX

THE visit of Bertrade de Montfort with her friend
Mary de Stutevill was drawing to a close.  Three weeks
had passed since Roger de Conde had ridden out
from the portals of Stutevill and many times the hand-
some young knight's name had been on the lips of his
fair hostess and her fairer friend.

Today the two girls roamed slowly through the gar-
dens of the great court, their arms about each other's
waists, pouring the last confidences into each other's
ears, for tomorrow Bertrade had elected to return to
Leicester.

"Methinks thou be very rash indeed, my Bertrade,"
said Mary.  "Wert my father here he would, I am sure,
not permit thee to leave with only the small escort
which we be able to give."

"Fear not, Mary," replied Bertrade, "five of thy fath-
er's knights be ample protection for so short a journey.
By evening it will have been accomplished; and as
the only one I fear in these parts received such a
sound set back from Roger de Conde recently I do
not think he will venture again to molest me."

"But what about the Devil of Torn, Bertrade?" urged
Mary.  "Only yestereve, you wot, one of Lord de Grey's
men-at-arms came limping to us with the news of the
awful carnage the foul fiend had wrought on his mas-
ter's household.  He be abroad, Bertrade, and I canst
think of naught more horrible than to fall into his
hands."

"Why, Mary, thou didst but recently say thy very
self that Norman of Torn was most courteous to thee
when he sacked this, thy father's castle.  How be it
thou so soon has changed thy mind?"

"Yes, Bertrade, he was indeed respectful then, but
who knows what horrid freak his mind may take, and
they do say that he be cruel beyond compare.  Again,
forget not that thou be Leicester's daughter and Henry's
niece; against both of whom the Outlaw of Torn open-
ly swears his hatred and his vengeance.  Oh, Bertrade,
wait but for a day or so, I be sure my father must
return ere then, and fifty knights shall accompany thee
instead of five."

"What be fifty knights against Norman of Torn,
Mary? Thy reasoning is on a parity with thy fears,
both have flown wide of the mark.

"If I am to meet with this wild ruffian it were better
that five knights were sacrificed than fifty, for either
number would be but a mouthful to that horrid horde
of unhung murderers.  No, Mary, I shall start tomorrow
and your good knights shall return the following day
with the best of word from me."

"If thou wilst, thou wilst," cried Mary petulantly.
"Indeed it were plain that thou be a De Montfort;
that race whose historic bravery be second only to their
historic stubbornness."

Bertrade de Montfort laughed, and kissed her friend
upon the cheek.

"Mayhap I shall find the brave Roger de Conde
again upon the highroad to protect me.  Then indeed
shall I send back your five knights, for of a truth his
blade is more powerful than that of any ten men I
ere saw fight before."

"Methinks," said Mary, still peeved at her friend's
determination to leave on the morrow, "that should
you meet the doughty Sir Roger all unarmed that still
would you send back my father's knights."

Bertrade flushed, and then bit her lip as she felt the
warm blood mount to her cheek.

"Thou be a fool, Mary," she said.

Mary broke into a joyful, teasing laugh; hugely en-
joying the discomfiture of the admission the tell-tale
flush proclaimed.

"Ah, I did but guess how thy heart and thy mind
tended, Bertrade; but now I seest that I divined all
too truly.  He be indeed good to look upon, but what
knowest thou of him?"

"Hush, Mary!" commanded Bertrade.  "Thou know
not what thou sayest.  I would not wipe my feet upon
him, I care naught whatever for him, and then--it
has been three weeks since he rode out from Stutevill
and no word hath he sent."

"Oh, ho," cried the little plague, "so there lies the
wind?  My Lady would not wipe her feet upon him,
but she be sore vexed that he has sent her no word.
Mon Dieu, but thou hast strange notions, Bertrade."

"I will not talk with you, Mary," cried Bertrade,
stamping her sandaled foot, and with a toss of her
pretty head she turned abruptly toward the castle.


In a small chamber in the castle of Colfax two men
sat at opposite sides of a little table.  The one, Peter
of Colfax, was short and very stout.  His red, bloated
face, bleary eyes and bulbous nose bespoke the manner
of his life; while his thick lips, the lower hanging large
and flabby over his receding chin, indicated the base
passions to which his life and been given.  His com-
panion was a little, grim, gray man but his suit of
armor and closed helm gave no hint to his host of whom
his guest might be.  It was the little armored man who
was speaking.

"Is it not enough that I offer to aid you, Sir Peter,"
he said, "that you must have my reasons? Let it go
that my hate of Leicester be the passion which moves
me. Thou failed in thy attempt to capture the maiden;
give me ten knights and I will bring her to you."

"How knowest thou she rides out tomorrow for her
father's castle?" asked Peter of Colfax.

"That again be no concern of thine, my friend, but
I do know it, and, if thou wouldst have her, be quick,
for we should ride out tonight that we may take our
positions by the highway in ample time tomorrow."

Still Peter of Colfax hesitated, he feared this might
be a ruse of Leicester's to catch him in some trap.  He
did not know his guest--the fellow might want the
girl for himself and be taking this method of obtaining
the necessary assistance to capture her.

"Come," said the little, armored man irritably.  "I
cannot bide here forever.  Make up thy mind; it be
nothing to me other than my revenge, and if thou wilst
not do it I shall hire the necessary ruffians and then
not even thou shalt see Bertrade de Montfort more."

This last threat decided the Baron.

"It is agreed," he said.  "The men shall ride out
with you in half an hour.  Wait below, in the court-
yard."

When the little man had left the apartment Peter
of Colfax summoned his squire whom he had send to
him at once one of his faithful henchmen.

"Guy," said Peter of Colfax, as the man entered, "ye
made a rare fizzle of a piece of business some weeks
ago.  Ye wot of which I speak?"

"Yes, My Lord."

"It chances that on the morrow ye may have oppor-
tunity to retrieve thy blunder.  Ride out with ten men
where the stranger who waits in the courtyard below
shall lead ye, and come not back without that which
ye lost to a handful of men before.  You understand?"

"Yes, My Lord!"

"And, Guy, I half mistrust this fellow who hath of-
fered to assist us.  At the first sign of treachery fall
upon him with all thy men and slay him.  Tell the others
that these be my orders."

"Yes, My Lord.  When do we ride?"

"At once.  You may go."


The morning that Bertrade de Montfort had chosen
to return to her father's castle dawned gray and threat-
ening.  In vain did Mary de Stutevill plead with her
friend to give up the idea of setting out upon such a
dismal day and without sufficient escort, but Bertrade
de Montfort was firm.

"Already have I overstayed my time three days, and
it is not lightly that even I, his daughter, fail in obedi-
ence to Simon de Montfort.  I shall have enough to
account for as it be.  Do not urge me to add even one
more day to my excuses.  And again, perchance, my
mother and my father may be sore distressed by my
continued absence.  No, Mary, I must ride today." And
so she did, with the five knights that could be spared
from the castle's defence.

Scarcely half an hour had elapsed before a cold driz-
zle set in, so that they were indeed a sorry company
that splashed along the muddy road, wrapped in mantle
and surcoat.  As they proceeded the rain and wind in-
creased in volume, until it was being driven into their
faces in such blinding gusts that they must needs keep
their eyes closed and trust to the instincts of their
mounts.

Less than half the journey had been accomplished.
They were winding across a little hollow toward a low
ridge covered with dense forest, into the somber shad-
ows of which the road wound.  There was a glint of
armor among the drenched foliage, but the rain-buf-
feted eyes of the riders saw it not.  On they came,
their patient horses plodding slowly through the sticky
road and hurtling storm.

Now they were half way up the ridge's side.  There
was a movement in the dark shadows of the grim wood,
and then without cry or warning a band of steel-clad
horsemen broke forth with couched spears.  Charging
at full run down upon them they overthrew three of
the girl's escort before a blow could be struck in her
defense.  Her two remaining guardians wheeled to meet
the return attack, and nobly did they acquit them-
selves, for it took the entire eleven who were pitted
against them to overcome and slay the two.

In the melee none had noticed the girl, but presently
one of her assailants, a little, grim, gray man, discovered
that she had put spurs to her palfrey and escaped.
Calling to his companions he set out at a rapid pace
in pursuit.

Reckless of the slippery road and the blinding rain,
Bertrade de Montfort urged her mount into a wild run,
for she had recognized the arms of Peter of Colfax on
the shields of several of the attacking party.

Nobly the beautiful Arab bent to her call for speed.
The great beasts of her pursuers, bred in Normandy
and Flanders, might have been tethered in their stalls
for all the chance they had of overtaking the flying
white steed that fairly split the gray rain as lightning
flies through the clouds.

But for the fiendish cunning of the little grim, gray
man's foresight Bertrade de Montfort would have made
good her escape that day.  As it was, however, her fleet
mount had carried her but two hundred yards ere, in
the midst of the dark wood, she ran full upon a rope
stretched across the roadway, between two trees.

As the horse fell, with a terrible lunge, tripped by
the stout rope, Bertrade de Montfort was thrown far
before him, where she lay, a little, limp bedraggled
figure, in the mud of the road.

There they found her.  The little, grim, gray man
did not even dismount, so indifferent was he to her
fate; dead or in the hands of Peter of Colfax, it was
all the same to him.  In either event his purpose would
be accomplished, and Bertrade de Montfort would no
longer lure Norman of Torn from the path he had laid
out for him.

That such an eventuality threatened he knew from
one Spizo the Spaniard, the single traitor in the service
of Norman of Torn, whose mean aid the little grim,
gray man had purchased since many months to spy
upon the comings and goings of the great outlaw.

The men of Peter of Colfax gathered up the lifeless
form of Bertrade de Montfort and placed it across the
saddle before one of their number.

"Come," said the man called Guy, "if there be life
left in her we must hasten to Sir Peter before it be
extinct."

"I leave ye here," said the little old man.  "My part
of the business is done."

And so he sat watching them until they had disap-
peared in the forest toward the castle of Colfax.

Then he rode back to the scene of the encounter
where lay the five knights of Sir John de Stutevill.
Three were already dead, the other two, sorely but not
mortally wounded, lay groaning by the roadside.

The little grim, gray man dismounted as he came
abreast of them and with his long sword silently finished
the two wounded men.  Then, drawing his dagger, he
made a mark upon the dead foreheads of each of the
five, and mounting, rode rapidly toward Torn.

"And if one fact be not enough," he muttered, "that
mark upon the dead will quite effectually stop further
intercourse between the houses of Torn and Leicester."

Henry de Montfort, son of Simon, rode fast and furious
at the head of a dozen of his father's knights on the
road to Stutevill.

Bertrade de Montfort was so long overdue that the
Earl and Princess Eleanor, his wife, filled with grave
apprehensions, had posted their oldest son off to the
castle of John de Stutevill to fetch her home.

With the wind and rain at their backs the little party
rode rapidly along the muddy road, until late in the
afternoon they came upon a white palfrey standing
huddled beneath a great oak, his arched back toward
the driving storm.

"By God," cried De Montfort, "tis my sister's own
Abdul.  There be something wrong here indeed." But
a rapid search of the vicinity, and loud calls brought
no further evidence of the girl's whereabouts, so they
pressed on toward Stutevill.

Some two miles beyond the spot where the white
palfrey had been found they came upon the dead bodies
of the five knights who had accompanied Bertrade from
Stutevill.

Dismounting, Henry de Montfort examined the bodies
of the fallen men.  The arms upon shield and helm con-
firmed his first fear that these had been Bertrade's
escort from Stutevill.

As he bent over them to see if he recognized any
of the knights there stared up into his face from the
foreheads of the dead men the dreaded sign, NT,
scratched there with a dagger's point.

"The curse of God be on him!" cried De Montfort.
"It be the work of the Devil of Torn, my gentlemen,"
he said to his followers.  "Come, we need no further
guide to our destination." And, remounting, the little
party spurred back toward Torn.


When Bertrade de Montfort regained her senses she
was in bed in a strange room, and above her bent an
old woman; a repulsive, toothless old woman, whose
smile was but a fangless snarl.

"Ho, ho!" she croaked.  "The bride waketh.  I told My
Lord that it would take more than a tumble in the mud
to kill a De Montfort.  Come, come, now, arise and
clothe thyself, for the handsome bridegroom canst scarce
restrain his eager desire to fold thee in his arms.  Below
in the great hall he paces to and fro, the red blood
mantling his beauteous countenance."

"Who be ye?" cried Bertrade de Montfort, her mind
still dazed from the effects of her fall.  "Where am I?"
and then, "O, Mon Dieu!" as she remembered the
events of the afternoon; and the arms of Colfax upon
the shields of the attacking party.  In an instant she
realized the horror of her predicament; its utter hope-
lessness.

Beast though he was, Peter of Colfax stood high in
the favor of the King; and the fact that she was his
niece would scarce aid her cause with Henry, for it was
more than counter-balanced by the fact that she was
the daughter of Simon de Montfort, whom he feared and
hated.

In the corridor without she heard the heavy tramp
of approaching feet, and presently a man's voice at the
door.

"Within there, Coll! Hast the damsel awakened from
her swoon?"

"Yes, Sir Peter," replied the old woman, "I was but
just urging her to arise and clothe herself, saying that
you awaited her below."

"Haste then, My Lady Bertrade," called the man,
"no harm will be done thee if thou showest the good
sense I give thee credit for.  I will await thee in the
great hall, or, if thou prefer, wilt come to thee here."

The girl paled, more in loathing and contempt than
in fear, but the tones of her answer were calm and
level.

"I will see thee below, Sir Peter, anon," and rising,
she hastened to dress, while the receding footsteps of the
Baron diminished down the stairway which led from the
tower room in which she was imprisoned.

The old woman attempted to draw her into conver-
sation, but the girl would not talk.  Her whole mind was
devoted to weighing each possible means of escape.

A half hour later she entered the great hall of the
castle of Peter of Colfax.  The room was empty.  Little
change had been wrought in the apartment since the
days of Ethelwolf.  As the girl's glance ranged the hall
in search of her jailer it rested upon the narrow, un-
glazed windows beyond which lay freedom.  Would she
ever again breathe God's pure air outside these stifling
walls? These grimy hateful walls! Black as the inky
rafters and wainscot except for occasional splotches a
few shades less begrimed, where repairs had been
made.  As her eyes fell upon the trophies of war and chase
which hung there her lips curled in scorn, for she
knew that they were acquisitions by inheritance rather
than by the personal prowess of the present master of
Colfax.

A single cresset lighted the chamber, while the flicker-
ing light from a small wood fire upon one of the two
great hearths seemed rather to accentuate the dim shad-
ows of the place.

Bertrade crossed the room and leaned against a mas-
sive oak table, blackened by age and hard usage to the
color of the beams above, dented and nicked by the
pounding of huge drinking horns and heavy swords
when wild and lusty brawlers had been moved to ap-
plause by the lay of some wandering minstrel, or the
sterner call of their mighty chieftains for the oath of
fealty.

Her wandering eyes took in the dozen benches and
the few rude, heavy chairs which completed the rough
furnishings of this rough room, and she shuddered.  One
little foot tapped sullenly upon the disordered floor
which was littered with a miscellany of rushes inter-
spread with such bones and scraps of food as the dogs
had rejected or overlooked.

But to none of these surroundings did Bertrade de
Montfort give but passing heed; she looked for the
man she sought that she might quickly have the en-
counter over and learn what fate the future held in
store for her.

Her quick glance had shown her that the room was
quite empty, and that in addition to the main doorway
at the lower  end of the apartment, where she had en-
tered, there was but one other door leading from the
hall.  This was at one side, and as it stood ajar she
could see that it led into a small room, apparently a
bedchamber.

As she stood facing the main doorway a panel opened
quietly behind her and directly back of where the
thrones had stood in past times.  From the black mouth
of the aperture stepped Peter of Colfax.  Silently he closed
the panel after him, and with soundless steps advanced
toward the girl.  At the edge of the raised dais he
halted, rattling his sword to attract her attention.

If his aim had been to unnerve her by the suddenness
and mystery of his appearance he failed signally, for
she did not even turn her head as she said:

"What explanation hast thou to make, Sir Peter, for
this base treachery against thy neighbor's daughter and
thy sovereign's niece?"

"When fond hearts be thwarted by a cruel parent,"
replied the pot-bellied old beast in a soft and fawning
tone, "love must still find its way; and so thy gallant
swain hath dared the wrath of thy great father and
majestic uncle, and lays  his heart at thy feet, O beau-
teous Bertrade, knowing full well that thine hath been
hungering after it since we didst first avow our love
to thy hard hearted sire.  See I kneel to thee, my dove!"
And with cracking joints the fat baron plumped down
upon his marrow bones.

Bertrade turned and as she saw him her haughty
countenance relaxed into a sneering smile.

"Thou art a fool, Sir Peter," she said, "and, at that,
the worst species of fool--an ancient fool.  It is useless
to pursue thy cause, for I will have none of thee.  Let
me hence, if thou be a gentleman, and no word of what
hath transpired shall ever pass my lips.  But let me go,
'tis all I ask, and it is useless to detain me for I cannot
give what you would have.  I do not love you, nor ever
can I."

Her first words had caused the red of humiliation to
mottle his already ruby visage to a semblance of purple,
and now, as he attempted to rise with dignity he was
still further covered with confusion by the fact that his
huge stomach made it necessary for him to go upon all
fours before he could rise, so that he got up much after
the manner of a cow, raising his stern high in air
in a most ludicrous fashion.  As he gained his feet he
saw the girl turn her head from him to hide the laughter
on her face.

"Return to thy chamber," he thundered.  "I will give
thee until tomorrow to decide whether thou wilt ac-
cept Peter of Colfax as thy husband, or take another
position in his household which will bar thee for all time
from the society of thy kind."

The girl turned toward him, the laugh still playing on
her lips.

"I will be wife to no buffoon; to no clumsy old clown;
to no debauched, degraded parody of a man.  And
as for thy other rash threat, thou hast not the guts to
put thy wishes into deeds, thou craven coward, for
well ye know that Simon de Montfort would cut out
thy foul heart with his own hand if he ever suspected
thou wert guilty of speaking of such to me, his daugh-
ter." And Bertrade de Montfort swept from the great
hall, and mounted to her tower chamber in the ancient
Saxon stronghold of Colfax.

The old woman kept watch over her during the night
and until late the following afternoon, when Peter of
Colfax summoned his prisoner before him once more.
So terribly had the old hag played upon the girl's
fears that she felt fully certain that the Baron was quite
equal to his dire threat, and so she had again been
casting about for some means of escape or delay.

The room in which she was imprisoned was in the
west tower of the castle, fully a hundred feet above the
moat, which the single embrasure overlooked.  There
was, therefore, no avenue of escape in this direction.
The solitary door was furnished with huge oaken bars,
and itself composed of mighty planks of the same wood,
cross barred with iron.

If she could but get the old woman out, thought
Bertrade, she could barricade herself within and thus
delay, at least, her impending fate in the hope that suc-
cor might come from some source.  But her most subtle
wiles proved ineffectual in ridding her, even for a mo-
ment, of her harpy jailer; and now that the final sum-
mons had come she was beside herself for a lack of
means to thwart her captor.

Her dagger had been taken from her, but one hung
from the girdle of the old woman and this Bertrade
determined to have.

Feigning trouble with the buckle of her own girdle
she called upon the old woman to aid her, and as the hag
bent her head close to the girl's body to see what was
wrong with the girdle clasp, Bertrade reached quick-
ly to her side and snatched the weapon from its sheath.
Quickly she sprang back from the old woman who, with
a cry of anger and alarm, rushed upon her.

"Back!" cried the girl.  "Stand back, old hag, or thou
shalt feel the length of thine own blade."

The woman hesitated and then fell to cursing and
blaspheming in a most horrible manner, at the same
time calling for help.

Bertrade backed to the door, commanding the old
woman to remain where she was, on pain of death, and
quickly dropped the mighty bars into place.  Scarcely
had the last great bolt been slipped than Peter of
Colfax with a dozen servants and men-at-arms were
pounding loudly upon the outside.

"What's wrong within, Coll," cried the Baron.

"The wench has wrested my dagger from me and is
murdering me," shrieked the old woman.

"An' that I will truly do, Peter of Colfax," spoke
Bertrade, "if you do not immediately send for my
friends to conduct me from thy castle, for I will not step
my foot from this room until I know that mine own
people stand without."

Peter of Colfax pled and threatened, commanded and
coaxed, but all in vain.  So passed the afternoon, and
as darkness settled upon the castle the Baron desisted
from his attempts, intending to starve his prisoner out.

Within the little room Bertrade de Montfort sat upon
a bench guarding her prisoner, from whom she did not
dare move her eyes for a single second.  All that long
night she sat thus, and when morning dawned it found
her position unchanged, her tired eyes still fixed upon
the hag.

Early in the morning Peter of Colfax resumed his
endeavors to persuade her to come out; he even ad-
mitted defeat and promised her safe conduct to her
father's castle, but Bertrade de Montfort was not one to
be fooled by his lying tongue.

"Then will I starve you out," he cried at length.

"Gladly will I starve in preference to falling into
thy foul hands," replied the girl.  "But thy old servant
here will starve first, for she be very old and not so
strong as I. Therefore how will it profit you to kill
two and still be robbed of thy prey?"

Peter of Colfax entertained no doubt but that his
fair prisoner would carry out her threat and so he set
his men to work with cold chisels, axes and saws upon
the huge door.

For hours they labored upon that mighty work of
defence, and it was late at night ere they made a little
opening large enough to admit a hand and arm, but
the first one intruded within the room to raise the
bars was drawn quickly back with a howl of pain from
its owner.  Thus the keen dagger in the girl's hand put
an end to all hopes of entering without completely
demolishing the door.

To this work the men without then set themselves
diligently while Peter of Colfax renewed his entreaties,
through the small opening they had made.  Bertrade
replied but once.

"Seest thou this poniard?" she asked.  "When that
door falls this point enters my heart.  There is nothing
beyond that door, with thou, poltroon, to which death
in this little chamber would not be preferable."

As she spoke she turned toward the man she was
addressing, for the first time during all those weary,
hideous hours removing her glance from the old hag.
It was enough.  Silently, but with the quickness of a
tigress the old woman was upon her back, one claw-
like paw grasping the wrist which held the dagger.

"Quick, My Lord!" she shrieked, "the bolts, quick."

Instantly Peter of Colfax ran his arm through the
tiny opening in the door and a second later four of
his men rushed to the aid of the old woman.

Easily they wrested the dagger from Bertrade's fin-
gers, and at the Baron's bidding they dragged her to
the great hall below.

As his retainers left the room at his command Peter
of Colfax strode back and forth upon the rushes which
strewed the floor.  Finally he stopped before the girl
standing rigid in the center of the room.

"Hast come to thy senses yet, Bertrade de Mont-
fort?" he asked angrily.  "I have offered you your choice;
to be the honored wife of Peter of Colfax, or, by force,
his mistress.  The good priest waits without, what be
your answer now?"

"The same as it has been these past two days," she
replied with haughty scorn.  "The same that it shall
always be.  I will be neither wife nor mistress to a co-
ward; a hideous, abhorrent pig of a man.  I would die,
it seems, if I felt the touch of your hand upon me.
You do not dare to touch me, you craven.  I, the daugh-
ter of an earl, the niece of a king, wed to the warty toad,
Peter of Colfax!"

"Hold, chit!" cried the Baron, livid with rage.  "You
have gone too far.  Enough of this; and you love me not
now I shall learn you to love ere the sun rises." And with
a vile oath he grasped the girl roughly by the arm, and
dragged her toward the little doorway at the side of
the room.












CHAPTER X

FOR three weeks after his meeting with Bertrade de
Montfort and his sojourn at the castle of John de Stute-
vill, Norman of Torn was busy with his wild horde in
reducing and sacking the castle of John de Grey, a royal-
ist baron who had captured and hanged two of the out-
law's fighting men; and never again after his meeting
with the daughter of the chief of the barons did Nor-
man of Torn raise a hand against the rebels or their
friends.

Shortly after his return to Torn, following the success-
ful outcome of his expedition, the watch upon the
tower reported the approach of a dozen armed knights.
Norman sent Red Shandy to the outer walls to learn
the mission of the party, for visitors seldom came to
this inaccessible and unhospitable fortress; and he well
knew that no party of a dozen knights would venture
with hostile intent within the clutches of his great
band of villains.

The great red giant soon returned to say that it was
Henry de Montfort, oldest son of the Earl of Leicester,
who had come under a flag of truce and would have
speech with the master of Torn.

"Admit them, Shandy," commanded Norman of Torn,
"I will speak with them here."

When the party, a few moments later, was ushered
into his presence it found itself facing a mailed knight
with drawn visor.

Henry de Montfort advanced with haughty dignity
until he faced the outlaw.

"Be ye Norman of Torn?" he asked.  And did he
try to conceal the hatred and loathing which he felt,
he was poorly successful.

"They call me so," replied the visored knight.  "And
what may bring a De Montfort after so many years to
visit his old neighbor?"

"Well ye know what brings me, Norman of Torn," re-
plied the young man.  "It is useless to waste words, and
we cannot resort to arms, for you have us entirely in
your power.  Name your price and it shall be paid, only
be quick and let me hence with my sister."

"What wild words be these, Henry de Montfort?
Your sister! What mean you?"

"Yes, my sister Bertrade whom you stole upon the
highroad two days since, after murdering the knights
of John de Stutevill who were fetching her home from a
visit upon the Baron's daughter.  We know that it was
you for the foreheads of the dead men bore your devil's
mark."

"Shandy!" roared Norman of Torn.  "WHAT MEANS THIS?
Who has been upon the road, attacking women, in my
absence? You were here and in charge during my visit
to my Lord de Grey.  As you value your hide, Shandy,
the truth!"

"Since you laid me low in the hut of the good priest
I have served you well, Norman of Torn; you should
know my loyalty by this time and that never have I
lied to you.  No man of yours has done this thing, nor is
it the first time that vile scoundrels have placed your
mark upon their dead that they might thus escape sus-
picion, themselves."

"Henry de Montfort," said Norman of Torn, turning
to his visitor, "we of Torn bear no savory name, that
I know full well, but no man may say that we un-
sheath our swords against women.  Your sister is not
here.  I give you the word of honor of Norman of Torn.
Is it not enough?"

"They say you never lie," replied De Montfort.  "Would
to God I knew who had done this thing, or which way
to search for my sister."

Norman of Torn made no reply, his thoughts were
in wild confusion, and it was with difficulty that he hid
the fierce anxiety of his heart or his rage against the
perpetrators of this dastardly act which tore his whole
being.

In silence De Montfort turned and left, nor had his
party scarce passed the drawbridge ere the castle of
Torn was filled with hurrying men and the noise and
uproar of a sudden call to arms.

Some thirty minutes later five hundred iron clad horses
carried their mailed riders beneath the portcullis of the
grim pile, and Norman the Devil, riding at their head,
spurred rapidly in the direction of the castle of Peter of
Colfax.

The great troop, winding down the rocky trail from
Torn's buttressed gates, presented a picture of wild
barbaric splendor.

The armor of the men was of every style and metal
from the ancient banded mail of the Saxon to the richly
ornamented plate armor of Milan.  Gold and silver



THE OUTLAW OF TORN

and precious stones set in plumed crest and breastplate
and shield, and even in the steel spiked chamfrons of the
horses' head armor showed the rich loot which had fal-
len to the portion of Norman of Torn's wild raiders.

Fluttering pennons streamed from five hundred lance
points, and the gray banner of Torn, with the black
falcon's wing, flew above each of the five companies.
The great linden wood shields of the men were cov-
ered with gray leather and in the upper right hand
corner of each was the black falcon's wing.  The sur-
coats of the riders were also uniform, being of dark
gray villosa faced with black wolf skin, so that notwith-
standing the richness of the armor and the horse trap-
pings there was a grim, gray warlike appearance to
these wild companies that comported well with their
reputation.

Recruited from all ranks of society and from every
civilized country of Europe the great horde of Torn
numbered in its ten companies serf and noble; Britain,
Saxon, Norman, Dane, German, Italian and French, Scot,
Pict and Irish.

Here birth caused no distinctions; the escaped serf,
with the gall marks of his brass collar still visible about
his neck, rode shoulder to shoulder with the outlawed
scion of a noble house.  The only requisites for admis-
sion to the troop were willingness and ability to fight,
and an oath to obey the laws made by Norman of
Torn.

The little army was divided into ten companies of
one hundred men, each company captained by a fighter
of proven worth and ability.

Our old friends Red Shandy, and John and James
Flory led the first three companies, the remaining seven
being under command of other seasoned veterans of a
thousand fights.

One Eye Kanty, owing to his early trade, held the
always important post of chief armorer, while Peter the
Hermit, the last of the five cut-throats whom Norman of
Torn had bested that day, six years before, in the hut
of Father Claude, had become majordomo of the great
castle of Torn, which post included also the vital func-
tions of quartermaster and commissary.

The old man of Torn attended to the training of serf
and squire in the art of war, for it was ever necessary
to fill the gaps made in the companies, due to their
constant encounters upon the highroad and their bat-
tles at the taking of some feudal castle; in which they
did not always come off unscathed, though usually vic-
torious.

Today, as they wound west across the valley, Norman
of Torn rode at the head of the cavalcade, which strung
out behind him in a long column.  Above his gray steel
armor a falcon's wing rose from his crest.  It was the
insignia which always marked him to his men in the
midst of battle.  Where it waved might always be found
the fighting and the honors, and about it they were
wont to rally.

Beside Norman of Torn rode the grim, gray, old man,
silent and taciturn; nursing his deep hatred in the depths
of his malign brain.

At the head of their respective companies rode the
five captains: Red Shandy; John Flory; Edwild the Serf;
Emilio, Count de Gropello of Italy; and Sieur Ralph de
la Campnee, of France.

The hamlets and huts which they passed in the morn-
ing and early afternoon brought forth men, women
and children to cheer and wave God-speed to them;
but as they passed farther from the vicinity of Torn
where the black falcon wing was known more by the
ferocity of its name than by the kindly deeds of the
great outlaw to the lowly of his neighborhood, they saw
only closed and barred doors with an occasional fright-
ened face peering from a tiny window.

It was midnight ere they sighted the black towers
of Colfax silhouetted against the starry sky.  Drawing his
men into the shadows of the forest a half mile from
the castle, Norman of Torn rode forward with Shandy
and some fifty men to a point as close as they could come
without being observed.  Here they dismounted and Nor-
man of Torn crept stealthily forward alone.

Taking advantage of every cover he approached to the
very shadows of the great gate without being detected.
In the castle a light shone dimly from the windows
of the great hall, but no other sign of life was apparent.
To his intense surprise, Norman of Torn found the draw-
bridge lowered and no sign of watchmen at the gate
or upon the walls.

As he had sacked this castle some two years since
he was familiar with its internal plan, and so he knew
that through the scullery he could reach a small ante-
chamber above, which let directly into the great hall.

And so it happened that as Peter of Colfax wheeled
toward the door of the little room he stopped short in
terror, for there before him stood a strange knight in
armor, with lowered visor and drawn sword.  The girl
saw him too, and a look of hope and renewed courage
overspread her face.

"Draw!" commanded a low voice in English, "unless
you prefer to pray, for you are about to die."

"Who be ye, varlet?" cried the Baron.  "Ho, John!
Ho, Guy! To the rescue, quick!" he shrieked, and
drawing his sword he attempted to back quickly toward
the main doorway of the hall; but the man in armor
was upon him and forcing him to fight ere he had taken
three steps.

It had been short shrift for Peter of Colfax that night
had not John and Guy and another of his henchmen
rushed into the room with drawn swords.

"Ware! Sir Knight," cried the girl, as she saw the
three knaves rushing to the aid of their master.

Turning to meet their assault the knight was forced
to abandon the terror-stricken Baron for an instant, and
again he had made for the doorway bent only on es-
cape; but the girl had divined his intentions, and run-
ning quickly to the entrance she turned the great lock
and threw the key with all her might to the far corner
of the hall.  In an instant she regretted her act, for she
saw that where she might have reduced her rescuer's
opponents by at least one she had now forced the
cowardly Baron to remain, and nothing fights more
fiercely than a cornered rat.

The knight was holding his own splendidly with the
three retainers, and for an instant Bertrade de Mont-
fort stood spell-bound by the exhibition of swordsman-
ship she was witnessing.

Fighting the three alternately, in pairs and again all
at the same time the silent knight, though weighted by
his heavy armor, forced them steadily back; his flashing
blade seeming to weave a net of steel about them.  Sud-
denly his sword stopped just for an instant, stopped
in the heart of one of his opponents, and as the man
lunged to the floor it was flashing again close to the
breasts of the two remaining men-at-arms.

Another went down less than ten seconds later, and
then the girl's attention was called to the face of the
horrified Baron; Peter of Colfax was moving--slowly and
cautiously, he was creeping, from behind, toward the
visored knight, and in his raised hand flashed a
sharp dagger.

For an instant the girl stood frozen with horror, un-
able to move a finger or to cry out; but only for an
instant, and then, regaining control of her muscles, she
stooped quickly and grasping a heavy foot-stool hurled
it full at Peter of Colfax.

It struck him below the knees and toppled him to the
floor just as the knight's sword passed through the throat
of his final antagonist.

As the Baron fell he struck heavily upon a table
which supported the only lighted cresset within the
chamber.  In an instant all was darkness.  There was a
rapid shuffling sound as of the scurrying of rats and
then the quiet of the tomb settled upon the great hall.

"Are you safe and unhurt, my Lady Bertrade?" asked
a grave English voice out of the darkness.

"Quite, Sir Knight," she replied, "and you?"

"Not a scratch, but where is our good friend the
Baron?"

"He lay here upon the floor but a moment since, and
carried a thin long dagger in his hand.  Have a care,
Sir Knight, he may even now be upon you."

The knight did not answer, but she heard him mov-
ing boldly about the room.  Soon he had found another
lamp and made a light.  As its feeble rays slowly pene-
trated the black gloom the girl saw the bodies of the
three men-at-arms, the overturned table and lamp, and
the visored knight; but Peter of Colfax was gone.

The knight perceived his absence at the same time,
but he only laughed a low, grim laugh.

"He will not go far, My Lady Bertrade," he said.

"How know you my name?" she asked.  "Who may you
be? I do not recognize your armor, and your breastplate
bears no arms."

He did not answer at once and her heart rose in her
breast as it filled with the hope that her brave rescuer
might be the same Roger de Conde who had saved her
from the hirelings of Peter of Colfax but a few short
weeks since.  Surely it was the same straight and mighty
figure, and there was the marvelous sword play as well.
It must be he, and yet Roger de Conde had spoken no
English while this man spoke it well, though, it was
true, with a slight French accent.

"My Lady Bertrade, I be Norman of Torn," said the
visored knight with quiet dignity.

The girl's heart sank, and a feeling of cold fear crept
through her.  For years that name had been the symbol
of fierce cruelty, and mad hatred against her kind.
Little children were frightened into obedience by the
vaguest hint that the Devil of Torn would get them,
and grown men had come to whisper the name with
grim, set lips.

"Norman of Torn!" she whispered.  "May God have
mercy on my soul!"

Beneath the visored helm a wave of pain and sorrow
surged across the countenance of the outlaw, and a
little shudder, as of a chill of hopelessness, shook his
giant frame.

"You need not fear, My Lady," he said sadly.  "You
shall be in your father's castle of Leicester ere the sun
marks noon.  And you will be safer under the protection
of the hated Devil of Torn than with your own mighty
father, or your royal uncle."

"It is said that you never lie, Norman of Torn,"
spoke the girl, "and I believe you, but tell me why
you thus befriend a De Montfort."

"It is not for love of your father or your brothers,
nor yet hatred of Peter of Colfax, nor neither for any
reward whatsoever.  It pleases me to do as I do, that
is all.  Come."

He led her in silence to the courtyard and across the
lowered drawbridge, to where they soon discovered a
group of horsemen, and in answer to a low challenge
from Shandy, Norman of Torn replied that it was he.

"Take a dozen men, Shandy, and search yon hellhole.
Bring out to me, alive, Peter of Colfax, and My Lady's
cloak and a palfrey--and Shandy, when all is done as
I say, you may apply the torch! but no looting, Shandy."

Shandy looked in surprise upon his leader, for the
torch had never been a weapon of Norman of Torn,
while loot, if not always the prime object of his many
raids, was at least a very important consideration.

The outlaw noticed the surprised hesitation of his
faithful subaltern and signing him to listen, said:

"Red Shandy, Norman of Torn has fought and sacked
and pillaged for the love of it, and for a principle which
was at best but a vague generality.  Tonight we ride to
redress a wrong done to My Lady Bertrade de Mont-
fort, and that, Shandy, is a different matter.  The torch,
Shandy, from tower to scullery, but in the service of My
Lady, no looting."

"Yes, My Lord," answered Shandy, and departed with
his little detachment.

In a half hour he returned with a dozen prisoners,
but no Peter of Colfax.

"He has flown, My Lord," the big fellow reported,
and indeed it was true.  Peter of Colfax had passed
through the vaults beneath his castle and by a long sub-
terranean passage had reached the quarters of some
priests without the lines of Norman of Torn.  By this
time he was several miles on his way to the coast, and
France; for he had recognized the swordsmanship of
the outlaw, and did not care to remain in England and
face the wrath of both Norman of Torn and Simon de
Montfort.

"He will return," was the outlaw's only comment,
when he had been fully convinced that the Baron had es-
caped.

They watched until the castle had burst into flames in
a dozen places, the prisoners huddled together in terror
and apprehension, fully expecting a summary and hor-
rible death.

When Norman of Torn had assured himself that no
human power could now save the doomed pile, he
ordered that the march be taken up, and the warriors
filed down the roadway behind their leader and Ber-
trade de Montfort, leaving their erstwhile prisoners
sorely puzzled but unharmed and free.

As they looked back they saw the heavens red with
the great flames that sprang high above the lofty
towers.  Immense volumes of dense smoke rolled south-
ward across the sky line.  Occasionally it would clear
away from the burning castle for an instant to show the
black walls pierced by their hundreds of embrasures,
each lit up by the red of the raging fire within.  It was
a gorgeous, impressive spectacle, but one so common
in those fierce, wild days, that none thought it worthy
of more than a passing backward glance.

Varied emotions filled the breasts of the several riders
who wended their slow way down the mud-slippery
road.  Norman of Torn was both elated and sad.  Elated
that he had been in time to save this girl who awakened
such strange emotions in his breast; sad that he was a
loathesome thing in her eyes.  But that it was pure
happiness just to be near her, sufficed him for the time;
of the morrow, what use to think! The little, grim, gray,
old man of Torn nursed the spleen he did not dare vent
openly, and cursed the chance that had sent Henry de
Montfort to Torn to search for his sister; while the fol-
lowers of the outlaw swore quietly over the vagary
which had brought them on this long ride without either
fighting or loot.

Bertrade de Montfort was but filled with wonder
that she should owe her life and honor to this fierce,
wild cut-throat who had sworn especial hatred against
her family, because of its relationship to the house of
Plantagenet.  She could not fathom it, and yet, he seemed
fair spoken for so rough a man; she wondered what man-
ner of countenance might lie beneath that barred visor.

Once the outlaw took his cloak from its fastenings
at his saddle's cantel and threw it about the shoulders of
the girl, for the night air was chilly, and again he dis-
mounted and led her palfrey around a bad place in the
road, lest the beast might slip and fall.

She thanked him in her courtly manner for these
services, but beyond that no word passed between them,
and they came, in silence, about midday within sight
of the castle of Simon de Montfort.

The watch upon the tower was thrown into confusion
by the approach of so large a party of armed men, so
that, by the time they were in hailing distance, the
walls of the great structure were crowded with fighting
men.

Shandy rode ahead with a flag of truce, and when
he was beneath the castle walls Simon de Montfort called
forth:

"Who be ye and what your mission? Peace or war?"

"It is Norman of Torn, come in peace, and in the
service of a De Montfort," replied Shandy.  "He would
enter with one companion, my Lord Earl."

"Dares Norman of Torn enter the castle of Simon
de Montfort--thinks he that I keep a robbers' roost!"
cried the fierce old warrior.

"Norman of Torn dares ride where he will in all Eng-
land," boasted the red giant.  "Will you see him in peace,
My Lord?"

"Let him enter," said De Montfort, "but no knavery,
now, we are a thousand men here, well armed and
ready fighters."

Shandy returned to his master with the reply, and
together Norman of Torn and Bertrade de Montfort
clattered across the drawbridge beneath the portcullis
of the castle of the Earl of Leicester, brother-in-law of
Henry III of England.

The girl was still wrapped in the great cloak of her
protector, for it had been raining, so that she rode
beneath the eyes of her father's men without being rec-
ognized.  In the courtyard they were met by Simon de
Montfort, and his sons Henry and Simon.

The girl threw herself impetuously from her mount,
and, flinging aside the outlaw's cloak, rushed toward
her astounded parent.

"What means this," cried De Montfort, "has the ras-
cal offered you harm or indignity?"

"You craven liar," cried Henry de Montfort, "but yes-
terday you swore upon your honor that you did not
hold my sister, and I, like a fool, believed." And with
his words the young man flung himself upon Norman of
Torn with drawn sword.

Quicker than the eye could see, the sword of the
visored knight flew from its scabbard, and, with a
single lightning-like move, sent the blade of young De
Montfort hurtling cross the courtyard; and then before
either could take another step, Bertrade de Montfort
had sprung between them and placing a hand upon the
breastplate of the outlaw stretched forth the other with
palm out-turned toward her kinsmen as though to pro-
tect Norman of Torn from further assault.

"Be he outlaw or devil," she cried, "he is a brave
and courteous knight, and he deserves from the hands
of the De Montforts the best hospitality they can give,
and not cold steel and insults." Then she explained
briefly to her astonished father and brothers what had
befallen during the past few days.

Henry de Montfort, with the fine chivalry that marked
him, was the first to step forward with outstretched hand
to thank Norman of Torn, and to ask his pardon for his
rude words and hostile act.

The outlaw but held up his open palm, as he said,

"Let the De Montforts think well ere they take the
hand of Norman of Torn.  I give not my hand except
in friendship, and not for a passing moment; but for
life.  I appreciate your present feelings of gratitude,
but let them not blind you to the fact that I am still
Norman the Devil, and that you have seen my mark
upon the brows of your dead.  I would gladly have your
friendship, but I wish it for the man, Norman of Torn,
with all his faults as well as what virtues you may think
him to possess."

"You are right, sir," said the Earl, "you have our
gratitude and our thanks for the service you have ren-
dered the house of Montfort, and ever during our lives
you may command our favors.  I admire your bravery
and your candor, but while you continue the Outlaw of
Torn you may not break bread at the table of De
Montfort as a friend would have the right to do."

"Your speech is that of a wise and careful man," said
Norman of Torn quietly.  "I go, but remember that
from this day I have no quarrel with the House of
Simon de Montfort, and that should you need my arms
they are at your service, a thousand strong.  Goodbye."
But as he turned to go, Bertrade de Montfort confronted
him with outstretched hand.

"You must take my hand in friendship," she said,
"for to my dying day I must ever bless the name of
Norman of Torn because of the horror from which he
has rescued me."

He took the little fingers in his mailed hand, and
bending upon one knee raised them to his lips.

"To no other--woman, man, king, God, or devil--
has Norman of Torn bent the knee.  If ever you need
him, My Lady Bertrade, remember that his services
are yours for the asking."

And turning he mounted and rode in silence from
the courtyard of the castle of Leicester.  Without a back-
ward glance, and with his five hundred men at his back,
Norman of Torn disappeared beyond a turning in the
roadway.

"A strange man," said Simon de Montfort, "both good
and bad, but from today I shall ever believe more
good than bad.  Would that he were other than he be
for his arm would wield a heavy sword against the ene-
mies of England, an he could be persuaded to our
cause."

"Who knows," said Henry de Montfort, "but that an
offer of friendship might have won him to a better life.
It seemed that in his speech was a note of wistfulness.
I wish, father, that we had taken his hand."












CHAPTER XI

SEVERAL days after Norman of Torn's visit to the
castle of Leicester, a young knight appeared before the
Earl's gates demanding admittance to have speech with
Simon de Montfort.  The Earl received him, and as the
young man entered his presence Simon de Montfort
sprang to his feet in astonishment.

"My Lord Prince," he cried.  "What do ye here, and
alone?"

The young man smiled.

"I be no prince, My Lord," he said, "though some
have said that I favor the King's son.  I be Roger de
Conde whom it may have pleased your gracious daugh-
ter to mention.  I have come to pay homage to Bertrade
de Montfort."

"Ah," said De Montfort, rising to greet the young
knight cordially, "an you be that Roger de Conde who
rescued my daughter from the fellows of Peter of Col-
fax, the arms of the De Montforts are open to you.

"Bertrade has had your name upon her tongue many
times since her return.  She will be glad indeed to re-
ceive you, as is her father.  She has told us of your
valiant espousal of her cause, and the thanks of her
brothers and mother await you, Roger de Conde.

"She also told us of your strange likeness to Prince
Edward, but until I saw you I could not believe two
men could be born of different mothers and yet be so
identical.  Come, we will seek out my daughter and her
mother."

De Montfort led the young man to a small chamber
where they were greeted by Princess Eleanor, his
wife, and by Bertrade de Montfort.  The girl was frankly
glad to see him once more and laughingly chid him
because he had allowed another to usurp his prerogative
and rescue her from Peter of Colfax.

"And to think," she cried, "that it should have been
Norman of Torn who fulfilled your duties for you.  But
he did not capture Sir Peter's head, my friend; that
is still at large to be brought to me upon a golden
dish."

"I have not forgotten, Lady Bertrade," said Roger
de Conde.  "Peter of Colfax will return."

The girl glanced at him quickly.

"The very words of the Outlaw of Torn," she said.
"How many men be ye, Roger de Conde?  With raised
visor you could pass in the King's court for the King's
son; and in manner, and form, and swordsmanship, and
your visor lowered, you might easily be hanged for
Norman of Torn."

"And which would it please ye most that I be?" he
laughed.

"Neither," she answered, "I be satisfied with my
friend, Roger de Conde."

"So ye like not the Devil of Torn?" he asked.

"He has done me a great service, and I be under
monstrous obligations to him, but he be, nathless, the
Outlaw of Torn and I the daughter of an earl and a
king's sister."

"A most unbridgeable gulf indeed," commented Rog-
er de Conde, drily.  "Not even gratitude could lead a
king's niece to receive Norman of Torn on a footing
of equality."

"He has my friendship, always," said the girl, "but
I doubt me if Norman of Torn be the man to impose
upon it."

"One can never tell," said Roger de Conde, "what
manner of fool a man may be.  When a man's head
be filled with a pretty face, what room be there for
reason?"

"Soon thou wilt be a courtier, if thou keep long at
this turning of pretty compliments," said the girl coldly;
"and I like not courtiers, nor their empty, hypocritical
chatter."

The man laughed.

"If I turned a compliment I did not know it," he
said.  "What I think, I say.  It may not be a courtly
speech or it may.  I know nothing of courts and care
less, but be it man or maid to whom I speak, I say what
is in my mind or I say nothing.  I did not in so many
words say that you are beautiful, but I think it never-
theless, and ye cannot be angry with my poor eyes if
they deceive me into believing that no fairer woman
breathes the air of England.  Nor can you chide my
sinful brain that it gladly believes what mine eyes tell
it. No, you may not be angry so long as I do not tell
you all this."

Bertrade de Montfort did not know how to answer
so ridiculous a sophistry; and, truth to tell, she was
more than pleased to hear from the lips of Roger de
Conde what bored her on the tongues of other men.

De Conde was the guest of the Earl of Leicester
for several days, and before his visit was terminated the
young man had so won his way into the good graces of
the family that they were loath to see him leave.

Although denied the society of such as these through-
out his entire life, yet it seemed that he fell as naturally
into the ways of their kind as though he had always
been among them.  His starved soul, groping through the
darkness of the empty past, yearned toward the feasting
and the light of friendship, and urged him to turn his
back upon the old life, and remain ever with these
people, for Simon de Montfort had offered the young man
a position of trust and honor in his retinue.

"Why refused you the offer of my father?" said Ber-
trade to him as he was come to bid her farewell.  "Simon
de Montfort is as great a man in England as the King
himself, and your future were assured did you attach
your self to his person.  But what am I saying! Did Roger
de Conde not wish to be elsewhere he had accepted,
and as he did not accept it is proof positive that he
does not wish to bide among the De Montforts."

"I would give my soul to the devil," said Norman
of Torn, "would it buy me the right to remain ever
at the feet of Bertrade Montfort."

He raised her hand to his lips in farewell as he
started to speak, but something--was it an almost im-
perceptible pressure of her little fingers, a quickening
of her breath or a swaying of her body toward him?--
caused him to pause and raise his eyes to hers.

For an instant they stood thus, the eyes of the man
sinking deep into the eyes of the maid, and then hers
closed and with a little sigh that was half gasp she
swayed toward him, and the Devil of Torn folded the
King's niece in his mighty arms and his lips placed the
seal of a great love upon those that were upturned to
him.

The touch of those pure lips brought the man to
himself.

"Ah, Bertrade, my Bertrade," he cried, "what is this
thing that I have done!  Forgive me, and let the great-
ness and the purity of my love for you plead in extenu-
ation of my act."

She looked up into his face in surprise, and then
placing her strong white hands upon his shoulders, she
whispered:

"See, Roger, I am not angry.  It is not wrong that
we love; tell me it is not, Roger."

"You must not say that you love me, Bertrade.  I am
a coward, a craven poltroon; but, God, how I love you."

"But," said the girl, "I do love--"

"Stop," he cried, "not yet, not yet.  Do not say it till
I come again.  You know nothing of me, you do not
know even who I be; but when next I come I promise
that ye shall know as much of me as I myself know,
and then, Bertrade, my Bertrade, if you can then say,
'I love you' no power on earth, or in heaven above, or
hell below shall keep you from being mine!"

"I will wait, Roger, for I believe in you and trust
you.  I do not understand, but I know that you must
have some good reason, though it all seems very strange
to me.  If I, a De Montfort, am willing to acknowledge
my love for any man there can be no reason why I
should not do so, unless," and she started at the sudden
thought, wide-eyed and paling, "unless there be an-
other woman, a--a--wife?"

"There is no other woman, Bertrade," said Norman
of Torn.  "I have no wife; nor within the limits of my
memory have my lips ever before touched the lips of
another, for I do not remember my mother."

She sighed a happy little sigh of relief, and laughing
lightly, said:

"It is some old woman's bugaboo that you are haling
out of a dark corner of your imagination to frighten
yourself with.  I do not fear, since I know that you must
be all good.  There be no line of vice or deception
upon your face and you are very brave.  So brave and
noble a man, Roger, has a heart of pure gold."

"Don't," he said, bitterly.  "I cannot endure it.  Wait
until I come again and then, oh my flower of all Eng-
land, if you have it in your heart to speak as you are
speaking now the sun of my happiness will be at
zenith.  Then, but not before, shall I speak to the Earl,
thy father.  Farewell, Bertrade, in a few days I return."

"If you would speak to the Earl on such a subject,
you insolent young puppy, you may save your breath,"
thundered an angry voice, and Simon de Montfort
strode, scowling, into the room.

The girl paled, but not from fear of her father, for
the fighting blood of the De Montforts was as strong
in her as in her sire.  She faced him with as brave and
resolute a face as did the young man, who turned
slowly, fixing De Montfort with level gaze.

"I heard enough of your words as I was passing
through the corridor," continued the latter, "to readily
guess what had gone before.  So it is for this that you
have wormed your sneaking way into my home? And
thought you that Simon de Montfort would throw his
daughter at the head of the first passing rogue? Who
be ye, but a nameless rascal? For aught we know some
low born lackey.  Get ye hence, and be only thankful
that I do not aid you with the toe of my boot where it
would do the most good."

"Stop!" cried the girl.  "Stop, father, hast forgot that
but for Roger de Conde ye might have seen your
daughter a corpse ere now, or, worse, herself befouled
and dishonored?"

"I do not forget," replied the Earl, "and it is because
I remember, that my sword remains in its scabbard.
The fellow has been amply repaid by the friendship of
De Montfort, but now this act of perfidy has wiped
clean the score.  An' you would go in peace, sirrah, go
quickly, ere I lose my temper."

"There has been some misunderstanding on your
part, My Lord," spoke Norman of Torn, quietly and
without apparent anger or excitement.  "Your daughter
has not told me that she loves me, nor did I contem-
plate asking you for her hand.  When next I come, first
shall I see her and if she will have me, My Lord, I
shall come to you to tell you that I shall wed her.  Norm
--Roger de Conde asks permission of no man to do
what he would do."

Simon de Montfort was fairly bursting with rage
but he managed to control himself to say,

"My daughter weds whom I select, and even now I
have practically closed negotiations for her betrothal to
Prince Philip, nephew of King Louis of France.  And as
for you, sir, I would as lief see her the wife of the
Outlaw of Torn.  He at least has wealth and power,
and a name that be known outside his own armor.  But
enough of this; get you gone, nor let me see your face
again within the walls of Leicester's castle."

"You are right, My Lord, it were foolish and idle
for us to be quarreling with words," said the outlaw.
"Farewell, My Lady.  I shall return as I promised, and
your word shall be law." And with a profound bow to
De Montfort, Norman of Torn left the apartment, and
in a few minutes was riding through the courtyard of
the castle toward the main portals.

As he passed beneath a window in the castle wall a
voice called to him from above, and drawing in his
horse, he looked up into the eyes of Bertrade de Mont-
fort.

"Take this, Roger de Conde," she whispered, drop-
ping a tiny parcel to him, "and wear it ever, for my
sake.  We may never meet again, for the Earl my
father, is a mighty man, not easily turned from his
decisions; therefore I shall say to you, Roger de Conde,
what you forbid my saying, I love you, and be ye
prince or scullion you may have me, if you can find
the means to take me."

"Wait, my lady, until I return, then shall you decide,
and if ye be of the same mind as today, never fear but
that I shall take ye.  Again, farewell." And with a brave
smile that hid a sad heart, Norman of Torn passed
out of the castle yard.

When he undid the parcel which Bertrade had tossed
to him he found that it contained a beautifully wrought
ring set with a single opal.

The Outlaw of Torn raised the little circlet to his
lips, and then slipped it upon the third finger of his
left hand.












CHAPTER XII

NORMAN of Torn did not return to the castle of
Leicester "in a few days," nor for many months.  For
news came to him that Bertrade de Montfort had
been posted off to France in charge of her mother.

From now on the forces of Torn were employed in
repeated attacks on royalist barons, encroaching ever
and ever southward until even Berkshire and Surrey
and Sussex felt the weight of the iron hand of the
outlaw.

Nearly a year had elapsed since that day when he
had held the fair form of Bertrade de Montfort in his
arms, and in all that time he had heard no word from
her.

He would have followed her to France but for the
fact that, after he had parted from her and the intoxi-
cation of her immediate presence had left his brain
clear to think rationally, he had realized the futility of
his hopes, and he had seen that the pressing of his suit
could mean only suffering and mortification for the
woman he loved.

His better judgment told him that she, on her part,
when freed from the subtle spell woven by the near-
ness and the newness of a first love would doubtless be
glad to forget the words she had spoken in the heat
of a divine passion.  He would wait, then, until fate
threw them together, and should that ever chance,
while she was still free, he would let her know that
Roger de Conde and the Outlaw of Torn were one
and the same.

If she wants me then, he thought, but she will not,
no it is impossible.  It is better that she marry her French
prince than to live, dishonored, the wife of a common
highwayman; for though she might love me at first,
the bitterness and loneliness of her life would turn her
love to hate.

As the outlaw was sitting one day in the little cottage
of Father Claude, the priest reverted to the subject of
many past conversations; the unsettled state of civil
conditions in the realm, and the stand which Norman
of Torn would take when open hostilities between King
and baron were declared.

"It would seem that Henry," said the priest, "by his
continued breaches of both the spirit and letter of the
Oxford Statutes is but urging the barons to resort to
arms; and the fact that he virtually forced Prince Ed-
ward to take up arms against Humphrey de Bohun
last fall, and to carry the ravages of war throughout
the Welsh border provinces, convinces me that he be by
this time well equipped to resist De Montfort and his
associates."

"If that be the case," said Norman of Torn, "we shall
have war and fighting in real earnest ere many months."

"And under which standard does My Lord Norman
expect to fight?" asked Father Claude.

"Under the black falcon's wing," laughed he of Torn.

"Thou be indeed a close-mouthed man, my son," said
the priest, smiling.  "Such an attribute helpeth make a
great statesman.  With thy soldierly qualities in addi-
tion, my dear boy, there be a great future for thee in
the paths of honest men.  Dost remember our past talk?"

"Yes, father, well; and often have I thought on't.  I
have one more duty to perform here in England and
then it may be, that I shall act on thy suggestion, but
only on one condition."

"What be that, my son?"

"That wheresoere I go thou must go also.  Thou be
my best friend; in truth, my father; none other have I
ever known, for the little old man of Torn, even though
I be the product of his loins, which I much mistrust, be
no father to me."

The priest sat looking intently at the young man for
many minutes before he spoke.

Without the cottage a swarthy figure skulked be-
neath one of the windows, listening to such fragments
of the conversation within as came to his attentive ears.
It was Spizo the Spaniard.  He crouched entirely con-
cealed by a great lilac bush, which many times before
had hid his traitorous form.

At length the priest spoke.

"Norman of Torn," he said, "so long as thou remain
in England, pitting thy great host against the Plantage-
net King and the nobles and barons of his realm, thou
be but serving as the cats-paw of another.  Thyself
hast said an hundred times that thou knowst not the
reason for thy hatred against them.  Thou be too strong
a man to so throw thy life uselessly away to satisfy
the choler of another.

"There be that of which I dare not speak to thee
yet and only may I guess and dream of what I think,
nor do I know whether I must hope that it be false
or true, but now, if ever, the time hath come for the
question to be settled.  Thou hast not told me in so
many words, but I be an old man and versed in reading
true between the lines, and so I know that thou lovest
Bertrade de Montfort.  Nay, do not deny it.  And now
what I would say be this.  In all England there lives no
more honorable man than Simon de Montfort, nor none
who could more truly decide upon thy future and thy
past.  Thou may not understand of what I hint, but
thou know that thou may trust me, Norman of Torn."

"Yea, even with my life and honor, my father," re-
plied the outlaw.

"Then promise me that with the old man of Torn
alone thou wilt come hither when I bidst thee and meet
Simon de Montfort, and abide by his decision should
my surmises concerning thee be correct.  He will be the
best judge of any in England, save two who must now
remain nameless."

"I will come, Father, but it must be soon for on the
fourth day we ride south."

"It shall be by the third day, or not at all," replied
Father Claude, and Norman of Torn rising to leave
wondered at the moving leaves of the lilac bush with-
out the window, for there was no breeze.

Spizo the Spaniard reached Torn several minutes
before the outlaw chief and had already poured his
tale into the ears of the little, grim, gray, old man.

As the priest's words were detailed to him the old
man of Torn paled in anger.

"The fool priest will upset the whole work to which
I have devoted near twenty years," he muttered, "if
I find not the means to quiet his half-wit tongue.  Be-
tween priest and petticoat it be all but ruined now.
Well then, so much the sooner must I act, and I know
not but that now be as good a time as any.  If we come
near enough to the King's men on this trip south, the
gibbet shall have its own and a Plantagenet dog shall
taste the fruits of his own tyranny," then glancing up
and realizing that Spizo the Spaniard had been a listen-
er, the old man, scowling, cried:

"What said I, sirrah?  What didst hear?"

"Naught, My Lord; thou didst but mutter incoher-
ently", replied the Spaniard.

The old man eyed him closely.

"An did I more, Spizo, thou heardst naught but mut-
tering, remember."

"Yes, My Lord."

An hour later the old man of Torn dismounted be-
fore the cottage of Father Claude and entered.

"I am honored," said the priest, rising.

"Priest," cried the old man, coming immediately to
the point, "Norman of Torn tells me that thou wish
him and me and Leicester to meet here.  I know not
what thy purpose may be, but for the boy's sake carry
not out thy design as yet.  I may not tell thee my rea-
sons, but it be best that this meeting take place after
we return from the south."

The old man had never spoken so fairly to Father
Claude before, and so the latter was quite deceived
and promised to let the matter rest until later.

A few days after, in the summer of 1263, Norman of
Torn rode at the head of his army of outlaws through
the county of Essex, down toward London town.  One
thousand fighting men there were, with squires and
other servants, and five hundred sumpter beasts to
transport their tents and other impedimenta, and bring
back the loot.

But a small force of ailing men-at-arms, and servants
had been left to guard the castle of Torn under the
able direction of Peter the Hermit.

At the column's head rode Norman of Torn and the
little grim, gray, old man; and behind them nine com-
panies of knights, followed by the catapult detachment;
then came the sumpter beasts.  Horsan the Dane,
with his company, formed the rear guard.  Three hun-
dred yards in advance of the column rode ten men to
guard against surprise and ambuscades.

The pennons, and the banners and the bugles; and
the loud rattling of sword, and lance and armor and
iron-shod hoof carried to the eye and ear ample assur-
ance that this great cavalcade of iron men was bent
upon no peaceful mission.

All his captains rode today with Norman of Torn.
Beside those whom we have met there was Don Piedro
Castro y Pensilo of Spain; Baron of Cobarth of Germany,
and Sir John Mandecote of England.  Like their leader,
each of these fierce warriors carried a great price upon
his head, and the story of the life of any one would
fill a large volume with romance, war, intrigue, treach-
ery, bravery and death.

Toward noon one day in the midst of a beautiful
valley of Essex they came upon a party of ten knights
escorting two young women.  The meeting was at a
turn in the road, so that the two parties were upon
each other before the ten knights had an opportunity
to escape with their fair wards.

"What the devil be this," cried one of the knights, as
the main body of the outlaw horde came into view,
"the King's army or one of his foreign legions?"

"It be Norman of Torn and his fighting men," replied
the outlaw.

The faces of the knights blanched, for they were
ten against a thousand, and there were two women
with them.

"Who be ye?" said the outlaw.

"I am Richard de Tany of Essex," said the oldest
knight, he who had first spoken, "and these be my
daughter and her friend, Mary de Stutevill.  We are
upon our way from London to my castle.  What would
you of us? Name your price, if it can be paid with
honor it shall be paid; only let us go our way in peace.
We cannot hope to resist the Devil of Torn, for we be
but ten lances.  If ye must have blood, at least let the
women go unharmed."

"My Lady Mary is an old friend," said the outlaw.
"I called at her father's home but little more than a
year since.  We are neighbors, and the lady can tell
you that women are safer at the hands of Norman of
Torn than they might be in the King's palace."

"Right he is," spoke up Lady Mary, "Norman of Torn
accorded my mother, my sister, and myself the utmost
respect; though I cannot say as much for his treatment
of my father," she added, half smiling.

"I have no quarrel with you, Richard de Tany," said
Norman of Torn.  "Ride on."

The next day a young man hailed the watch upon
the walls of the castle of Richard de Tany telling him
to bear word to Joan de Tany that Roger de Conde, a
friend of her guest Lady Mary de Stutevill, was without.

In a few moments the great drawbridge sank slowly
into place and Norman of Torn trotted into the court-
yard.

He was escorted to an apartment where Mary de
Stutevill and Joan de Tany were waiting to receive him.
Mary de Stutevill greeted him as an old friend, and
the daughter of de Tany was no less cordial in wel-
coming her friend's friend to the hospitality of her fath-
er's castle.

"Are all your old friends and neighbors come after
you to Essex," cried Joan de Tany, laughingly, address-
ing Mary.  "Today it is Roger de Conde, yesterday it
was the Outlaw of Torn.  Methinks Derby will soon be
depopulated unless you return quickly to your home."

"I rather think it be for news of another that we owe
this visit from Roger de Conde," said Mary, smiling.
"For I have heard tales, and I see a great ring upon
the gentleman's hand--a ring which I have seen before."

Norman of Torn made no attempt to deny the reason
for his visit, but asked bluntly if she heard aught of
Bertrade de Montfort.

"Thrice within the year have I received missives
from her," replied Mary.  "In the first two she spoke
only of Roger de Conde, wondering why he did not
come to France after her; but in the last she mentions
not his name, but speaks of her approaching marriage
with Prince Philip."

Both girls were watching the countenance of Roger
de Conde narrowly, but no sign of the sorrow which
filled his heart showed itself upon his face.

"I guess it be better so," he said quietly.  "The daugh-
ter of a De Montfort could scarcely be happy with a
nameless adventurer," he added, a little bitterly.

"You wrong her, my friend," said Mary de Stutevill,
she loved you,--and unless I know not the friend of my
childhood as well as I know myself, she loves you yet;
but Bertrade de Montfort is a proud woman and what
can you expect when she hears no word from you for
a year? Thought you that she would seek you out and
implore you to rescue her from the alliance her father
has made for her?"

"You do not understand," he answered, "and I may
not tell you; but I ask that you believe me when I say
that it was for her own peace of mind, for her own
happiness, that I did not follow her to France.  But let
us talk of other things; the sorrow is mine and I would
not force it upon others.  I cared only to know that she
is well, and, I hope, happy.  It will never be given to
me to make her or any other woman so.  I would that
I had never come into her life, but I did not know what
I was doing; and the spell of her beauty and goodness
was strong upon me, so that I was weak and could not
resist what I had never known before in all my life--
love."

"You could not well be blamed," said Joan de Tany,
generously.  "Bertrade de Montfort is all and even more
than you have said; it be a benediction simply to have
known her."

As she spoke, Norman of Torn looked upon her criti-
cally for the first time, and he saw that Joan de Tany
was beautiful, and that when she spoke her face lighted
with a hundred little changing expressions of intelli-
gence and character that cast a spell of fascination
about her.  Yes, Joan de Tany was good to look upon,
and Norman of Torn carried a wounded heart in his
breast that longed for surcease from its sufferings--for
a healing balm upon its hurts and bruises.

And so it came to pass that for many days the Outlaw
of Torn was a daily visitor at the castle of Richard de
Tany, and the acquaintance between the man and the
two girls ripened into a deep friendship, and with one
of them it threatened even more.

Norman of Torn, in his ignorance of the ways of
women, saw only friendship in the little acts of Joan
de Tany.  His life had been a hard and lonely one.  The
only ray of brilliant and warming sunshine that had
entered it had been his love for Bertrade de Montfort
and hers for him.

His every thought was loyal to the woman whom he
knew was not for him, but he longed for the compan-
ionship of his own kind and so welcomed the friendship
of such as Joan de Tany and her fair guest.  He did not
dream that either looked upon him with any warmer
sentiment than the sweet friendliness which was as new
to him as love--how could he mark the line between
or foresee the terrible price of his ignorance!

Mary de Stutevill saw and she thought the man but
fickle and shallow in matters of the heart--many there
were, she knew, who were thus.  She might have warned
him had she known the truth, but instead she let things
drift except for a single word of warning to Joan de
Tany.

"Be careful of thy heart, Joan," she said, "lest it be
getting away from thee into the keeping of one who
seems to love no less quickly than he forgets."

The daughter of De Tany flushed.

"I am quite capable of safeguarding my own heart,
Mary de Stutevill," she replied warmly.  "If thou covet
this man thyself, why, but say so--do not think though
that because thy heart glows in his presence mine is
equally susceptible."

It was Mary's turn now to show offense, and a sharp
retort was on her tongue when suddenly she realized
the folly of such a useless quarrel.  Instead she put her
arms about Joan and kissed her.

"I do not love him," she said, "and I be glad that
you do not, for I know that Bertrade does, and that but
a short year since he swore undying love for her.  Let
us forget that we have spoken on the subject."

It was at this time that the King's soldiers were har-
assing the lands of the rebel barons, and taking a heavy
toll in revenge for their stinging defeat at Rochester
earlier in the year, so that it was scarcely safe for small
parties to venture upon the roadways lest they fall into
the hands of the mercenaries of Henry III.

Not even were the wives and daughters of the barons
exempt from the attacks of the royalists; and it was no
uncommon occurrence to find them suffering imprison-
ment, and something worse, at the hands of the King's
supporters.

And in the midst of these alarms it entered the will-
ful head of Joan de Tany that she wished to ride to
London town and visit the shops of the merchants.

While London itself was solidly for the barons and
against the King's party, the road between the castle
of Richard de Tany and the city of London was beset
with many dangers.

"Why," cried the girl's mother in exasperation, "be-
tween robbers and royalists and the Outlaw of Torn
you would not be safe if you had an army to escort
you."

"But then, as I have no army," retorted the laughing
girl, "if you reason by your own logic, I shall be indeed
quite safe."

And when Roger de Conde attempted to dissuade
her, she taunted him with being afraid of meeting with
the Devil of Torn, and told him that he might remain
at home and lock himself safely in her mother's pantry.

And so, as Joan de Tany was a spoiled child, they
set out upon the road to London; the two girls with a
dozen servants and knights; and Roger de Conde was
of the party.

At the same time a grim, gray, old man dispatched
a messenger from the outlaw's camp; a swarthy fellow,
disguised as a priest, whose orders were to proceed to
London, and when he saw the party of Joan de Tany,
with Roger de Conde, enter the city he was to deliver
the letter he bore to the captain of the gate.

The letter contained this brief message:

"The tall knight in gray with closed helm is Norman
of Torn," and was unsigned.

All went well and Joan was laughing merrily at the
fears of those who had attempted to dissuade her when,
at a cross road, they discovered two parties of armed
men approaching from opposite directions.  The leader
of the nearer party spurred forward to intercept the
little band, and, reining in before them, cried brusque-
ly,

"Who be ye?"

"A party on a peaceful mission to the shops of Lon-
don," replied Norman of Torn.

"I asked not your mission," cried the fellow.  "I asked,
who be ye? Answer, and be quick about it."

"I be Roger de Conde, gentleman of France, and
these be my sisters and servants," lied the outlaw, "and
were it not that the ladies be with me your answer
would be couched in steel, as you deserve for your
boorish insolence."

"There be plenty of room and time for that even
now, you dog of a French coward," cried the officer,
couching his lance as he spoke.

Joan de Tany was sitting her horse where she could
see the face of Roger de Conde, and it filled her heart
with pride and courage as she saw and understood the
little smile of satisfaction that touched his lips as he
heard the man's challenge and lowered the point of his
own spear.

Wheeling their horses toward one another the two
combatants, who were some ninety feet apart, charged
at full tilt.  As they came together the impact was so
great that both horses were nearly overturned and the
two powerful war lances were splintered into a hundred
fragments as each struck the exact center of his oppo-
nent's shield.  Then, wheeling their horses and throwing
away the butts of their now useless lances, De Conde
and the officer advanced with drawn swords.

The fellow made a most vicious return assault upon
De Conde, attempting to ride him down in one mad
rush, but his thrust passed harmlessly from the tip of
the outlaw's sword, and as the officer wheeled back to
renew the battle they settled down to fierce combat,
their horses wheeling and turning shoulder to shoulder.

The two girls sat rigid in their saddles watching
the encounter, the eyes of Joan de Tany alight with the
fire of battle as she followed every move of the won-
drous sword play of Roger de Conde.

He had not even taken the precaution to lower his
visor, and the grim and haughty smile that played upon
his lips spoke louder than many words the utter con-
tempt in which he held the sword of his adversary.  And
as Joan de Tany watched she saw the smile suddenly
freeze to a cold, hard line, and the eyes of the man
narrow to mere slits, and her woman's intuition read the
death warrant of the King's officer ere the sword of
the outlaw buried itself in his heart.

The other members of the two bodies of royalist
soldiers had sat spellbound as they watched the battle,
but now, as their leader's corpse rolled from the saddle
they spurred furiously in upon De Conde and his little
party.

The Baron's men put up a noble fight, but the odds
were heavy and even with the mighty arm of Norman
of Torn upon their side the outcome was apparent from
the first.

Five swords were flashing about the outlaw, but his
blade was equal to the thrust and one after another of
his assailants crumpled up in their saddles as his leap-
ing point found their vitals.

Nearly all of the Baron's men were down, when one,
an old servitor, spurred to the side of Joan de Tany and
Mary de Stutevill.

"Come, my ladies," he cried, "quick and you may
escape.  They be so busy with the battle that they will
never notice."

"Take the Lady Mary, John," cried Joan, "I brought
Roger de Conde to this pass against the advice of all
and I remain with him to the end."

"But, My Lady--" cried John.

"But nothing, sirrah!" she interrupted sharply.  "Do
as you are bid.  Follow my Lady Mary, and see that
she comes to my father's castle in safety," and raising
her riding whip she struck Mary's palfrey across the
rump so that the animal nearly unseated his fair rider
as he leaped frantically to one side and started madly
up the road down which they had come.

"After her, John," commanded Joan peremptorily,
and see that you turn not back until she be safe with-
in the castle walls; then you may bring aid."

The old fellow had been wont to obey the imperious
little Lady Joan from her earliest childhood, and the
habit was so strong upon him that he wheeled his
horse and galloped after the flying palfrey of the Lady
Mary de Stutevill.

As Joan de Tany turned again to the encounter be-
fore her, she saw fully twenty men surrounding Roger
de Conde, and while he was taking heavy toll of those
before him he could not cope with the men who at-
tacked him from behind; and even as she looked she
saw a battle axe fall full upon his helm, and his sword
drop from his nerveless fingers as his lifeless body
rolled from the back of Sir Mortimer to the battle-
tramped clay of the highroad.

She slid quickly from her palfrey and ran fearlessly
toward his prostrate form, reckless of the tangled mass
of snorting, trampling, steel-clad horses, and surging
fighting-men that surrounded him.  And well it was for
Norman of Torn that this brave girl was there that day,
for even as she reached his side the sword point of one
of the soldiers was at his throat for the coup de grace.

With a cry Joan de Tany threw herself across the
outlaw's body, shielding him as best she could from the
threatening sword.

Cursing loudly, the soldier grasped her roughly by
the arm to drag her from his prey, but at this juncture
a richly armored knight galloped up and drew rein
beside the party.

The newcomer was a man of about forty-five or fifty;
tall, handsome, black-mustached and with the haughty
arrogance of pride most often seen upon the faces of
those who have been raised by unmerited favor to
positions of power and affluence.

He was John de Fulm, Earl of Buckingham, a for-
eigner by birth and for years one of the King's favorites;
the bitterest enemy of De Montfort and the barons.

"What now?" he cried. "What goes on here?"

The soldiers fell back, and one of them replied:

"A party of the King's enemies attacked us, My Lord
Earl, but we routed them, taking these two prisoners."

"Who be ye?" he said, turning toward Joan who was
kneeling beside De Conde, and as she raised her head,
"My God! The daughter of De Tany! a noble prize
indeed my men.  And who be the knight?"

"Look for yourself, My Lord Earl," replied the girl
removing the helm, which she had been unlacing from
the fallen man.

"Edward?" he ejaculated.  "But no, it cannot be, I
did but yesterday leave Edward in Dover."

"I know not who he be," said Joan de Tany, "ex-
cept that he be the most marvelous fighter and the
bravest man it has ever been given me to see.  He called
himself Roger de Conde, but I know nothing of him
other than that he looks like a prince, and fights like
a devil.  I think he has no quarrel with either side, My
Lord, and so, as you certainly do not make war on
women, you will let us go our way in peace as we were
when your soldiers wantonly set upon us."

"A De Tany, madam, were a great and valuable cap-
ture in these troublous times," replied the Earl, "and
that alone were enough to necessitate my keeping you;
but a beautiful De Tany is yet a different matter and
so I will grant you at least one favor, I will not take
you to the King, but a prisoner you shall be in mine
own castle for I am alone, and need the cheering com-
pany of a fair and loving lady."

The girl's head went high as she looked the Earl full
in the eye.

"Think you, John de Fulm, Earl of Buckingham, that
you be talking to some comely scullery maid? Do you
forget that my house is honored in England, even
though it does not share the King's favors with his
foreign favorites, and you owe respect to a daughter
of a De Tany?"

"All be fair in war, my beauty," replied the Earl.
"Egad," he continued, "methinks all would be fair in
hell were they like unto you.  It has been some years
since I have seen you and I did not know the old fox
Richard de Tany kept such a package as this hid in his
grimy old castle."

"Then you refuse to release us?" said Joan de Tany.

"Let us not put it thus harshly," countered the Earl.
"Rather let us say that it be so late in the day, and the
way so beset with dangers that the Earl of Buckingham
could not bring himself to expose the beautiful daugh-
ter of his old friend to the perils of the road, and so--"

"Let us have an end to such foolishness," cried the
girl.  "I might have expected naught better from a turn-
coat foreign knave such as thee, who once joined in
the councils of De Montfort, and then betrayed his
friends to curry favor with the King."

The Earl paled with rage, and pressed forward as
though to strike the girl, but thinking better of it, he
turned to one of the soldiers, saying:

"Bring the prisoner with you.  If the man lives bring
him also.  I would learn more of this fellow who mas-
querades in the countenance of a crown prince."

And turning, he spurred on towards the neighboring
castle of a rebel baron which had been captured by
the royalists, and was now used as headquarters by
De Fulm.











CHAPTER XIII

WHEN Norman of Torn regained his senses he found
himself in a small tower room in a strange castle.  His
head ached horribly, and he felt sick and sore; but he
managed to crawl from the cot on which he lay, and
by steadying his swaying body with hands pressed
against the wall he was able to reach the door.  To his
disappointment he found this locked from without,
and in his weakened condition he made no attempt to
force it.

He was fully dressed and in armor, as he had been
when struck down, but his helmet was gone, as were
also his sword and dagger.

The day was drawing to a close, and as dusk fell
and the room darkened he became more and more
impatient.  Repeated pounding upon the door brought
no response and finally he gave up in despair.  Going
to the window he saw that his room was some thirty
feet above the stone-flagged courtyard, and also that
it looked at an angle upon other windows in the old
castle where lights were beginning to show.  He saw
men-at-arms moving about, and once he thought he
caught a glimpse of a woman's figure, but he was not
sure.

He wondered what had become of Joan de Tany and
Mary de Stutevill.  He hoped that they had escaped,
and yet--no, Joan certainly had not, for now he dis-
tinctly remembered that his eyes had met hers for an
instant just before the blow fell upon him, and he
thought of the faith and confidence that he had read in
that quick glance.  Such a look would nerve a jackal to
attack a drove of lions, thought the outlaw.  What a
beautiful creature she was; and she had stayed there
with him during the fight.  He remembered now; Mary
de Stutevill had not been with her as he had caught
that glimpse of her, no, she had been all alone.  Ah!
That was friendship indeed!

What else was it that tried to force its way above
the threshold of his bruised and wavering memory?
Words? Words of love? And lips pressed to his? No,
it must be but a figment of his wounded brain.

What was that which clicked against his breastplate?
He felt, and found a metal bauble linked to a mesh of
his steel armor by a strand of silken hair.  He carried
the little thing to the window, and in the waning light
made it out to be a golden hair ornament set with
precious stones, but he could not tell if the little strand
of silken hair were black or brown.  Carefully he de-
tached the little thing, and, winding the filmy tress
about it, placed it within the breast of his tunic.  He
was vaguely troubled by it, yet why he could scarcely
have told, himself.

Again turning to the window he watched the lighted
rooms within his vision, and presently his view was
rewarded by the sight of a knight coming within the
scope of the narrow casement of a nearby chamber.

From his apparel he was a man of position, and he
was evidently in heated discussion with some one
whom Norman of Torn could not see.  The man, a great,
tall black-haired and mustached nobleman, was pound-
ing upon a table to emphasize his words, and presently
he sprang up as though rushing toward the one to
whom he had been speaking.  He disappeared from the
watcher's view for a moment and then, at the far side
of the apartment, Norman of Torn saw him again just
as he roughly grasped the figure of a woman who
evidently was attempting to escape him.  As she turned
to face her tormentor all the devil in the Devil of Torn
surged in his aching head, for the face he saw was
that of Joan de Tany.

With a muttered oath the imprisoned man turned to
hurl himself against the bolted door, but ere he had
taken a single step the sound of heavy feet without
brought him to a stop, and the jingle of keys as one was
fitted to the lock of the door sent him gliding stealthily
to the wall beside the doorway, where the inswinging
door would conceal him.

As the door was pushed back a flickering torch
lighted up, but dimly, the interior, so that until he had
reached the center of the room, the visitor did not see
that the cot was empty.

He was a man-at-arms, and at his side hung a sword.
That was enough for the Devil of Torn--it was a sword
he craved most; and, ere the fellow could assure his
slow wits that the cot was empty, steel fingers closed
upon his throat, and he went down beneath the giant
form of the outlaw.

Without other sound than the scuffing of their bodies
on the floor, and the clanking of their armor, they
fought, the one to reach the dagger at his side, the
other to close forever the windpipe of his adversary.

Presently the man-at-arms found what he sought,
and, after tugging with ever diminishing strength, he
felt the blade slip from its sheath.  Slowly and feebly
he raised it high above the back of the man on top
of him; with a last supreme effort he drove the point
downward, but ere it reached its goal there was a sharp
snapping sound as of a broken bone, the dagger fell
harmlessly from his dead hand, and his head rolled
backward upon his broken neck.

Snatching the sword from the body of his dead an-
tagonist, Norman of Torn rushed from the tower room.


As John de Fulm, Earl of Buckingham, laid his vandal
hands upon Joan de Tany she turned upon him like a
tigress.  Blow after blow she rained upon his head and
face until, in mortification and rage, he struck her full
upon the mouth with his clenched fist; but even this
did not subdue her and with ever weakening strength,
she continued to strike him.  And then the great royal-
ist Earl, the chosen friend of the King, took the fair
white throat between his great fingers, and the lust
of blood supplanted the lust of love, for he would have
killed her in his rage.

It was upon this scene that the Outlaw of Torn burst
with naked sword.  They were at the far end of the
apartment, and his cry of anger at the sight caused the
Earl to drop his prey, and turn with drawn sword to
meet him.

There were no words, for there was no need of words
here.  The two men were upon each other, and fighting
to the death, before the girl had regained her feet.  It
would have been short shrift for John de Fulm had
not some of his men heard the fracas, and rushed to
his aid.

Four of them there were, and they tumbled pell-mell
into the room, fairly falling upon Norman of Torn in
their anxiety to get their swords into him; but once
they met that master hand they went more slowly, and
in a moment two of them went no more at all, and
the others, with the Earl, were but circling warily in
search of a chance opening--an opening which never
came.

Norman of Torn stood with his back against a table
in an angle of the room, and behind him stood Joan de
Tany.

"Move toward the left," she whispered.  "I know this
old pile.  When you reach the table that bears the lamp
there will be a small doorway directly behind you,
strike the lamp out with your sword, as you feel my
hand in your left, and then I will lead you through that
doorway, which you must turn and quickly bolt after
us. Do you understand?"

He nodded.

Slowly he worked his way toward the table, the men-
at-arms in the meantime keeping up an infernal howl-
ing for help.  The Earl was careful to keep out of reach
of the point of De Conde's sword, and the men-at-arms
were nothing loath to emulate their master's example.

Just as he reached his goal a dozen more men burst
into the room, and emboldened by this reinforcement
one of the men engaging De Conde came too close.  As
he jerked his blade from the fellow's throat, Norman
of Torn felt a firm, warm hand slipped into his from
behind, and his sword swung with a resounding blow
against the lamp.

As darkness enveloped the chamber Joan de Tany
led him through the little door, which he immediately
closed and bolted as she had instructed.

"This way," she whispered, again slipping her hand
into his and in silence she led him through several dim
chambers, and finally stopped before a blank wall in a
great oak-panelled room.

Here the girl felt with swift fingers the edge of the
molding; more and more rapidly she moved as the
sound of hurrying footsteps resounded through the
castle.

"What is wrong?" asked Norman of Torn, noticing
her increasing perturbation.

"Mon Dieu!" she cried.   "Can I be wrong! Surely
this is the room.  Oh, my friend, that I should have
brought you to all this by my willfulness and vanity;
and now when I might save you my wits leave me and
I forget the way."

"Do not worry about me," laughed the Devil of Torn.
"Methought that it was I who was trying to save you,
and may heaven forgive me else, for surely that be my
only excuse for running away from a handful of swords.
I could not take chances when thou wert at stake, Joan,"
he added more gravely.

 The sound of pursuit was now quite close, in fact
the reflection from flickering torches could be seen in
nearby chambers.

At last the girl, with a little cry of "stupid," seized
De Conde and rushed him to the far side of the room.

"Here it is," she whispered joyously, "here it has
been all the time." Running her fingers along the mold-
ing until she found a little hidden spring she pushed
it, and one of the great panels swung slowly in, reveal-
ing the yawning mouth of a black opening behind.

Quickly the girl entered, pulling De Conde after
her, and as the panel swung quietly into place the Earl
of Buckingham with a dozen men entered the apart-
ment.

"The devil take them," cried De Fulm.  "Where can
they have gone? Surely we were right behind them."

"It is passing strange, My Lord," replied one of the
men.  "Let us try the floor above, and the towers; for
of a surety they have not come this way."  And the
party retraced its steps, leaving the apartment empty.

Behind the panel the girl stood shrinking close to
De Conde, her hand still in his.

"Where now?" he asked.  "Or do we stay hidden here
like frightened chicks until the war is over and the
Baron returns to let us out of this musty hole?"

"Wait," she answered, "until I quiet my nerves a
little.  I am all unstrung." He felt her body tremble as
it pressed against his.

With the spirit of protection strong within him what
wonder that his arm fell about her shoulder as though
to say, fear not, for I be brave and powerful; naught
can harm you while I am here.

Presently she reached her hands up to his face, made
brave to do it by the sheltering darkness.

"Roger," she whispered, her tongue halting over the
familiar name.  "I thought that they had killed you, and
all for me, for my foolish stubbornness.  Canst forgive
me?"

"Forgive?" he asked, smiling to himself.  "Forgive
being given an opportunity to fight? There be nothing
to forgive, Joan, unless it be that I should ask forgive-
ness for protecting thee so poorly."

"Do not say that," she commanded.  "Never was such
bravery or such swordsmanship in all the world before;
never such a man."

He did not answer.  His mind was a chaos of con-
flicting thoughts.  The feel of her hands as they had
lingered momentarily, and with a vague caress upon
his cheek, and the pressure of her body as she leaned
against him sent the hot blood coursing through his
veins.  He was puzzled, for he had not dreamed that
friendship was so sweet.  That she did not shrink from
his encircling arms should have told him much, but
Norman of Torn was slow to realize that a woman
might look upon him with love.  Nor had he a thought
of any other sentiment toward her than that of friend
and protector.

And then there came to him as in a vision another
fair and beautiful face--Bertrade de Montfort's--and
Norman of Torn was still more puzzled; for at heart
he was clean, and love of loyalty was strong within
him.  Love of women was a new thing to him, and,
robbed as he had been all his starved life of the affec-
tion and kindly fellowship, of either men or women,
it is little to be wondered at that he was easily impres-
sionable and responsive to the feeling his strong per-
sonality had awakened in two of England's fairest
daughters.

But with the vision of that other face there came to
him a faint realization that mayhap it was a stronger
power than either friendship or fear which caused that
lithe, warm body to cling so tightly to him.  That the
responsibility for the critical stage their young acquaint-
ance had so quickly reached was not his had never
for a moment entered his head.  To him the fault was
all his; and perhaps it was this quality of chivalry that
was the finest of the many noble characteristics of his
sterling character.  So his next words were typical of
the man; and did Joan de Tany love him, or did she
not, she learned that night to respect and trust him
as she respected and trusted few men of her acquain-
tance.

"My Lady," said Norman of Torn, "we have been
through much, and we are as little children in a dark
attic, and so if I have presumed upon our acquaintance,"
and he lowered his arm from about her shoulder, "I
ask you to forgive it for I scarce know what to do, from
weakness and from the pain of the blow upon my head."

Joan de Tany drew slowly away from him, and with-
out reply took his hand and led him forward through
a dark, cold corridor.

"We must go carefully now," she said at last, "for
there be stairs near."

He held her hand pressed very tightly in his, tighter
perhaps than conditions required, but she let it lie
there as she led him forward, very slowly down a flight
of rough stone steps.

Norman of Torn wondered if she were angry with
him and then, being new at love, he blundered.

"Joan de Tany," he said.

"Yes, Roger de Conde; what would you?"

"You be silent, and I fear that you be angry with
me. Tell me that you forgive what I have done, an it
offended you.  I have so few friends," he added sadly,
"that I cannot afford to lose such as you."

"You will never lose the friendship of Joan de Tany,"
she answered.  "You have won her respect and--and--"
But she could not say it and so she trailed off lamely--
"and undying gratitude."

But Norman of Torn knew the word that she would
have spoken had he dared to let her.  He did not, for
there was always the vision of Bertrade de Montfort
before him; and now another vision arose that would
effectually have sealed his lips had not the other--he
saw the Outlaw of Torn dangling by his neck from a
wooden gibbet.

Before, he had only feared that Joan de Tany loved
him, now he knew it, and while he marvelled that so
wondrous a creature could feel love for him, again he
blamed himself, and felt sorrow for them both; for
he did not return her love nor could he imagine a love
strong enough to survive the knowledge that it was
possessed by the Devil of Torn.

Presently they reached the bottom of the stairway,
and Joan de Tany led him, gropingly, across what
seemed, from their echoing footsteps, a large chamber.
The air was chill and dank, smelling of mold, and no
ray of light penetrated this subterranean vault, and no
sound broke the stillness.

"This be the castle's crypt," whispered Joan; "and
they do say that strange happenings occur here in the
still watches of the night, and that when the castle
sleeps the castle's dead rise from their coffins and shake
their dry bones.

"Sh! what was that?" as a rustling noise broke upon
their ears close upon their right; and then there came
a distinct moan, and Joan de Tany fled to the refuge
of Norman of Torn's arms.

"There is nothing to fear, Joan," reassured Norman
of Torn.  "Dead men wield not swords, nor do they
move, or moan.  The wind, I think, and rats are our
only companions here."

"I am afraid," she whispered.  "If you can make a
light I am sure you will find an old lamp here in the
crypt, and then will it be less fearsome.  As a child I
visited this castle often, and in search of adventure
we passed through these corridors an hundred times,
but always by day and with lights."

Norman of Torn did as she bid, and finding the
lamp, lighted it.  The chamber was quite empty save
for the coffins in their niches, and some effigies in
marble set at intervals about the walls.

"Not such a fearsome place after all," he said, laugh-
ing lightly.

"No place would seem fearsome now," she answered
simply, "were there a light to show me that the brave
face of Roger de Conde were by my side."

"Hush, child," replied the outlaw.  "You know not
what you say.  When you know me better you will be
sorry for your words, for Roger de Conde is not what
you think him.  So say no more of praise until we be
out of this hole, and you safe in your father's halls."

The fright of the noises in the dark chamber had
but served to again bring the girl's face close to his so
that he felt her hot, sweet breath upon his cheek, and
thus another link was forged to bind him to her.

With the aid of the lamp they made more rapid
progress, and in a few moments reached a low door
at the end of the arched passageway.

"This is the doorway which opens upon the ravine
below the castle.  We have passed beneath the walls
and the moat.  What may we do now, Roger, without
horses?"

"Let us get out of this place, and as far away as
possible under the cover of darkness, and I doubt not I
may find a way to bring you to your father's castle,"
replied Norman of Torn.

Putting out the light, lest it should attract the notice
of the watch upon the castle walls, Norman of Torn
pushed open the little door and stepped forth into the
fresh night air.

The ravine was so overgrown with tangled vines and
wildwood that had there ever been a pathway it was
now completely obliterated; and it was with difficulty
that the man forced his way through the entangling
creepers and tendrils.  The girl stumbled after him and
twice fell before they had taken a score of steps.

"I fear I am not strong enough," she said finally.  "The
way is much more difficult than I had thought."

So Norman of Torn lifted her in his strong arms,
and stumbled on through the darkness and the shrub-
bery down the center of the ravine.  It required the
better part of an hour to traverse the little distance to
the roadway; and all the time her head nestled upon
his shoulder and her hair brushed his cheek.  Once when
she lifted her head to speak to him he bent toward her,
and in the darkness, by chance, his lips brushed hers.
He felt her little form tremble in his arms, and a faint
sigh breathed from her lips.

They were upon the highroad now, but he did not
put her down.  A mist was before his eyes, and he could
have crushed her to him and smothered those warm
lips with his own.  Slowly his face inclined toward hers,
closer and closer his iron muscles pressed her to him,
and then, clear cut and distinct before his eyes, he
saw the corpse of the Outlaw of Torn swinging by the
neck from the arm of a wooden gibbet, and beside it
knelt a woman gowned in rich cloth of gold and many
jewels.  Her face was averted and her arms were out-
stretched toward the dangling form that swung and
twisted from the grim, gaunt arm.  Her figure was
racked with choking sobs of horror-stricken grief.  Pres-
ently she staggered to her feet and turned away, bury-
ing her face in her hands; but he saw her features for
an instant then--the woman who openly and alone
mourned the dead Outlaw of Torn was Bertrade de
Montfort.

Slowly his arms relaxed, and gently and reverently
he lowered Joan de Tany to the ground.  In that in-
stant Norman of Torn had learned the difference be-
tween friendship and love, and love and passion.

The moon was shining brightly upon them, and the
girl turned, wide-eyed and wondering, toward him.  She
had felt the wild call of love and she could not under-
stand his seeming coldness now, for she had seen no
vision beyond a life of happiness within those strong
arms.

"Joan," he said, "I would but now have wronged
thee.  Forgive me.  Forget what has passed between us
until I can come to you in my rightful colors, when the
spell of the moonlight and adventure be no longer
upon us, and then,"--he paused--"and then I shall
tell you who I be and you shall say if you still care to
call me friend--no more than that shall I ask."

He had not the heart to tell her that he loved only
Bertrade de Montfort, but it had been a thousand times
better had he done so.

She was about to reply when a dozen armed men
sprang from the surrounding shadows, calling upon
them to surrender.  The moonlight falling upon the
leader revealed a great giant of a fellow with an enor-
mous, bristling mustache--it was Shandy.

Norman of Torn lowered his raised sword.

"It is I, Shandy," he said.  "Keep a still tongue in thy
head until I speak with thee apart.  Wait here, My
Lady Joan; these be friends."

Drawing Shandy to one side he learned that the
faithful fellow had become alarmed at his chief's con-
tinued absence, and had set out with a small party to
search for him.  They had come upon the riderless Sir
Mortimer grazing by the roadside, and a short distance
beyond had discovered evidences of the conflict at the
cross-roads.  There they had found Norman of Torn's
helmet, confirming their worst fears.  A peasant in a
nearby hut had told them of the encounter, and had
set them upon the road taken by the Earl and his prison-
ers.

"And here we be, My Lord," concluded the great
fellow.

"How many are you?" asked the outlaw.

"Fifty, all told, with those who lie farther back in
the bushes."

"Give us horses, and let two of the men ride behind
us," said the chief.  "And, Shandy, let not the lady
know that she rides this night with the Outlaw of Torn."

"Yes, My Lord."

They were soon mounted, and clattering down the
road, back toward the castle of Richard de Tany.

Joan de Tany looked in silent wonder upon this grim
force that sprang out of the shadows of the night to do
the bidding of Roger de Conde, a gentleman of France.

There was something familiar in the great bulk of
Red Shandy; where had she seen that mighty frame
before? And now she looked closely at the figure of
Roger de Conde.  Yes, somewhere else had she seen
these two men together; but where and when?

And then the strangeness of another incident came
to her mind.  Roger de Conde spoke no English,  and
yet she had plainly heard English words upon  this
man's lips as he addressed the red giant.

Norman of Torn had recovered his helmet from one
of his men who had picked it up at the crossroads, and
now he rode in silence with lowered visor, as was his
custom.

There was something sinister now in his appearance,
and as the moonlight touched the hard, cruel faces of
the grim and silent men who rode behind him, a little
shudder crept over the frame of Joan de Tany.

Shortly before daylight they reached the castle of
Richard de Tany, and a great shout went up from the
watch as Norman of Torn cried:

"Open! Open for My Lady Joan."

Together they rode into the courtyard, where all was
bustle and excitement.  A dozen voices asked a dozen
questions only to cry out still others without waiting
for replies.

Richard de Tany with his family and Mary de Stute-
vill were still fully clothed, having not lain down during
the whole night.  They fairly fell upon Joan and Roger
de Conde in their joyous welcome and relief.

"Come, come," said the Baron, "let us go within.  You
must be fair famished for good food and drink."

"I will ride, My Lord," replied Norman of Torn.  "I
have a little matter of business with my friend the
Earl of Buckingham.  Business which I fear will not
wait."

Joan de Tany looked on in silence.  Nor did she urge
him to remain, as he raised her hand to his lips in
farewell.  So Norman of Torn rode out of the courtyard;
and as his men fell in behind him under the first rays
of the drawing day, the daughter of De Tany watched
them through the gate, and a great light broke upon
her, for what she saw was the same as she had seen a
few days since when she had turned in her saddle to
watch the retreating forms of the cut-throats of Torn
as they rode on after halting her father's party.











CHAPTER XIV

SOME hours later fifty men followed Norman of Torn
on foot through the ravine below the castle where John
de Fulm, Earl of Buckingham, had his headquarters;
while nearly a thousand more lurked in the woods be-
fore the grim pile.

Under cover of the tangled shrubbery they crawled
unseen to the little door through which Joan de Tany
had led him the night before.  Following the corridors
and vaults beneath the castle they came to the stone
stairway, and mounted to the passage which led to the
false panel that had given the two fugitives egress.

Slipping the spring lock, Norman of Torn entered
the apartment followed closely by his henchmen.  On
they went, through apartment after apartment, but
no sign of the Earl or his servitors rewarded their
search, and it was soon apparent that the castle was
deserted.

As they came forth into the courtyard they descried
an old man basking in the sun, upon a bench.  The
sight of them nearly caused the old fellow to die of
fright, for to see fifty armed men issue from the un-
tenanted halls was well reckoned to blanch even a
braver cheek.

When Norman of Torn questioned him he learned
that De Fulm had ridden out early in the day bound
for Dover, where Prince Edward then was.  The outlaw
knew it would be futile to pursue him, but yet, so
fierce was his anger against this man, that he ordered
his band to mount, and spurring to their head, he
marched through Middlesex, and crossing the Thames
above London, entered Surrey late the same afternoon.

As they were going into camp that night in Kent,
midway between London and Rochester, word came to
Norman of Torn that the Earl of Buckingham, having
sent his escort on to Dover, had stopped to visit the
wife of a royalist baron, whose husband was with Prince
Edward's forces.

The fellow who gave this information was a servant
in my lady's household who held a grudge against his
mistress for some wrong she had done him.  When,
therefore, he found that these grim men were searching
for De Fulm he saw a way to be revenged upon his
mistress.

"How many swords be there at the castle?" asked
Norman of Torn.

"Scarce a dozen, barring the Earl of Buckingham,"
replied the knave; "and, furthermore, there be a way
to enter, which I may show you, My Lord, so that you
may, unseen, reach the apartment where My Lady
and the Earl be supping."

"Bring ten men, beside yourself, Shandy," commanded
Norman of Torn.  "We shall pay a little visit upon
our amorous friend, My Lord, the Earl of Bucking-
ham."

Half an hour's ride brought them within sight of the
castle.  Dismounting, and leaving their horses with one
of the men, Norman of Torn advanced on foot with
Shandy and the eight others, close in the wake of the
traitorous servant.

The fellow led them to the rear of the castle, where,
among the brush, he had hidden a rude ladder, which,
when tilted, spanned the moat and rested its farther
end upon a window ledge some ten feet above the
ground.

"Keep the fellow here till last, Shandy," said the
outlaw, "till all be in, an' if there be any signs of
treachery stick him through the gizzard--death thus
be slower and more painful."

So saying Norman of Torn crept boldly across the
improvised bridge, and disappeared within the window
beyond.  One by one the band of cut-throats passed
through the little window, until all stood within the
castle beside their chief; Shandy coming last with the
servant.

"Lead me quietly, knave, to the room where My
Lord sups," said Norman of Torn.  "You, Shandy, place
your men where they can prevent my being inter-
rupted."

Following a moment or two after Shandy came an-
other figure stealthily across the ladder, and as Norman
of Torn and his followers left the little room this figure
pushed quietly through the window and followed the
great outlaw down the unlighted corridor.

A moment later My Lady of Leybourn looked up
from her plate upon the grim figure of an armored
knight standing in the doorway of the great dining hall.

"My Lord Earl!" she cried.  "Look! behind you."

And as the Earl of Buckingham glanced behind him
he overturned the bench upon which he sat, in his
effort to gain his feet; for My Lord Earl of Buckingham
had a guilty conscience.

The grim figure raised a restraining hand, as the
Earl drew his sword.

"A moment, My Lord," said a low voice in perfect
French.

"Who are you?" cried the lady.

"I be an old friend of My Lord, here; but let me
tell you a little story.

"In a grim old castle in Essex, only last night, a
great lord of England held by force the beautiful
daughter of a noble house, and, when she spurned his
advances, he struck her with his clenched fist upon her
fair face, and with his brute hands choked her.  And in
that castle also was a despised and hunted outlaw, with
a price upon his head, for whose neck the hempen
noose has been yawning these many years.  And it was
this vile person who came in time to save the young
woman from the noble flower of knighthood that would
have ruined her young life.

"The outlaw wished to kill the knight, but many
men-at-arms came to the noble's rescue, and so the
outlaw was forced to fly with the girl lest he be over-
come by numbers, and the girl thus fall again into the
hands of her tormentor.

"But this crude outlaw was not satisfied with merely
rescuing the girl, he must needs mete out justice to her
noble abductor and collect in full the toll of blood
which alone can atone for the insult and violence done
her.

"My Lady, the young girl was Joan de Tany; the
noble was My Lord the Earl of Buckingham; and the
outlaw stands before you to fulfill the duty he has
sworn to do.  En garde, My Lord!"

The encounter was short, for Norman of Torn had
come to kill, and he had been looking through a haze
of blood for hours--in fact every time he had thought
of those brutal fingers upon the fair throat of Joan de
Tany and of the cruel blow that had fallen upon her
face.

He showed no mercy, but backed the Earl relentlessly
into a corner of the room, and when he had him there
where he could escape in no direction, he drove his
blade so deep through his putrid heart that the point
buried itself an inch in the oak panel beyond.

Claudia Leybourn sat frozen with horror at the sight
she was witnessing, and, as Norman of Torn wrenched
his blade from the dead body before him and wiped it
on the rushes of the floor, she gazed in awful fascina-
tion while he drew his dagger and made a mark upon
the forehead of the dead nobleman.

"Outlaw or Devil," said a stern voice behind them,
"Roger Leybourn owes you his friendship for saving the
honor of his home."

Both turned to discover a mail-clad figure standing in
the doorway where Norman of Torn had first appeared.

"Roger!" shrieked Claudia Leybourn, and swooned.

"Who be you?" continued the master of Leybourn
addressing the outlaw.

For answer Norman of Torn pointed to the forehead
of the dead Earl of Buckingham, and there Roger
Leybourn saw, in letters of blood, NT.

The Baron advanced with outstretched hand.

"I owe you much, you have saved my poor, silly
wife from this beast, and Joan de Tany is my cousin,
so I am doubly beholden to you, Norman of Torn."

The outlaw pretended that he did not see the hand.

"You owe me nothing, Sir Roger, that may not be
paid by a good supper; I have eaten but once in forty-
eight hours."

The outlaw now called to Shandy and his men, telling
them to remain on watch, but to interfere with no one
within the castle.

He then sat at the table with Roger Leybourn and
his lady, who had recovered from her swoon, and be-
hind them on the rushes of the floor lay the body of
De Fulm in a little pool of blood.

Leybourn told them that he had heard that De Fulm
was at his home, and had hastened back; having been
in hiding about the castle for half an hour before the
arrival of Norman of Torn, awaiting an opportunity
to enter unobserved by the servants.  It was he who
had followed across the ladder after Shandy.

The outlaw spent the night at the castle of Roger
Leybourn; for the first time within his memory a wel-
comed guest under his true name at the house of a
gentleman.

The following morning he bade his host goodbye,
and returning to his camp started on his homeward
march toward Torn.

Near midday, as they were approaching the Thames
near the environs of London, they saw a great con-
course of people hooting and jeering at a small party of
gentlemen and gentlewomen.

Some of the crowd were armed, and from very force
of numbers were waxing brave to lay violent hands
upon the party.  Mud and rocks and rotten vegetables
were being hurled at the little cavalcade, many of
them barely missing the women of the party.

Norman of Torn waited to ask no questions, but
spurring into the thick of it laid right and left of him
with the flat of his sword, and his men, catching the
contagion of it, swarmed after him until the whole
pack of attacking ruffians were driven into the Thames.

And then, without a backward glance at the party he
had rescued, he continued on his march toward the
north.

The little party sat upon their horses looking in won-
der after the retreating figures of their deliverers.  Then
one of the ladies turned to a knight at her side with a
word of command and an imperious gesture toward
the fast disappearing company.  He thus addressed put
spurs to his horse, and rode at a rapid gallop after the
outlaw's troop.  In a few moments he had overtaken
them and reined up beside Norman of Torn.

"Hold, Sir Knight," cried the gentleman, "the Queen
would thank you in person for your brave defence of
her."

Ever keen to see the humor of a situation, Norman
of Torn wheeled his horse and rode back with the
Queen's messenger.

As he faced Her Majesty the Outlaw of Torn bent
low over his pommel.

"You be a strange knight that thinks so lightly on
saving a queen's life that you ride on without turning
your head, as though you had but driven a pack of curs
from annoying a stray cat," said the Queen.

"I drew in the service of a woman, Your Majesty,
not in the service of a queen."

"What now! Wouldst even belittle the act which we
all witnessed? The King, my husband, shall reward
thee, Sir Knight, if you but tell me your name."

"If I told my name methinks the King would be
more apt to hang me," laughed the outlaw.  "I be Nor-
man of Torn."

The entire party looked with startled astonishment
upon him, for none of them had ever seen this bold
raider whom all the nobility and gentry of England
feared and hated.

"For lesser acts than that which thou hast just per-
formed, the King has pardoned men before," replied Her
Majesty.  "But raise your visor, I would look upon the
face of so notorious a criminal who can yet be a gentle-
man and a loyal protector of his queen."

"They who have looked upon my face, other than
my friends," replied Norman of Torn quietly, "have
never lived to tell what they saw beneath this visor;
and as for you, Madame, I have learned within the
year to fear it might mean unhappiness to you to see
the visor of the Devil of Torn lifted from his face."
Without another word he wheeled and galloped back
to his little army.

"The puppy, the insolent puppy," cried Eleanor of
England, in a rage.

And so the Outlaw of Torn and his mother met and
parted after a period of twenty years.


Two days later Norman of Torn directed Red Shan-
dy to lead the forces of Torn from their Essex camp
back to Derby.  The numerous raiding parties which
had been constantly upon the road during the days
they had spent in this rich district had loaded the extra
sumpter beasts with rich and valuable booty and the
men, for the time satiated with fighting and loot,
turned their faces toward Torn with evident satisfac-
tion.

The outlaw was speaking to his captains in council;
at his side the old man of Torn.

"Ride by easy stages, Shandy, and I will overtake you
by tomorrow morning.  I but ride for a moment to the
castle of De Tany on an errand, and as I shall stop
there but a few moments I shall surely join you to-
morrow."

"Do not forget, My Lord," said Edwild the Serf,
a great yellow-haired Saxon giant, "that there be a
party of the King's troops camped close by the road
which branches to Tany."

"I shall give them plenty of room," replied Norman of
Torn.  "My neck itcheth not to be stretched," and he
laughed and mounted.

Five minutes after he had cantered down the road
from camp, Spizo the Spaniard, sneaking his horse un-
seen into the surrounding forest, mounted and spurred
rapidly after him.  The camp, in the throes of packing
refractory, half broken sumpter animals, and saddling
their own wild mounts, did not notice his departure.
Only the little grim, gray, old man knew that he had
gone, or why, or whither.

That afternoon as Roger de Conde was admitted to
the castle of Richard de Tany, and escorted to a little
room where he awaited the coming of the Lady Joan,
a swarthy messenger handed a letter to the captain of
the King's soldiers camped a few miles south of Tany.

The officer tore open the seal as the messenger turned
and spurred back in the direction from which he had
come.

And this was what he read:

Norman of Torn is now at the castle of Tany, with-
out escort.

Instantly the call "to arms" and "mount" sounded
through the camp; and in five minutes a hundred mer-
cenaries galloped rapidly toward the castle of Richard
de Tany, in the visions of their captain a great reward
and honor and preferment for the capture of the mighty
outlaw who was now almost within his clutches.

Three roads meet at Tany; one from the south along
which the King's soldiers were now riding; one from
the west which had guided Norman of Torn from his
camp to the castle; and a third which ran northwest
through Cambridge and Huntingdon toward Derby.

All unconscious of the rapidly approaching foes Nor-
man of Torn waited composedly in the anteroom for
Joan de Tany.

Presently she entered, clothed in the clinging house
garment of the period; a beautiful vision, made more
beautiful by the suppressed excitement which caused
the blood to surge beneath the velvet of her cheek, and
her breasts to rise and fall above her fast beating heart.

She let him take her fingers in his and raise them to
his lips, and then they stood looking into each other's
eyes in silence for a long moment.

"I do not know how to tell you what I have come
to tell," he said sadly.  "I have not meant to deceive
you to your harm, but the temptation to be with you
and those whom you typify must be my excuse.  I--"
He paused.  It was easy to tell her that he was the Out-
law of Torn, but if she loved him, as he feared, how
was he to tell her that he loved only Bertrade de
Montfort?

"You need tell me nothing," interrupted Joan de
Tany.  "I have guessed what you would tell me, Nor-
man of Torn.  'The spell of moonlight and adventure is
no longer upon us'--those are your own words, and
still I am glad to call you friend."

The little emphasis she put upon the last word be-
spoke the finality of her decision that the Outlaw of
Torn could be no more than friend to her.

"It is best," he replied, relieved that, as he thought,
she felt no love for him now that she knew him for
what he really was.  "Nothing good could come to such
as you, Joan, if the Devil of Torn could claim more of
you than friendship; and so I think that for your peace
of mind and for my own we will let it be as though you
had never known me.  I thank you that you have not
been angry with me.  Remember me only to think that
in the hills of Derby a sword is at your service, without
reward and without price.  Should you ever need it,
Joan, tell me that you will send for me--wilt promise
me that, Joan?"

"I promise, Norman of Torn."

"Farewell," he said, and as he again kissed her hand
he bent his knee to the ground in reverence.  Then he
rose to go, pressing a little packet into her palm.  Their
eyes met, and the man saw in that brief instant deep in
the azure depths of the girl's that which tumbled the
structure of his new-found complacency about his ears.

As he rode out into the bright sunlight upon the road
which led northwest toward Derby, Norman of Torn
bowed his head in sorrow, for he realized two things.
One was that the girl he had left still loved him, and
that some day, mayhap tomorrow, she would suffer be-
cause she had sent him away; and the other was that
he did not love her, that his heart was locked in the
fair breast of Bertrade de Montfort.

He felt himself a beast that he had allowed his lone-
liness and the aching sorrow of his starved, empty heart
to lead him into this girl's life.  That he had been new
to women and newer still to love did not permit him to
excuse himself, and a hundred times he cursed his folly
and stupidity, and what he thought was fickleness.

But the unhappy affair had taught him one thing for
certain: to know without question what love was, and
that the memory of Bertrade de Montfort's lips would
always be more to him than all the allurements possessed
by the balance of the women of the world, no matter
how charming, or how beautiful.

Another thing, a painful thing he had learned from it,
too, that the attitude of Joan de Tany, daughter of an
old and noble house, was but the attitude which the Out-
law of Torn must expect from any good woman of her
class; what he must expect from Bertrade de Mont-
fort when she learned that Roger de Conde was Nor-
man of Torn.

The outlaw had scarce passed out of sight upon the
road to Derby ere the girl, who still stood in an em-
brasure of the south tower, gazing with strangely
drawn, sad face up the road which had swallowed him,
saw a body of soldiers galloping rapidly toward Tany
from the south.

The King's banner waved above their heads, and in-
tuitively Joan de Tany knew for whom they sought at
her father's castle.  Quickly she hastened to the outer
barbican that it might be she who answered their hail
rather than one of the men-at-arms on watch there.

She had scarcely reached the ramparts of the outer
gate ere the King's men drew rein before the castle.

In reply to their hail Joan de Tany asked their mis-
sion.

"We seek the outlaw, Norman of Torn, who hides
now within this castle," replied the officer.

"There be no outlaw here," replied the girl, "but, if
you wish, you may enter with half a dozen men and
search the castle."

This the officer did and when he had assured him-
self that Norman of Torn was not within an hour had
passed, and Joan de Tany felt certain that the Outlaw
of Torn was too far ahead to be caught by the King's
men; so she said:

"There was one here just before you came who called
himself though by another name than Norman of Torn,
possibly it is he ye seek."

"Which way rode he?" cried the officer.

"Straight toward the west by the middle road," lied
Joan de Tany.  And as the officer hurried from the castle
and, with his men at his back, galloped furiously away
toward the west, the girl sank down upon a bench,
pressing her little hands to her throbbing temples.

Then she opened the packet which Norman of Torn
had handed her, and within found two others.  In one of
these was a beautiful jeweled locket, and on the out-
side were the initials JT, and on the inside the initials
NT; in the other was a golden hair ornament set with
precious stones, and about it was wound a strand of
her own silken tresses.

She looked long at the little trinkets and then, press-
ing them against her lips, she threw herself face down
upon an oaken bench, her lithe young form racked with
sobs.

She was indeed but a little girl chained by the inex-
orable bonds of caste to a false ideal.  Birth and station
spelled honor to her, and honor, to the daughter of an
English noble, was a mightier force even than love.

That Norman of Torn was an outlaw she might have
forgiven, but that he was, according to report, a low
fellow of no birth placed an impassable barrier between
them.

For hours the girl lay sobbing upon the bench, whilst
within her raged the mighty battle of the  heart  against
the head.

Thus her mother found her, and kneeling beside her,
and with her arms about the girl's neck, tried to soothe
her and to learn the cause of her sorrow.  Finally it
came, poured from the flood gates of a sorrowing heart;
that wave of bitter misery and hopelessness which not
even a mother's love could check.

"Joan, my dear daughter," cried Lady de Tany, "I
sorrow with thee that thy love has been cast upon so
bleak and impossible a shore.  But it be better that thou
hast learnt the truth ere it were too late; for, take my
word upon it, Joan, the bitter humiliation such an al-
liance must needs have brought upon thee and thy
father's house would soon have cooled thy love; nor
could his have survived the sneers and affronts even
the menials would have put upon him."

"Oh, mother, but I love him so," moaned the girl.
"I did not know how much until he had gone, and the
King's officer had come to search for him, and then the
thought that all the power of a great throne and the
mightiest houses of an entire kingdom were turned in
hatred against him raised the hot blood of anger
within me and the knowledge of my love surged through
all my being.  Mother, thou canst not know the honor,
and the bravery, and the chivalry of the man as I do.
Not since Arthur of Silures kept his round table hath
ridden forth upon English soil so true a knight as Nor-
man of Torn.

"Couldst thou but have seen him fight, my mother,
and witnessed the honor of his treatment of thy daugh-
ter, and heard the tone of dignified respect in which he
spoke of women thou wouldst have loved him, too, and
felt that outlaw though he be, he is still more a gentle-
man than nine-tenths the nobles of England."

"But his birth, my daughter!" argued the Lady de
Tany.  "Some even say that the gall marks of his brass
collar still showeth upon his neck, and others that he
knoweth not himself the name of his own father, nor
had he any mother."

Ah, but this was the mighty argument! Naught
could the girl say to justify so heinous a crime as low
birth.  What a man did in those rough cruel days might
be forgotten and forgiven but the sins of his mother or
his grandfather in not being of noble blood, no matter
howsoever wickedly attained, he might never overcome
or live down.

Torn by conflicting emotions the poor girl dragged
herself to her own apartment and there upon a restless,
sleepless couch, beset by wild, impossible hopes, and
vain, torturing regrets, she fought out the long, bitter
night; until toward morning she solved the problem
of her misery in the only way that seemed possible to
her poor, tired, bleeding, little heart.  When the rising
sun shone through the narrow window it found Joan de
Tany at peace with all about her; the carved golden
hilt of the toy that had hung at her girdle protruded
from her breast, and a thin line of crimson ran across
the snowy skin to a little pool upon the sheet beneath
her.

And so the cruel hand of a mighty revenge had
reached out to crush another innocent victim.




CHAPTER XV

WHEN word of the death of Joan de Tany reached
Torn no man could tell from outward appearance the
depth of the suffering which the sad intelligence wrought
on the master of Torn.

All that they who followed him knew was that cer-
tain unusual orders were issued, and that that same
night the ten companies rode south toward Essex without
other halt than for necessary food and water for man and
beast.

When the body of Joan de Tany rode forth from her
father's castle to the church at Colchester, and again as
it was brought back to its final resting place in the
castle's crypt, a thousand strange and silent knights,
black draped, upon horses trapped in black, rode slowly
behind the bier.

Silently they had come in the night preceding the fun-
eral, and as silently they slipped away northward into
the falling shadows of the following night.

No word had passed between those of the castle and
the great troop of sable-clad warriors, but all within
knew that the mighty Outlaw of Torn had come to pay
homage to the memory of the daughter of De Tany,
and all but the grieving mother wondered at the strange-
ness of the act.

As the horde of Torn approached their Derby strong-
hold their young leader turned the command over to
Red Shandy and dismounted at the door of Father
Claude's cottage.

"I am tired, Father," said the outlaw as he threw
himself upon his accustomed bench.  "Naught but sor-
row and death follow in my footsteps.  I and all my
acts be accurst, and upon those I love the blight fall-
eth."

"Alter thy ways, my son; follow my advice ere it be
too late.  Seek out a new and better life in another
country and carve thy future into the semblance of
glory and honor."

"Would that I might, my friend," answered Norman
of Torn.  "But hast thou thought on the consequences
which surely would follow should I thus remove both
heart and head from the thing that I have built?

"What suppose thou would result were Norman of
Torn to turn his great band of cut-throats, leaderless,
upon England? Hast thought on't, Father?

"Wouldst thou draw a single breath in security if
thou knew Edwild the Serf were ranging unchecked
through Derby? Edwild, whose father was torn limb
from limb upon the rack because he would not confess
to killing a buck in the new forest, a buck which fell
before the arrow of another man; Edwild, whose mother
was burned for witchcraft by Holy Church.

"And Horsan the Dane, Father.  How thinkest thou
the safety of the roads would be for either rich or poor
an I turned Horsan the Dane loose upon ye?

"And Pensilo the Spanish Don! A great captain, but
a man absolutely without bowels of compassion.  When
first he joined us and saw our mark upon the foreheads
of our dead, wishing to out-Herod Herod, he marked
the living which fell into his hands with a red hot iron,
branding a great P upon each cheek and burning out the
right eye completely.  Wouldst like to feel, Father, that
Don Piedro Castro y Pensilo ranged free through
forest and hill of England?

"And Red Shandy, and the two Florys, and Peter
the Hermit, and One Eye Kanty, and Gropello, and
Campanee, and Cobarth, and Mandecote, and the thou-
sand others, each with a special hatred for some particu-
lar class or individual, and all filled with the lust of
blood and rapine and loot.

"No, Father, I may not go yet, for the England I
have been taught to hate I have learned to love, and I
have it not in my heart to turn loose upon her fair
breast the beasts of hell who know no law or order
or decency other than that which I enforce."

As Norman of Torn ceased speaking the priest sat
silent for many minutes.

"Thou hast indeed a grave responsibility, my son,"
he said at last.  "Thou canst not well go unless thou
takest thy horde with thee out of England, but even
that may be possible; who knows other than God?"

"For my part" laughed the outlaw, "I be willing to
leave it in His hands; which seems to be the way with
Christians.  When one would shirk a responsibility, or
explain an error, lo, one shoulders it upon the Lord."

"I fear, my son," said the priest, "that what seed
of reverence I have attempted to plant within thy
breast hath borne poor fruit."

"That dependeth upon the viewpoint, Father; as I
take not the Lord into partnership in my successes it
seemeth to me to be but of a mean and poor spirit to
saddle my sorrows and perplexities upon Him.  I may be
wrong, for I am ill-versed in religious matters, but my
conception of God and scapegoat be not that they are
synonymous."

"Religion, my son, be a bootless subject for argu-
ment between friends," replied the priest, "and fur-
ther, there be that nearer my heart just now which
I would ask thee.  I may offend, but thou know I do
not mean to.  The question I would ask, is, dost
wholly trust the old man whom thou call father?"

"I know of no treachery," replied the outlaw, "which
he hath ever conceived against me.  Why?"

"I ask because I have written to Simon de Montfort
asking him to meet me and two others here upon an
important matter.  I have learned that he expects to be
at his Leicester castle, for a few days, within the week.
He is to notify me when he will come and I shall
then send for thee and the old man of Torn; but it
were as well, my son, that thou do not mention this
matter to thy father, nor let him know when thou
come hither to the meeting that De Montfort is to be
present."

"As you say, Father," replied Norman of Torn.  "I do
not make head nor tail of thy wondrous intrigues, but
that thou wish it done thus or so is sufficient.  I must
be off to Torn now, so I bid thee farewell."

Until the following spring Norman of Torn con-
tinued to occupy himself with occasional pillages against
the royalists of the surrounding counties, and his pa-
trols so covered the public highways that it became a
matter of grievous import to the King's party, for no one
was safe in the district who even so much as sym-
pathized with the King's cause, and many were the
dead foreheads that bore the grim mark of the Devil
of Torn.

Though he had never formally espoused the cause of
the barons, it now seemed a matter of little doubt but
that, in any crisis, his grisly banner would be found on
their side.

The long winter evenings within the castle of Torn
were often spent in rough, wild carousals in the great
hall where a thousand men might sit at table singing,
fighting and drinking until the gray dawn stole in
through the east windows, or Peter the Hermit, the
fierce majordomo, tired of the din and racket came
stalking into the chamber with drawn sword and laid
upon the revellers with the flat of it to enforce the
authority of his commands to  disperse.

Norman of Torn and the old man seldom joined in
these wild orgies, but when  minstrel, or troubadour, or
storyteller wandered to his grim lair the Outlaw of
Torn would sit enjoying the break in the winter's dull
monotony to as late an hour as another; nor could any
man of his great fierce horde outdrink their chief when
he cared to indulge in the pleasures of the wine cup.
The only effect that liquor seemed to have upon him
was to increase his desire to fight, so that he was wont
to pick needless quarrels and to resort to his sword for
the slightest, or for no provocation at all.  So, for this
reason, he drank but seldom since he always regretted
the things he did under the promptings of that other
self which only could assert its ego when reason was
threatened with submersion.

Often on these evenings the company was enter-
tained by stories from the wild, roving lives of its
own members.  Tales of adventure, love, war and death
in every known corner of the world; and the ten cap-
tains told, each, his story of how he came to be of
Torn; and thus, with fighting enough by day to keep
them good humored, the winter passed, and spring
came with the ever wondrous miracle of awakening life,
with soft zephyrs, warm rain, and sunny skies.

Through all the winter Father Claude had been ex-
pecting to hear from Simon de Montfort but not until
now did he receive a message which told the good
priest that his letter had missed the great baron and had
followed him around until he had but just received it.
The message closed with these words:


"Any clew however vague which might lead nearer
to a true knowledge of the fate of Prince Richard we
shall most gladly receive and give our best attention.
Therefore if thou wilst find it convenient we shall
visit thee, good father, on the fifth day from today."


Spizo the Spaniard had seen De Montfort's man leave
the note with Father Claude and he had seen the
priest hide it under a great bowl on his table, so that
when the good father left his cottage it was the matter
of but a moment's work for Spizo to transfer the mes-
sage from its hiding place to the breast of his tunic.
The fellow could not read, but he to whom he took
the missive could, laboriously, decipher the Latin in
which it was penned.

The old man of Torn fairly trembled with suppressed
rage as the full purport of this letter flashed upon him.
It had been years since he had heard aught of the
search for the little lost prince of England, and now that
the period of his silence was drawing to a close, now
that more and more often opportunities were opening
up to him to wreak the last shred of his terrible ven-
geance, the very thought of being thwarted at the
final moment staggered his comprehension.

"On the fifth day," he repeated.  "That is the day on
which we were to ride south again.  Well, we shall
ride, and Simon de Montfort shall not talk with thee,
thou fool priest."

That same spring evening in the year 1264 a messen-
ger drew rein before the walls of Torn and, to the
challenge of the watch, cried:

"A royal messenger from His Illustrious Majesty,
Henry, by the grace of God, King of England, Lord of
Ireland, Duke of Aquitaine, to Norman of Torn, Open,
in the name of the King!"

Norman of Torn directed that the King's messenger
be admitted, and the knight was quickly ushered into
the great hall of the castle.

The outlaw presently entered in full armor, with
visor lowered.

The bearing of the King's officer was haughty and
arrogant, as became a man of birth when dealing with
a low born knave.

"His Majesty has deigned to address you, sirrah,"
he said, withdrawing a parchment from his breast.
"And as you doubtless cannot read I will read the
King's commands to you."

"I can read," replied Norman of Torn, "whatever
the King can write.  Unless it be," he added, "that the
King writes no better than he rules."

The messenger scowled angrily, crying:

"It ill becomes such a low fellow to speak thus
disrespectfully of our gracious King.  If he were less
generous he would have sent you a halter rather than
this message which I bear."

"A bridle for thy tongue, my friend," replied Nor-
man of Torn, "were in better taste than a halter for
my neck.  But come, let us see what the King writes to
his friend, the Outlaw of Torn."

Taking the parchment from the messenger, Norman of
Torn read:


Henry, by Grace of God, King of England, Lord of
Ireland, Duke of Aquitaine; to Norman of Torn:

Since it has been called to our notice that you be
harassing and plundering the persons and property of
our faithful lieges--

We therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in us
by Almighty God do command that you cease these
nefarious practices--

And further, through the gracious intercession of Her
Majesty, Queen Eleanor, we do offer you full pardon
for all your past crimes--

Provided, you repair at once to the town of Lewes,
with all the fighting men, your followers, prepared to
protect the security of our person, and wage war upon
those enemies of England, Simon de Montfort, Gilbert
de Clare and their accomplices, who even now are
collected to threaten and menace our person and king-
dom--

Or, otherwise, shall you suffer death, by hanging, for
your long unpunished crimes.  Witnessed myself, at
Lewes, on May the third, in the forty-eighth year of
our reign.

HENRY, REX.


"The closing paragraph be unfortunately worded,"
said Norman of Torn, "for because of it shall the King's
messenger eat the King's message; and thus take
back in his belly the answer of Norman of Torn."
And crumpling the parchment in his hand, he advanced
toward the royal emissary.

The knight whipped out his sword, but the Devil of
Torn was even quicker, so that it seemed that the
King's messenger had deliberately hurled his weapon
across the room, so quickly did the outlaw disarm him.

And then Norman of Torn took the man by the neck
with one powerful hand, and, despite his struggles, and
the beating of his mailed fists, bent him back upon the
table, and there, forcing his teeth apart with the point
of his sword, Norman of Torn rammed the King's mes-
sage down the knight's throat; wax, parchment and
all.

It was a crestfallen gentleman who rode forth from
the castle of Torn a half hour later and spurred rapidly
his head a more civil tongue.

When, two days later, he appeared before the King
at Winchelsea and reported the outcome of his mis-
sion Henry raged and stormed, swearing by all the saints
in the calendar that Norman of Torn should hang for
his effrontery before the snow flew again.

News of the fighting between the barons and the
King's forces at Rochester, Battel and elsewhere reached
the ears of Norman of Torn a few days after the com-
ing of the King's message, but at the same time came
other news which hastened his departure toward the
south.  This latter word was that Bertrade de Montfort
and her mother, accompanied by Prince Philip, had
landed at Dover, and that upon the same boat had come
Peter of Colfax back to England.  The latter doubtless
reassured by the strong conviction, which held in the
minds of all royalists at that time, of the certainty of
victory for the royal arms in the impending conflict
with the rebel barons.

Norman of Torn had determined that he would see
Bertrade de Montfort once again, and clear his conscience
by a frank avowal of his identity.  He knew what the
result must be; his experience with Joan de Tany had
taught him that.  But the fine sense of chivalry which
ever dominated all his acts where the happiness or honor
of women were concerned urged him to give himself
over as a sacrifice upon the altar of a woman's pride,
that it might be she who spurned and rejected; for,
as it must appear now, it had been he whose love had
grown cold.  It was a bitter thing to contemplate, for not
alone would the mighty pride of the man be lacerated,
but a great love.

Two days before the start of the march Spizo the
Spaniard reported to the old man of Torn that he had
overheard Father Claude ask Norman of Torn to come
with his father to the priest's cottage the morning of
the march to meet Simon de Montfort upon an impor-
tant matter, but what the nature of the thing was the
priest did not reveal to the outlaw.

This report seemed to please the little, grim, gray old
man more than aught he had heard in several days; for
it made it apparent that the priest had not as yet
divulged the tenor of his conjecture to the Outlaw of
Torn.

On the evening of the day preceding that set for the
march south, a little, wiry figure, grim and gray, en-
tered the cottage of Father Claude.  No man knows what
words passed between the good priest and his visitor
nor the details of what befell within the four walls of
the little cottage that night; but some half hour only
elapsed before the little, grim, gray man emerged from
the darkened interior and hastened upward upon the
rocky trail into the hills, a cold smile of satisfaction
on his lips.

The castle of Torn was filled with the rush and
rattle of preparation early the following morning, for
by eight o'clock the column was to march.  The court-
yard was filled with hurrying squires and lackeys.  War
horses were being groomed and caparisoned; sumpter
beasts, snubbed to great posts, were being laden with
the tents, bedding, and belongings of the men; while
those already packed were wandering loose among the
other animals and men.  There was squealing, biting,
kicking, and cursing as animals fouled one another
with their loads, or brushed against some tethered war
horse.

Squires were running hither and thither, or aiding
their masters to don armor, lacing helm to hauberk,
tying the points of ailette, coude, and rondel; buckling
cuisse and jambe to thigh and leg.  The open forges
of armorer and smithy smoked and hissed, and the din
of hammer on anvil rose above the thousand lesser noises
of the castle courts, the shouting of commands, the rat-
tle of steel, the ringing of iron hoof on stone flags,
as these artificers hastened, sweating and cursing,
through the eleventh hour repairs to armor, lance and
sword, or to reset a shoe upon a refractory, plunging
beast.

Finally the captains came, armored cap-a-pie, and
with them some semblance of order and quiet out of
chaos and bedlam.  First the sumpter beasts, all loaded
now, were driven, with a strong escort, to the downs
below the castle and there held to await the column.
Then, one by one, the companies were formed and
marched out beneath fluttering pennon and waving
banner to the martial strains of bugle and trumpet.

Last of all came the catapults, those great engines of
destruction which hurled two hundred pound bowlders
with mighty force against the walls of beleaguered
castles.

And after all had passed through the great gates
Norman of Torn and the little old man walked side
by side from the castle building and mounted their
chargers held by two squires in the center of the court-
yard.

Below, on the downs, the column was forming in
marching order, and as the two rode out to join it the
little old man turned to Norman of Torn, saying,

"I had almost forgot a message I have for you, my
son.  Father Claude sent word last evening that he had
been called suddenly south, and that some appoint-
ment you had with him must therefore be deferred un-
til later; he said that you would understand." The old
man eyed his companion narrowly through the eye
slit in his helm.

"'Tis passing strange," said Norman of Torn but that
was his only comment.  And so they joined the column
which moved slowly down toward the valley and as
they passed the cottage of Father Claude, Norman of
Torn saw that the door was closed and that there
was no sign of life about the place.  A wave of melan-
choly passed over him, for the deserted aspect of the
little flower hedged cote seemed dismally prophetic
of a near future without the beaming, jovial face of his
friend and adviser.

Scarcely had the horde of Torn passed out of sight
down the east edge of the valley ere a party of richly
dressed knights, coming from the south by another
road along the west bank of the river, crossed over
and drew rein before the cottage of Father Claude.

As their hails were unanswered one of the party
dismounted to enter the building.

"Have a care, My Lord," cried his companion.  "This
be over close to the Castle Torn and there may easily
be more treachery than truth in the message which
called thee thither."

"Fear not," replied Simon de Montfort, "the Devil
of Torn hath no quarrel with me." Striding up the little
path he knocked loudly on the door.  Receiving no
reply he pushed it open and stepped into the dim light
of the interior.  There he found his host, the good father
Claude, stretched upon his back on the floor, the breast
of his priestly robes dark with dried and clotted
blood.

Turning again to the door, De Montfort summoned
a couple of his companions.

"The secret of the little lost prince of England be
a dangerous burden for a man to carry," he said.
"But this convinces me more than any words the priest
might have uttered that the abductor be still in Eng-
land, and possibly Prince Richard also."

A search of the cottage revealed the fact that it had
been ransacked thoroughly by the assassin.  The con-
tents of drawer and box littered every room, though
that the object was not rich plunder was evidenced
by many pieces of jewelry and money which remained
untouched.

"The true object lies here," said De Montfort, point-
ing to the open hearth upon which lay the charred re-
mains of many papers and documents.  "All written evi-
dence has been destroyed, but hold what lieth here
beneath the table?" and, stooping, the Earl of Lei-
cester picked up a sheet of parchment on which a
letter had been commenced.  It was addressed to him,
and he read it aloud:


Lest some unforeseen chance should prevent the ac-
complishment of our meeting, My Lord Earl, I send
thee this by one who knoweth not either its contents or
the suspicions which I will narrate herein.

He who bareth this letter I truly, believe to be the
lost Prince Richard.  Question him closely, My Lord, and
I know that thou wilt be as positive as I.

Of his past thou know nearly as much as I, though
thou may not know the wondrous chivalry and true
nobility of character of him men call--


Here the letter stopped, evidently cut short by the
dagger of the assassin.

"Mon Dieu!  The damnable luck!" cried De Mont-
fort, "but a second more and the name we have sought
for twenty years would have been writ.  Didst ever see
such hellish chance as plays into the hand of the fiend
incarnate since that long gone day when his sword
pierced the heart of Lady Maud by the postern gate
beside the Thames? The Devil himself must watch
o'er him.

"There be naught more we can do here," he con-
tinued.  "I should have been on my way to Fletching
hours since.  Come, my gentlemen, we will ride south
by way of Leicester and have the good Fathers there
look to the decent burial of this holy man."

The party mounted and rode rapidly away.  Noon
found them at Leicester, and three days later they
rode into the baronial camp at Fletching.

At almost the same hour the monks of the Abbey of
Leicester performed the last rites of Holy Church for
the peace of the soul of Father Claude and consigned
his clay to the churchyard.

And thus another innocent victim of an insatiable
hate and vengeance which bad been born in the King's
armory twenty years before passed from the eyes of
men.











CHAPTER XVI

WHILE Norman of Torn and his thousand fighting
men marched slowly south on the road toward Dover,
the army of Simon de Montfort was preparing for its
advance upon Lewes, where King Henry, with his son
Prince Edward, and his brother, Prince Richard, King
of the Romans, together with the latter's son, were
entrenched with their forces, sixty thousand strong.

Before sunrise on a May morning in the year 1264,
the barons' army set out from its camp at Fletching,
nine miles from Lewes, and, marching through dense
forests, reached a point two miles from the city, un-
observed.

From here they ascended the great ridge of the hills
up the valley Combe, the projecting shoulder of the
Downs covering their march from the town.  The King's
party, however, had no suspicion that an attack was
imminent, and, in direct contrast to the methods of
the baronial troops, had spent the preceding night
in drunken revelry, so that they were quite taken by
surprise.

It is true that Henry had stationed an outpost upon
the summit of the hill in advance of Lewes, but so lax
was discipline in his army that the soldiers, growing
tired of the duty, had abandoned the post toward
morning, and returned to town, leaving but a single man
on watch.  He, left alone, had promptly fallen asleep;
and thus De Montfort's men found and captured him
within sight of the bell-tower of the Priory of Lewes,
where the King and his royal allies lay peacefully
asleep, after their night of wine and dancing and song.

Had it not been for an incident which now befell,
the baronial army would doubtless have reached the
city without being detected, but it happened that the
evening before Henry had ordered a foraging party
to ride forth at daybreak, as provisions for both men
and beasts were low.

This party had scarcely left the city behind them ere
they fell into the hands of the baronial troops.  Though
some few were killed or captured those who escaped
were sufficient to arouse the sleeping army of the
royalists to the close proximity and gravity of their
danger.

By this time the four divisions of De Montfort's army
were in full view of the town.  On the left were the
Londoners under Nicholas de Segrave; in the center
rode De Clare, with John Fitz-John and William de
Monchensy, at the head of a large division which oc-
cupied that branch of the hill which descended a gen-
tle, unbroken slope to the town.  The right wing was
commanded by Henry de Montfort, the oldest son of
Simon de Montfort, and with him was the third son,
Guy, as well as John de Burgh and Humphrey de Bo-
hun.  The reserves were under Simon de Montfort him-
self.

Thus was the flower of English chivalry pitted against
the King and his party, which included many nobles
whose kinsmen were with De Montfort; so that brother
faced brother, and father fought against son, on that
bloody Wednesday, before the old town of Lewes.

Prince Edward was the first of the royal party to
take the field, and as he issued from the castle with
his gallant company, banners and pennons streaming
in the breeze and burnished armor and flashing blade
scintillating in the morning sunlight, he made a gor-
geous and impressive spectacle as he hurled himself
upon the Londoners, whom he had selected for at-
tack because of the affront they had put upon his
mother that day at London on the preceding July.

So vicious was his onslaught that the poorly armed
and unprotected burghers, unused to the stern game of
war, fell like sheep before the iron men on their iron
shod horses.  The long lances, the heavy maces, the six-
bladed battle axes, and the well tempered swords of
the knights played havoc among them, so that the rout
was complete; but, not content with victory, Prince
Edward must glut his vengeance, and so he pursued
the citizens for miles, butchering great numbers of
them, while many more were drowned in attempting to
escape across the Ouse.

The left wing of the royalist army, under the King
of the Romans and his gallant son, was not so fortunate
for they met a determined resistance at the hands of
Henry de Montfort.

The central divisions of the two armies seemed well
matched also, and thus the battle continued through-
out the day, the greatest advantage appearing to lie
with the King's troops.  Had Edward not gone so far
afield in pursuit of the Londoners, the victory might
easily have been on the side of the royalists early in
the day, but by thus eliminating his division after de-
feating a part of De Montfort's army, it was as though
neither of these two forces had been engaged.

The wily Simon de Montfort had attempted a little
ruse which centered the fighting for a time upon the
crest of one of the hills.  He had caused his car to be
placed there, with the tents and luggage of many of
his leaders, under a small guard, so that the banners
there displayed, together with the car, led the King of
the Romans to believe that the Earl himself lay there,
for Simon de Montfort had but a month or so before
suffered an injury to his hip, when his horse fell with
him, and the royalists were not aware that he had re-
covered sufficiently to again mount a horse.

And so it was that the forces under the King of the
Romans pushed back the men of Henry de Montfort,
and ever and ever closer to the car came the royalists
until they were able to fall upon it, crying out insults
against the old Earl and commanding him to come
forth.  And when they had killed the occupants of the
car they found that Simon de Montfort was not among
them, but instead he had fastened there three im-
portant citizens of London, old men and influential,
who had opposed him, and aided and abetted the King.

So great was the wrath of Prince Richard, King of
the Romans, that he fell upon the baronial troops
with renewed vigor, and slowly but steadily beat them
back from the town.

This sight, together with the routing of the enemy's
left wing by Prince Edward, so cheered and inspired
the royalists that the two remaining divisions took up
the attack with refreshed spirits so that what a moment
before had hung in the balance now seemed an as-
sured victory for King Henry.

Both De Montfort and the King had thrown them-
selves into the melee with all their reserves; no longer
was there semblance of organization.  Division was in-
extricably bemingled with division; friend and foe
formed a jumbled confusion of fighting, cursing chaos,
over which whipped the angry pennons and banners
of England's noblest houses.

That the mass seemed moving ever away from Lewes
indicated that the King's arms were winning toward
victory, and so it might have been had not a new
element been infused into the battle; for now upon
the brow of the hill to the north of them appeared a
great horde of armored knights, and as they came into
position where they could view the battle the leader
raised his sword on high, and, as one man, the thousand
broke into a mad charge.

Both De Montfort and the King ceased fighting as
they gazed upon this body of fresh, well armored, well
mounted reinforcements.  Whom might they be? To
which side owned they allegiance? And, then, as the
black falcon wing on the banners of the advancing
horsemen became distinguishable, they saw that it was
the Outlaw of Torn.

Now he was close upon them, and had there been
any doubt before, the wild battle cry which rang from
a thousand fierce throats turned the hopes of the
royalists cold within their breasts.

"For De Montfort! For De Montfort!" and "Down
with Henry!" rang loud and clear above the din of
battle.

Instantly the tide turned, and it was by only the bar-
est chance that the King himself escaped capture, and
regained the temporary safety of Lewes.

The King of the Romans took refuge within an old
mill, and here it was that Norman of Torn found him
barricaded.  When the door was broken down the out-
law entered and dragged the monarch forth with his
own hand to the feet of De Montfort, and would have
put him to death had not the Earl intervened.

"I have yet to see my mark upon the forehead of a
King," said Norman of Torn, "and the temptation be
great; but, an you ask it, My Lord Earl, his life shall
be yours to do with as you see fit."

"You have fought well this day, Norman of Torn,"
replied De Montfort.  "Verily do I believe we owe
our victory to you alone; so do not mar the record of
a noble deed by wanton acts of atrocity."

"It is but what they had done to me, were I the
prisoner instead," retorted the outlaw.

And Simon de Montfort could not answer that, for
it was but the simple truth.

"How comes it, Norman of Torn," asked De Montfort
as they rode together toward Lewes, "that you threw
the weight of your sword upon the side of the barons?
Be it because you hate the King more?"

"I do not know that I hate either, My Lord Earl,"
replied the outlaw.  "I have been taught since birth
to hate you all, but why I should hate was never told
me. Possibly it be but a bad habit that will yield to
my maturer years.

"As for why I fought as I did today," he continued,
"it be because the heart of Lady Bertrade your daughter
be upon your side.  Had it been with the King, her
uncle, Norman of Torn had fought otherwise than he
has this day.  So you see, My Lord Earl, you owe me
no gratitude.  Tomorrow I may be pillaging your friends
as of yore."

Simon de Montfort turned to look at him, but the
blank wall of his lowered visor gave no sign of the
thoughts that passed beneath.

"You do much for a mere friendship, Norman of Torn,"
said the Earl coldly, "and I doubt me not but that my
daughter has already forgot you.  An English noble-
woman, preparing to become a princess of France,
does not have much thought to waste upon highway-
men." His tone, as well as his words were studiously
arrogant and insulting, for it had stung the pride of
this haughty noble to think that a low-born knave
boasted the friendship of his daughter.

Norman of Torn made no reply, and could the Earl
of Leicester have seen his face he had been surprised
to note that instead of grim hatred and resentment,
the features of the Outlaw of Torn were drawn in
lines of pain and sorrow; for he read in the attitude
of the father what he might expect to receive at the
hands of the daughter.







CHAPTER XVII

WHEN those of the royalists who had not deserted
the King and fled precipitately toward the coast had
regained the castle and the Priory the city was turned
over to looting and rapine.  In this Norman of Torn
and his men did not participate, but camped a little
apart from the town until daybreak the following morn-
ing, when they started east, toward Dover.

They marched until late the following evening, pass-
ing some twenty miles out of their way to visit a cer-
tain royalist stronghold.  The troops stationed there had
fled, having been appraised some few hours earlier,
by fugitives, of the defeat of Henry's army at Lewes.

Norman of Torn searched the castle for the one he
sought, but, finding it entirely deserted, continued his
eastward march.  Some few miles farther on he over-
took a party of deserting royalist soldiery, and from
them he easily, by dint of threats, elicited the informa-
tion he desired: the direction taken by the refugees
from the deserted castle, their number, and as close a
description of the party as the soldiers could give.

Again he was forced to change the direction of his
march, this time heading northward into Kent.  It was
dark before he reached his destination, and saw before
him the familiar outlines of the castle of Roger de Ley-
bourn.  This time the outlaw threw his fierce horde
completely around the embattled pile, before he ad-
vanced with a score of sturdy ruffians to reconnoiter.

Making sure that the drawbridge was raised, and
that he could not hope for stealthy entrance there, he
crept silently to the rear of the great building, and
there among the bushes his men searched for the lad-
der that Norman of Torn had seen the knavish servant
of My Lady Claudia unearth, that the outlaw might
visit the Earl of Buckingham, unannounced.

Presently they found it, and it was the work of but
a moment to raise it to the sill of the low window, so
that soon the twenty stood beside their chief within
the walls of Leybourn.

Noiselessly they moved through the halls and corri-
dors of the castle until a maid, bearing a great pasty
from the kitchen, turned a sudden corner and bumped
full into the Outlaw of Torn.  With a shriek that might
have been heard at Lewes she dropped the dish upon
the stone floor, and, turning, ran, still shrieking at
the top of her lungs, straight for the great dining hall.

So close behind her came the little band of out-
laws that scarce had the guests arisen in consternation
from the table at the shrill cries of the girl than Norman
of Torn burst through the great door with twenty
drawn swords at his back.

The hall was filled with knights and gentlewomen
and house servants and men-at-arms.  Fifty swords
flashed from fifty scabbards as the men of the party
saw the hostile appearance of their visitors, but before a
blow could be struck Norman of Torn, grasping his sword
in his right hand, raised his left aloft in a gesture for
silence.

"Hold!" he cried, and, turning directly to Roger
de Leybourn, "I have no quarrel with thee, My Lord; but
again I come for a guest within thy halls.  Methinks
thou hast as bad taste in whom thou entertains as
didst thy fair lady."

"Who be ye, that thus rudely breaks in upon the
peace of my castle, and makes bold to insult my guests?"
demanded Roger de Leybourn.

"Who be I! If you wait you shall see my mark upon
the forehead of yon grinning baboon," replied the out-
law, pointing a mailed finger at one who had been
seated close to De Leybourn.

All eyes turned in the direction that the rigid finger
of the outlaw indicated, and there indeed was a fear-
ful apparition of a man.  With livid face he stood, lean-
ing for support against the table; his craven knees
wabbling beneath his fat carcass; while his lips were
drawn apart against his yellow teeth in a horrid grim-
ace of awful fear.

"If you recognize me not, Sir Roger," said Norman
of Torn, drily, "it is evident that your honored guest
hath a better memory."

At last the fear struck man found his tongue, and,
though his eyes never left the menacing figure of the
grim, iron-clad outlaw, he addressed the master of
Leybourn; shrieking in a high, awe emasculated fal-
setto:

"Seize him! Kill him! Set your men upon him!
Do you wish to live another moment draw and de-
fend yourselves for he be the Devil of Torn, and
there be a great price upon his head.

"Oh, save me, save me! for he has come to kill me,"
he ended in a pitiful wail.

The Devil of Torn!  How that name froze the hearts
of the assembled guests.

The Devil of Torn!  Slowly the men standing there
at the board of Sir Roger de Leybourn grasped the full
purport of that awful name.

Tense silence for a moment held the room in the
stillness of a sepulchre, and then a woman shrieked,
and fell prone across the table.  She had seen the
mark of the Devil of Torn upon the dead brow of her
mate.

And then Roger de Leybourn spoke:

"Norman of Torn, but once before have you entered
within the walls of Leybourn, and then you did, in the
service of another, a great service for the house of
Leybourn; and you stayed the night, an honored guest.
But a moment since you said that you had no quarrel
with me.  Then why be you here? Speak! Shall it be
as a friend or an enemy that the master of Leybourn
greets Norman of Torn; shall it be with outstretched
hand or naked sword?"

"I come for this man whom you may all see has
good reason to fear me.  And when I go I take part
of him with me.  I be in a great hurry, so I would pre-
fer to take my great and good friend, Peter of Col-
fax, without interference; but, if you wish it otherwise;
we be a score strong within your walls, and nigh a
thousand lie without.  What say you, My Lord?"

"Your grievance against Peter of Colfax must be a
mighty one, that you search him out thus within a day's
ride from the army of the King who has placed a
price upon your head, and from another army of men
who be equally your enemies."

"I would gladly go to hell after Peter of Colfax,"
replied the outlaw.  "What my grievance be matters
not.  Norman of Torn acts first and explains afterward,
if he cares to explain at all.  Come forth, Peter of Col-
fax, and for once in your life, fight like a man, that
you may save your friends here from the fate that has
found you at last after two years of patient waiting."

Slowly the palsied limbs of the great coward bore
him tottering to the center of the room, where gradually
a little clear space had been made; the men of the
party forming a circle, in the center of which stood
Peter of Colfax and Norman of Torn.

"Give him a great draught of brandy," said the out-
law, "or he will sink down and choke in the froth
of his own terror."

When they had forced a goblet of the fiery liquid
upon him, Peter of Colfax regained his lost nerve
enough so that he could raise his sword arm and de-
fend himself; and as the fumes circulated through him,
and the primal instinct of self-preservation asserted it-
self, he put up a more and more creditable fight, until
those who watched thought that he might indeed have
a chance to vanquish the Outlaw of Torn.  But they did
not know that Norman of Torn was but playing with
his victim, that he might make the torture long drawn
out, and wreak as terrible a punishment upon Peter of
Colfax, before he killed him, as the Baron had visited
upon Bertrade de Montfort because she would not yield
to his base desires.

The guests were craning their necks to follow every
detail of the fascinating drama that was being enacted
before them.

"God, what a swordsman!" muttered one.

"Never was such sword play seen since the day the
first sword was drawn from the first scabbard!" replied
Roger de Leybourn.  "Is it not marvellous!"

Slowly but surely was Norman of Torn cutting Peter
of Colfax to pieces; little by little, and with such
fiendish care that except for loss of blood, the man was
in no way crippled; nor did the outlaw touch his
victim's face with his gleaming sword; that he was
saving for the fulfillment of his design.

And Peter of Colfax, cornered and fighting for his
life, was no marrowless antagonist, even against the
Devil of Torn.  Furiously he fought; in the extremity
of his fear rushing upon his executioner with frenzied
agony.  Great beads of cold sweat stood upon his livid
brow.

And then the gleaming point of Norman of Torn
flashed, lightning-like, in his victim's face, and above
the right eye of Peter of Colfax was a thin vertical cut
from which the red blood had barely started to ooze
ere another swift move of that master sword hand
placed a fellow to parallel the first.

Five times did the razor point touch the forehead of
Peter of Colfax, until the watchers saw there, upon
the brow of the doomed man, the seal of death, in let-
ters of blood--NT.

It was the end.  Peter of Colfax, cut to ribbons yet
fighting like the maniac he had become, was as good
as dead, for the mark of the Outlaw of Torn was
upon his brow.  Now, shrieking and gibbering through
his frothy lips, his yellow fangs bared in a mad and
horrid grin, he rushed full upon Norman of Torn.  There
was a flash of the great sword as the outlaw swung it
to the full of his mighty strength through an arc that
passed above the shoulders of Peter of Colfax, and the
grinning head rolled upon the floor, while the loath-
some carcass, that had been a baron of England, sunk
in a disheveled heap among the rushes of the great
hall of the castle of Leybourn.

A little shudder passed through the wide-eyed guests.
Some one broke into hysterical laughter, a woman sobbed,
and then Norman of Torn, wiping his blade upon the
rushes of the floor as he had done upon another oc-
casion in that same hall, spoke quietly to the master
of Leybourn.

"I would borrow yon golden platter, My Lord.  It
shall be returned, or a mightier one in its stead."

Leybourn nodded his assent, and Norman of Torn
turned, with a few words of instructions, to one of his
men.

The fellow gathered up the head of Peter of Col-
fax, and placed it upon the golden platter.

"I thank you, Sir Roger, for your hospitality," said
Norman of Torn, with a low bow which included the
spellbound guests.  "Adieu." Thus followed by his men,
one bearing the head of Peter of Colfax upon the platter
of gold, Norman of Torn passed quietly from the hall
and from the castle.





CHAPTER XVIII

BOTH horses and men were fairly exhausted from the
gruelling strain of many days of marching and fight-
ing, so Norman of Torn went into camp that night; nor
did he again take up his march until the second morn-
ing, three days after the battle of Lewes.

He bent his direction toward the north and Leices-
ter's castle, where he had reason to believe he would
find a certain young woman, and though it galled his
sore heart to think upon the humiliation that lay wait-
ing his coming, he could not do less than that which
he felt his honor demanded.

Beside him on the march rode the fierce red giant,
Shandy, and the wiry, gray little man of Torn, whom
the outlaw called father.

In no way, save the gray hair and the parchment-
surfaced skin, had the old fellow changed in all these
years.  Without bodily vices, and clinging ever to the
open air and the exercise of the foil he was still
young in muscle and endurance.

For five years he had not crossed foils with Norman
of Torn, but he constantly practiced with the best
swordsmen of the wild horde, so that it had become
a subject often discussed among the men as to which
of the two, father or son, was the greater swordsman.

Always taciturn, the old fellow rode in his usual
silence.  Long since had Norman of Torn usurped by
the force of his strong character and masterful ways,
the position of authority in the castle of Torn.  The old
man simply rode and fought with the others when it
pleased him; and he had come on this trip because he
felt that there was that impending for which he had
waited over twenty years.

Cold and hard, he looked with no love upon the
man he still called "my son." If he held any sentiment
toward Norman of Torn it was one of pride which
began and ended in the almost fiendish skill of his
pupil's mighty sword arm.

The little army had been marching for some hours
when the advance guard halted a party bound south
upon a crossroad.  There were some twenty or thirty
men, mostly servants, and a half dozen richly garbed
knights.

As Norman of Torn drew rein beside them he saw
that the leader of the party was a very handsome man
of about his own age, and evidently a person of dis-
tinction; a profitable prize, thought the outlaw.

"Who are you," said the gentleman, in French, "that
stops a prince of France upon the highroad as though
he were an escaped criminal? Are you of the King's
forces, or De Montfort's?"

"Be this Prince Philip of France?" asked Norman of
Torn.

"Yes, but who be you?"

"And be you riding to meet my Lady Bertrade de
Montfort?" continued the outlaw, ignoring the Prince's
question.

"Yes, an it be any of your affair," replied Philip
curtly.

"It be," said the Devil of Torn, "for I be a friend
of My Lady Bertrade, and as the way be beset with
dangers from disorganized bands of roving soldiery, it
is unsafe for Monsieur le Prince to venture on with so
small an escort.  Therefore will the friend of Lady
Bertrade de Montfort ride with Monsieur le Prince
to his destination that Monsieur may arrive there safe-
ly."

"It is kind of you, Sir Knight, a kindness that I will
not forget.  But, again, who is it that shows this solici-
tude for Philip of France?"

"Norman of Torn, they call me," replied the outlaw.

"Indeed!" cried Philip.  "The great and bloody out-
law?" Upon his handsome face there was no look of
fear or repugnance.

Norman of Torn laughed.

"Monsieur le Prince thinks, mayhap, that he will
make a bad name for himself," he said, "if he rides
in such company?"

"My Lady Bertrade and her mother think you be
less devil than saint," said the Prince.  "They have told
me of how you saved the daughter of De Montfort, and,
ever since, I have been of a great desire to meet you,
and to thank you.  It had been my intention to ride to
Torn for that purpose so soon as we reached Leicester,
but the Earl changed all our plans by his victory; and
only yesterday, on his orders the Princess Eleanor, his
wife, with the Lady Bertrade, rode to Battel, where
Simon de Montfort and the King are to be today.  The
Queen also is there with her retinue, so it be expected
that, to show the good feeling and renewed friendship
existing between De Montfort and his King, there will
be gay scenes in the old fortress.  But," he added, after
a pause, "dare the Outlaw of Torn ride within reach of
the King who has placed a price upon his head?"

"The price has been there since I was eighteen,"
answered Norman of Torn, "and yet my head be
where it has always been.  Can you blame me if I look
with levity upon the King's price? It be not heavy
enough to weigh me down; nor never has it held me
from going where I listed in all England.  I am freer
than the King, My Lord, for the King be a prisoner
today."

Together they rode toward Battel, and as they talked,
Norman of Torn grew to like this brave and handsome
gentleman.  In his heart was no rancor because of the
coming marriage of the man to the woman he loved.

If Bertrade de Montfort loved this handsome French
prince, then Norman of Torn was his friend; for his
love was a great love, above jealousy.  It not only held
her happiness above his own, but the happiness and
welfare of the man she loved, as well.

It was dusk when they reached Battel and as Norman
of Torn bid the prince adieu, for the horde was to make
camp just without the city, he said:

"May I ask My Lord to carry a message to Lady
Bertrade? It is in reference to a promise I made her
two years since and which I now, for the first time, be
able to fulfill."

"Certainly, my friend," replied Philip.  The outlaw,
dismounting, called upon one of his squires for parch-
ment, and, by the light of a torch, wrote a message
to Bertrade de Montfort.

Half an hour later a servant in the castle of Battel
handed the missive to the daughter of Leicester as she
sat alone in her apartment.  Opening it, she read:


To Lady Bertrade de Montfort, from her friend
Norman of Torn.

Two years have passed since you took the hand of
the Outlaw of Torn in friendship, and now he comes to
sue for another favor.

It is that he may have speech with you, alone, in the
castle of Battel this night.

Though the name Norman of Torn be fraught with
terror to others, I know that you do not fear him, for
you must know the loyalty and friendship which he
bears you.

My camp lies without the city's gates, and your mes-
senger will have safe conduct whatever reply he bears
to,

Norman of Torn.


Fear? Fear Norman of Torn? The girl smiled as she
thought of that moment of terrible terror two years
ago when she learned, in the castle of Peter of Colfax,
that she was alone with, and in the power of, the Devil
of Torn.  And then she recalled his little acts of thought-
ful chivalry, nay, almost tenderness, on the long night
ride to Leicester.

What a strange contradiction of a man! She won-
dered if he would come with lowered visor, for she
was still curious to see the face that lay behind the
cold, steel mask.  She would ask him this night to let
her see his face; or would that be cruel? For did they
not say that it was from the very ugliness of it that he
kept his helm closed to hide the repulsive sight from
the eyes of men!

As her thoughts wandered back to her brief meeting
with him two years before, she wrote and dispatched
her reply to Norman of Torn.

In the great hall that night as the King's party sat
at supper, Philip of France, addressing Henry, said:

"And who thinkest thou, My Lord King, rode by my
side to Battel today, that I might not be set upon by
knaves upon the highway?"

"Some of our good friends from Kent?" asked the
King.

"Nay, it was a man upon whose head Your Majesty
has placed a price, Norman of Torn; and if all of your
English highwaymen be as courteous and pleasant
gentlemen as he, I shall ride always alone and un-
armed through your realm that I may add to my list
of pleasant acquaintances."

"The Devil of Torn?" asked Henry, incredulously.
"Some one be hoaxing you."

"Nay, Your Majesty, I think not," replied Philip, "for
he was indeed a grim and mighty man, and at his back
rode as ferocious and awe-inspiring a pack as ever I
beheld outside a prison; fully a thousand strong they
rode.  They be camped not far without the city now."

"My Lord," said Henry, turning to Simon de Mont-
fort, "be it not time that England were rid of this
devil's spawn and his hellish brood? Though I pre-
sume," he added, a sarcastic sneer upon his lip, "that it
may prove embarrassing for My Lord Earl of Leicester
to turn upon his companion in arms."

"I owe him nothing," returned the Earl haughtily,
"by his own word."

"You owe him victory at Lewes," snapped the King.
"It were indeed a sad commentary upon the sincerity
of our loyalty professing lieges who turned their arms
against our royal person, 'to save him from the treachery
of his false advisers,' that they called upon a cutthroat
outlaw with a price upon his head to aid them in
their 'righteous cause'."

"My Lord King," cried De Montfort, flushing with
anger, "I called not upon this fellow, nor did I know
he was within two hundred miles of Lewes until I
saw him ride into the midst of the conflict that day.
Neither did I know, until I heard his battle cry,
whether he would fall upon baron or royalist."

"If that be the truth, Leicester," said the King, with
a note of skepticism which he made studiously apparent,
"hang the dog.  He be just without the city even now."

"You be King of England, My Lord Henry.  If you
say that he shall be hanged, hanged he shall be," re-
plied De Montfort.

"A dozen courts have already passed sentence upon
him, it only remains to catch him, Leicester," said the
King.

"A party shall sally forth at dawn to do the work,"
replied De Montfort.

"And not," thought Philip of France, "if I know it,
shall the brave Outlaw of Torn be hanged tomorrow."

In his camp without the city of Battel, Norman of
Torn paced back and forth waiting an answer to his
message.

Sentries patrolled the entire circumference of the
bivouac, for the outlaw knew full well that he had put
his head within the lion's jaw when he had ridden thus
boldly to the seat of English power.  He had no faith
in the gratitude of De Montfort, and he knew full well
what the King would urge when he learned that the
man who had sent his soldiers naked back to London,
who had forced his messenger to eat the King's message,
and who had turned his victory to defeat at Lewes,
was within reach of the army of De Montfort.

Norman of Torn loved to fight, but he was no fool,
and so he did not relish pitting his thousand upon an
open plain against twenty thousand within a walled
fortress.

No, he would see Bertrade de Montfort that night
and before dawn his rough band would be far on the
road toward Torn.  The risk was great to enter the
castle, filled as it was with his mighty enemies.  But if
he died there it would be in a good cause, thought he;
and, anyway, he had set himself to do this duty which
he dreaded so, and do it he would were all the armies
of the world camped within Battel.

Directly he heard a low challenge from one of his
sentries, who presently appeared escorting a lackey.

"A messenger from Lady Bertrade de Montfort," said
the soldier.

"Bring him hither," commanded the outlaw.

The lackey approached and handed Norman of Torn
a dainty parchment sealed with scented wax wafers.

"Did My Lady say you were to wait for an answer?"
asked the outlaw.

"I am to wait, My Lord," replied the awestruck
fellow, to whom the service had been much the same
had his mistress ordered him to Hell to bear a message
to the Devil.

Norman of Torn turned to a flickering torch and,
breaking the seals, read the message from the woman
he loved.  It was short and simple.


To Norman of Torn, from his friend always, Bertrade
de Montfort.

Come with Giles.  He has my instructions to lead thee
secretly to where I be.

Bertrade de Montfort.


Norman of Torn turned to where one of his captains
squatted upon the ground beside an object covered
with a cloth.

"Come, Flory," he said, and then, turning to the
waiting Giles, "lead on."

They fell in single file: first the lackey, Giles, then
Norman of Torn and last the fellow whom he had
addressed as Flory bearing the object covered with a
cloth.  But it was not Flory who brought up the rear.
Flory lay dead in the shadow of a great oak within
the camp; a thin wound below his left shoulder blade
marked the spot where a keen dagger had found its
way to his heart, and in his place walked the little grim,
gray, old man, bearing the object covered with a cloth.
But none might know the difference, for the little man
wore the armor of Flory, and his visor was drawn.

And so they came to a small gate which let into the
castle wall where the shadow of a great tower made
the blackness of a black night doubly black.  Through
many dim corridors the lackey led them, and up wind-
ing stairways until presently he stopped before a low
door.

"Here," he said, "My Lord," and turning left them.

Norman of Torn touched the panel with the mailed
knuckles of his right hand, and a low voice from within
whispered, "Enter."

Silently he strode into the apartment, a small ante-
chamber off a large hall.  At one end was an open
hearth upon which logs were burning brightly, while
a single lamp aided in diffusing a soft glow about the
austere chamber.  In the center of the room was a table,
and at the sides several benches.

Before the fire stood Bertrade de Montfort, and she
was alone.

"Place your burden upon this table, Flory," said Nor-
man of Torn.  And when it had been done: "You may
go. Return to camp."

He did not address Bertrade de Montfort until the
door had closed behind the little grim, gray man who
wore the armor of the dead Flory and then Norman
of Torn advanced to the table and stood with his left
hand ungauntleted, resting upon the table's edge.

"My Lady Bertrade," he said at last, "I have come
to fulfill a promise."

He spoke in French, and she started slightly at his
voice.  Before, Norman of Torn had always spoken in
English.  Where had she heard that voice! There were
tones in it that haunted her.

"What promise did Norman of Torn e'er make to
Bertrade de Montfort?" she asked.  "I do not understand
you, my friend."

"Look," he said.  And as she approached the table
he withdrew the cloth which covered the object that
the man had placed there.

The girl started back with a little cry of terror, for
there upon a golden platter was a man's head; horrid
with the grin of death baring yellow fangs.

"Dost recognize the thing?" asked the outlaw.  And
then she did; but still she could not comprehend.  At
last, slowly, there came back to her the idle, jesting
promise of Roger de Conde to fetch the head of her
enemy to the feet of his princess, upon a golden dish.

But what had the Outlaw of Torn to do with that!
It was all a sore puzzle to her, and then she saw the
bared left hand of the grim, visored figure of the Devil
of Torn, where it rested upon the table beside the
grisly head of Peter of Colfax; and upon the third finger
was the great ring she had tossed to Roger de Conde
on that day, two years before.

What strange freak was her brain playing her! It
could not be, no it was impossible; then her glance fell
again upon the head grinning there upon the platter
of gold, and upon the forehead of it she saw in letters
of dried blood that awful symbol of sudden death-NT!

Slowly her eyes returned to the ring upon the out-
law's hand, and then up to his visored helm.  A step
she took toward him, one hand upon her breast, the
other stretched pointing toward his face, and she
swayed slightly as might one who has just arisen from
a great illness.

"Your visor," she whispered, "raise your visor." And
then, as though to herself: "It cannot be; it cannot
be."

Norman of Torn, though it tore the heart from him,
did as she bid, and there before her she saw the brave
strong face of Roger de Conde.

"Mon Dieu!" she cried, "Tell me it is but a cruel
joke."

"It be the cruel truth, My Lady Bertrade," said Nor-
man of Torn sadly.  And, then, as she turned away
from him, burying her face in her raised arms, he came
to her side, and, laying his hand upon her shoulder,
said sadly:

"And now you see, My Lady, why I did not follow
you to France.  My heart went there with you, but I
knew that naught but sorrow and humiliation could
come to one whom the Devil of Torn loved, if that
love was returned; and so I waited until you might
forget the words you had spoken to Roger de Conde
before I came to fulfill the promise that you should
know him in his true colors.

"It is because I love you, Bertrade, that I have come
this night.  God knows that it be no pleasant thing to
see the loathing in your very attitude, and to read the
hate and revulsion that surges through your heart, or
to guess the hard, cold thoughts which fill your mind
against me because I allowed you to speak the words
you once spoke, and to the Devil of Torn.

"I make no excuse for my weakness.  I ask no for-
giveness for what I know you never can forgive.  That,
when you think of me, it will always be with loathing
and contempt is the best that I can hope.

"I only know that I love you, Bertrade; I only know
that I love you, and with a love that surpasseth even
my own understanding.

"Here is the ring that you gave in token of friendship.
Take it.  The hand that wore it has done no wrong by
the light that has been given it as guide.

"The blood that has pulsed through the finger that
it circled came from a heart that beat for Bertrade de
Montfort; a heart that shall continue to beat for her
alone until a merciful providence sees fit to gather in
a wasted and useless life.

"Farewell, Bertrade." Kneeling he raised the hem of
her garment to his lips.

A thousand conflicting emotions surged through the
heart of this proud daughter of the new conqueror of
England.  The anger of an outraged confidence, grati-
tude for the chivalry which twice had saved her honor,
hatred for the murderer of a hundred friends and kins-
men, respect and honor for the marvellous courage of
the man, loathing and contempt for the base born, the
memory of that exalted moment when those handsome
lips had clung to hers, pride in the fearlessness of a
champion who dared come alone among twenty thou-
sand enemies for the sake of a promise made her; but
stronger than all the rest two stood out before her
mind's eye like living things--the degradation of his
low birth, and the memory of the great love she had
cherished all these long and dreary months.

And these two fought out their battle in the girl's
breast.  In those few brief moments of bewilderment
and indecision it seemed to Bertrade de Montfort that
ten years passed above her head, and when she reached
her final resolution she was no longer a young girl but
a grown woman who, with the weight of a mature
deliberation, had chosen the path which she would
travel to the end--to the final goal, however sweet or
however bitter.

Slowly she turned toward him who knelt with bowed
head at her feet, and, taking the hand that held the
ring outstretched toward her, raised him to his feet.  In
silence she replaced the golden band upon his finger,
and then she lifted her eyes to his.

"Keep the ring, Norman of Torn," she said.  "The
friendship of Bertrade de Montfort is not lightly given
nor lightly taken away," she hesitated, "nor is her love."

"What do you mean?" he whispered.  For in her eyes
was that wondrous light he had seen there on that
other day in the far castle of Leicester.

"I mean," she answered, "that, Roger de Conde or
Norman of Torn, gentleman or highwayman, it be all
the same to Bertrade de Montfort--it be thee I love;
thee!"

Had she reviled him, spat upon him, he would not
have been surprised, for he had expected the worst;
but that she should love him! Oh God, had his over
wrought nerves turned his poor head? Was he dream-
ing this thing, only to awaken to the cold and awful
truth!

But these warm arms about his neck, the sweet per-
fume of the breath that fanned his cheek; these were
no dream!

"Think thee what thou art saying, Bertrade?" he
cried.  "Dost forget that I be a low born knave, knowing
not my own mother and questioning even the identity
of my father? Could a De Montfort face the world
with such a man for husband?"

"I know what I say, perfectly," she answered.  "Were
thou born out of wedlock, the son of a hostler and a
scullery maid, still would I love thee, and honor thee,
and cleave to thee.  Where thou be, Norman of Torn,
there shall be happiness for me.  Thy friends shall be
my friends; thy joys shall be my joys; thy sorrows,
my sorrows; and thy enemies, even mine own father,
shall be my enemies.

"Why it is, my Norman, I know not.  Only do I know
that I didst often question my own self if in truth
I did really love Roger de Conde, but thee--oh Nor-
man, why is it that there be no shred of doubt now,
that this heart, this soul, this body be all and always
for the Outlaw of Torn?"

"I do not know," he said simply and gravely.  "So
wonderful a thing be beyond my poor brain; but I
think my heart knows, for in very joy it is sending the
hot blood racing and surging through my being till I
were like to be consumed for the very heat of my
happiness."

"Sh!" she whispered, suddenly, "methinks I hear foot-
steps.  They must not find thee here, Norman of Torn,
for the King has only this night wrung a promise
from my father to take thee in the morning and hang
thee.  What shall we do, Norman? Where shall we meet
again?"

"We shall not be separated, Bertrade; only so long
as it may take thee to gather a few trinkets, and fetch
thy riding cloak.  Thou ridest north tonight with Nor-
man of Torn, and by the third day Father Claude shall
make us one."

"I am glad thee wish it," she replied.  "I feared that,
for some reason, thee might not think it best for me
to go with thee now.  Wait here, I will be gone but a
moment.  If the footsteps I hear approach this door,"
and she indicated the door by which he had entered
the little room, "thou canst step through this other door-
way into the adjoining apartment, and conceal thyself
there until the danger passes."

Norman of Torn made a wry face, for he had no
stomach for hiding himself away from danger.

"For my sake," she pleaded.  So he promised to do
as she bid, and she ran swiftly from the room to fetch
her belongings.











CHAPTER XIX

WHEN the little, grim, gray man had set the object
covered with a cloth upon the table in the center of
the room and left the apartment, he did not return
to camp as Norman of Torn had ordered.

Instead he halted immediately without the little door,
which he left a trifle ajar, and there he waited, listen-
ing to all that passed between Bertrade de Montfort
and Norman of Torn.

As he heard the proud daughter of Simon de Mont-
fort declare her love for the Devil of Torn a cruel smile
curled his lip.

"It will be better than I had hoped," he muttered,
and easier.  'S blood! How much easier now that Lei-
cester too may have his whole proud heart in the hang-
ing of Norman of Torn.  Ah, what a sublime revenge! I
have waited long, thou cur of a King, to return the blow
thou struck that day, but the return shall be an hundred
fold increased by long accumulated interest."

Quickly the wiry figure hastened through the pas-
sageways and corridors, until he came to the great hall
where sat De Montfort and the King, with Philip of
France and many others, gentlemen and nobles.

Before the guard at the door could halt him he had
broken into the room, and, addressing the King, cried:

"Wouldst take the Devil of Torn, My Lord King? He
be now alone where a few men may seize him."

"What now! What now!" ejaculated Henry.  "What
madman be this?"

"I be no madman, Your Majesty; never did brain
work more clearly or to more certain ends," replied
the man.

"It may doubtless be some ruse of the cut-throat
himself," cried De Montfort.

"Where be the knave?" asked Henry.

"He stands now within this palace and in his arms
be Bertrade, daughter of My Lord Earl of Leicester.
Even now she did but tell him that she loved him."

"Hold," cried De Montfort.  "Hold fast thy foul
tongue.  What meanest thou by uttering such lies, and
to my very face?"

"They be no lies, Simon de Montfort.  An I tell thee
that Roger de Conde and Norman of Torn be one
and the same thou wilt know that I speak no lie."

De Montfort paled.

"Where be the craven wretch?" he demanded.

"Come," said the little, old man.  And turning he led
from the hall, closely followed by De Montfort, the
King, Prince Philip and the others.

"Thou hadst better bring twenty fighting men--thou'lt
need them all to take Norman of Torn," he advised
De Montfort.  And so as they passed the guard room
the party was increased by twenty men-at-arms.

Scarcely had Bertrade de Montfort left him ere Nor-
man of Torn heard the tramping of many feet.  They
seemed approaching up the dim corridor that led to
the little door of the apartment where he stood.

Quickly he moved to the opposite door, and, stand-
ing with his hand upon the latch, waited.  Yes, they
were coming that way, many of them and quickly; and
as he heard them pause without he drew aside the arras
and pushed open the door behind him; backing into
the other apartment just as Simon de Montfort, Earl of
Leicester, burst into the room from the opposite side.

At the same instant a scream rang out behind Norman
of Torn, and, turning, he faced a brightly lighted room
in which sat Eleanor, Queen of England, and another
Eleanor, wife of Simon de Montfort, with their ladies.

There was no hiding now, and no escape; for run he
would not, even had there been where to run.  Slowly
he backed away from the door toward a corner, where
with his back against a wall and a table at his right,
he might die as he had lived, fighting; for Norman of
Torn knew that he could hope for no quarter from the
men who had him cornered there like a great bear in
a trap.

With an army at their call it were an easy thing to
take a lone man, even though that man were the Devil
of Torn.

The King and De Montfort had now crossed the
smaller apartment and were within the room where
the outlaw stood at bay.

At the far side the group of royal and noble women
stood huddled together, while behind De Montfort and
the King pushed twenty gentlemen and as many men-
at-arms.

"What dost thou here, Norman of Torn?" cried De
Montfort, angrily. "Where be my daughter, Bertrade?"

"I be here, My Lord Earl, to attend to mine own
affairs," replied Norman of Torn, "which be the affair
of no other man.  As to your daughter: I know nothing
of her whereabouts.  What should she have to do with
the Devil of Torn, My Lord?"

De Montfort turned toward the little gray man.

"He lies," shouted he.  "Her kisses be yet wet upon
his lips."

Norman of Torn looked at the speaker, and beneath
the visor that was now partly raised he saw the features
of the man whom, for twenty years, he had called
father.

He had never expected love from this hard old man,
but treachery and harm from him--no, he could not
believe it, one of them must have gone mad; but why
Flory's armor, where was the faithful Flory?

"Father!" he ejaculated, "leadest thou the hated
English King against thine own son?"

"Thou be no son of mine, Norman of Torn," retorted
the old man.  "Thy days of usefulness to me be past;
tonight thou serve me best swinging from a wooden
gibbet.  Take him, My Lord Earl; they say there be a
good strong gibbet in the courtyard below."

"Wilt surrender, Norman of Torn?" cried De Mont-
fort.

"Yes," was the reply, "when this floor be ankle deep
in English blood and my heart has ceased to beat; then
will I surrender."

"Come, come," cried the King.  "Let your men take
the dog, De Montfort!"

"Have at him, then," ordered the Earl, turning toward
the waiting men-at-arms, none of whom seemed overly
anxious to advance upon the doomed outlaw.

But an officer of the guard set them the example,
and so they pushed forward in a body toward Norman
of Torn; twenty blades bared against one.

There was no play now for the Outlaw of Torn; it
was grim battle and his only hope that he might take
a fearful toll of his enemies before he himself went
down.

And so he fought as he never fought before, to kill
as many and as quickly as he might.  And to those who
watched it was as though the young officer of the
Guard had not come within reach of that terrible blade
ere he lay dead upon the floor, and then the point of
death passed into the lungs of one of the men-at-arms,
scarcely pausing ere it pierced the heart of a third.

The soldiers fell back momentarily, awed by the
frightful havoc of that mighty arm.  Before De Mont-
fort could urge them on to renew the attack a girlish
figure clothed in a long riding cloak burst through the
little knot of men as they stood facing their lone an-
tagonist.

With a low cry of mingled rage and indignation
Bertrade de Montfort threw herself before the Devil of
Torn, and facing the astonished company of king, prince,
nobles and soldiers drew herself to her full height, and
with all the pride of race and blood that was her right
of heritage from a French king on her father's side and
an English king on her mother's, she flashed her
defiance and contempt in the single word:

"Cowards!"

"What means this, girl?" demanded De Montfort,
"Art gone stark mad? Know thou that this fellow be
the Outlaw of Torn?"

"If I had not before known it, My Lord," she replied
haughtily, "it would be plain to me now as I see forty
cowards hesitating to attack a lone man.  What other
man in all England could stand thus against forty? A
lion at bay with forty jackals yelping at his feet."

"Enough, girl," cried the King, "what be this knave
to thee?"

"He loves me, Your Majesty," she replied proudly,
and I, him."

"Thou lov'st this low born cut-throat, Bertrade," cried
Henry.  "Thou, a De Montfort, the daughter of my
sister; who have seen this murderer's accursed mark
upon the foreheads of thy kin; thou have seen him
flaunt his defiance in the King's, thy uncle's, face, and
bend his whole life to preying upon thy people; thou
lov'st this monster?"

"I love him, My Lord King."

"Thou lov'st him, Bertrade?" asked Philip of France
in a low tone, pressing nearer to the girl.

"Yes, Philip," she said, a little note of sadness and
finality in her voice; but her eyes met his squarely and
bravely.

Instantly the sword of the young Prince leaped from
its scabbard, and facing De Montfort and the others
he backed to the side of Norman of Torn.

"That she loves him be enough for me to know, my
gentlemen," he said.  "Who takes the man Bertrade de
Montfort loves must take Philip of France as well."

Norman of Torn laid his left hand upon the other's
shoulder.

"No, thou must not do this thing, my friend," he
said.  "It be my fight and I will fight it alone.  Go, I
beg of thee, and take her with thee, out of harm's way."

As they argued Simon de Montfort and the King had
spoken together, and at a word from the former the
soldiers rushed suddenly to the attack again.  It was a
cowardly strategem, for they knew that the two could
not fight with the girl between them and their ad-
versaries.  And thus, by weight of numbers, they took
Bertrade de Montfort and the Prince away from Nor-
man of Torn without a blow being struck, and then
the little, grim, gray, old man stepped forward.

"There be but one sword in all England, nay in all
the world that can, alone, take Norman of Torn," he
said, addressing the King, "and that sword be mine;
keep thy cattle back, out of my way." And, without
waiting for a reply, the grim, gray man sprang in to
engage him whom for twenty years he had called son.

Norman of Torn came out of his corner to meet his
new-found enemy, and there, in the apartment of the
Queen of England in the castle of Battel, was fought
such a duel as no man there had ever seen before, nor
is it credible that its like was ever fought before or
since.

The world's two greatest swordsmen: teacher and
pupil--the one with the strength of a young bull, the
other with the cunning of an old gray fox; and both
with a lifetime of training behind them, and the lust
of blood and hate before them--thrust and parried and
cut until those that gazed awestricken upon the mar-
vellous sword play scarcely breathed in the tensity of
their wonder.

Back and forth about the room they moved, while
those who had come to kill pressed back to make room
for the contestants.  Now was the young man forcing
his older foeman more and more upon the defensive.
Slowly, but as sure as death, he was winning ever nearer
and nearer to victory.  The old man saw it too.  He had
devoted years of his life to training that mighty sword
arm that it might deal out death to others, and now;
ah! the grim justice of the retribution, he at last was
to fall before its diabolical cunning.

He could not win in fair fight against Norman of
Torn; that the wily Frenchman saw; but now that
death was so close upon him that he felt its cold breath
condensing on his brow, he had no stomach to die, and
so he cast about for any means whereby he might es-
cape the result of his rash venture.

Presently he saw his opportunity.  Norman of Torn
stood beside the body of one of his earlier antagonists.
Slowly the old man worked around until the body lay
directly behind the outlaw, and then with a final rally
and one great last burst of supreme swordsmanship,
he rushed Norman of Torn back for a bare step--it
was enough; the outlaw's foot struck the prostrate
corpse; he staggered, and for one brief instant his sword
arm rose, ever so little, as he strove to retain his equili-
brium; but that little was enough, it was what the
gray old snake had expected, and he was ready.  Like
lightning his sword shot through the opening, and, for
the first time in his life of continual combat and death,
Norman of Torn felt cold steel tear his flesh.  But ere
he fell his sword responded to the last fierce command
of that iron will, and as his body sank limply to the
floor, rolling with outstretched arms, upon its back,
the little, grim, gray man went down also, clutching
frantically at a gleaming blade buried in his chest.

For an instant the watchers stood as though petrified,
and then Bertrade de Montfort, tearing herself from
the restraining hand of her father, rushed to the side
of the lifeless body of the man she loved.  Kneeling
there beside him she called his name aloud, as she
unlaced his helm.  Tearing the steel headgear from him
she caressed his face, kissing the white forehead and
the still lips.

"Oh God! Oh God!" she murmured.  "Why hast thou
taken him? Outlaw though he was, in his little finger
was more of honor, of chivalry, of true manhood than
courses through the veins of all the nobles of England.

"I do not wonder that he preyed upon you," she
cried, turning upon the knights behind her.  "His life
was clean, thine be rotten; he was loyal to his friends
and to the downtrodden, ye be traitors at heart, all;
and ever be ye trampling upon those who be down that
they may sink deeper into the mud.  Mon Dieu!  How
I hate you," she finished.  And as she spoke the words
Bertrade de Montfort looked straight into the eyes of
her father.

The old Earl turned his head, for at heart he was a
brave, broad, kindly man, and he regretted what he
had done in the haste and heat of anger.

"Come, child," said the King, "thou art distraught;
thou sayest what thou mean not.  The world is better
that this man be dead.  He was an enemy of organized
society, he preyed ever upon his fellows.  Life in Eng-
land will be safer after this day.  Do not weep over
the clay of a nameless adventurer who knew not his
own father."

Some one had lifted the little, grim, gray, old man
to a sitting posture.  He was not dead.  Occasionally he
coughed, and when he did his frame was racked with
suffering, and blood flowed from his mouth and nostrils.

At last they saw that he was trying to speak.  Weakly
he motioned toward the King.  Henry came toward
him.

"Thou hast won thy sovereign's gratitude, my man,"
said the King, kindly.  "What be thy name?"

The old fellow tried to speak, but the effort brought
on another paroxysm of coughing.  At last he managed
to whisper.

"Look--at--me.  Dost thou--not--remember me? The
--foils--the--blow-twenty-long-years.  Thou--spat--upon
--me."

Henry knelt and peered into the dying face.

"De Vac!" he exclaimed.

The old man nodded.  Then he pointed to where lay
Norman of Torn.

"Outlaw--highwayman--scourge--of--England.
Look--upon--his--face.  Open--his tunic--left--breast."

He stopped from very weakness, and then in another
moment, with a final effort: "De--Vac's--revenge.  God--
damn--the--English," and slipped forward upon the
rushes, dead.

The King had heard, and De Montfort and the
Queen.  They stood looking into each other's eyes with
a strange fixity, for what seemed an eternity, before
any dared to move; and then, as though they feared
what they should see, they bent over the form of the
Outlaw of Torn for the first time.

The Queen gave a little cry as she saw the still, quiet
face turned up to hers.

"Edward!" she whispered.

"Not Edward, Madame," said De Montfort, "but--"

The King knelt beside the still form, across the breast
of which lay the unconscious body of Bertrade de Mont-
fort.  Gently he lifted her to the waiting arms of Philip
of France, and then the King with his own hands tore
off the shirt of mail, and with trembling fingers ripped
wide the tunic where it covered the left breast of the
Devil of Torn.

"Oh God!" he cried, and buried his head in his arms.

The Queen had seen also, and with a little moan she
sank beside the body of her second born, crying out:

"Oh Richard, my boy, my boy!" And as she bent
still lower to kiss the lily mark upon the left breast of
the son she had not seen to know for over twenty years,
she paused, and with frantic haste she pressed her ear
to his breast.

"He lives!" she almost shrieked.  "Quick, Henry, our
son lives!"

Bertrade de Montfort had regained consciousness al-
most before Philip of France had raised her from the
floor, and she stood now, leaning on his arm, watching
with wide, questioning eyes the strange scene being
enacted at her feet.

Slowly the lids of Norman of Torn lifted with re-
turning consciousness.  Before him, on her knees in the
blood spattered rushes of the floor, knelt Eleanor,
Queen of England, alternately chafing and kissing his
hands.

A sore wound indeed to have brought on such a wild
delirium, thought the Outlaw of Torn.

He felt his body, in a half sitting, half reclining posi-
tion, resting against one who knelt behind him, and as
he lifted his head to see whom it might be supporting
him he looked into the eyes of the King, upon whose
breast his head rested.

Strange vagaries of a disordered brain! Yes it must
have been a very terrible wound that the little old man
of Torn had given him; but why could he not dream
that Bertrade de Montfort held him? And then his eyes
wandered about among the throng of ladies, nobles and
soldiers standing uncovered and with bowed heads
about him.  Presently he found her.

"Bertrade!" he whispered.

The girl came and knelt beside him, opposite the
Queen.

"Bertrade, tell me thou art real; that thou at least
be no dream."

"I be very real, dear heart," she answered, "and these
others be real, also.  When thou art stronger, thou shalt
understand the strange thing that has happened.  These
who wert thine enemies, Norman of Torn, be thy best
friends now--that thou should know, so that thou may
rest in peace until thou be better."

He groped for her hand, and, finding it, closed his
eyes with a faint sigh.

They bore him to a cot in an apartment next the
Queen's, and all that night the mother and the prom-
ised wife of the Outlaw of Torn sat bathing his fevered
forehead.  The King's chirurgeon was there also, while
the King and De Montfort paced the corridor without.

And it is ever thus; whether in hovel or palace; in
the days of Moses, or in the days that be ours; the
lamb that has been lost and is found again be always
the best beloved.

Toward morning Norman of Torn fell into a quiet
and natural sleep; the fever and delirium had suc-
cumbed before his perfect health and iron constitution.
The chirurgeon turned to the Queen and Bertrade de
Montfort.

"You had best retire, ladies," he said, "and rest; the
Prince will live."

Late that afternoon he awoke, and no amount of
persuasion or commands on the part of the King's
chirurgeon could restrain him from arising.

"I beseech thee to lie quiet, My Lord Prince," urged
the chirurgeon.

"Why call thou me prince?" asked Norman of Torn.

"There be one without whose right it be to explain
that to thee," replied the chirurgeon, "and when thou
be clothed, if rise thou wilt, thou mayst see her, My
Lord."

The chirurgeon aided him to dress, and, opening the
door, he spoke to a sentry who stood just without.  The
sentry transmitted the message to a young squire who
was waiting there, and presently the door was thrown
open again from without, and a voice announced:

"Her Majesty, the Queen!"

Norman of Torn looked up in unfeigned surprise,
and then there came back to him the scene in the
Queen's apartment the night before.  It was all a sore
perplexity to him; he could not fathom it, nor did he
attempt to.

And now, as in a dream, he saw the Queen of Eng-
land coming toward him across the small room, her
arms outstretched; her beautiful face radiant with hap-
piness and love.

"Richard, my son!" exclaimed Eleanor, coming to him
and taking his face in her hands and kissing him.

"Madame!" exclaimed the surprised man.  "Be all the
world gone crazy?"

And then she told him the strange story of the little
lost prince of England.

When she had finished, he knelt at her feet, taking
her hand in his and raising it to his lips.

"I did not know, Madame," he said, "or never would
my sword have been bared in other service than thine.
If thou canst forgive me, Madame, never can I forgive
myself."

"Take it not so hard, my son," said Eleanor of Eng-
land, "it be no fault of thine, and there be nothing to
forgive; only happiness and rejoicing should we feel,
now that thou be found again."

"Forgiveness!" said a man's voice behind them.  "For-
sooth, it be we that should ask forgiveness; hunting
down our own son with swords and halters.

"Any but a fool might have known that it was no
base born knave who sent the King's army back, naked
to the King, and rammed the King's message down his
messenger's throat.

"By all the saints, Richard, thou be every inch a
King's son, an' though we made sour faces at the time,
we be all the prouder of thee now."

The Queen and the outlaw had turned at the first
words to see the King standing behind them, and now
Norman of Torn rose, half smiling, and greeted his
father.

"They be sorry jokes, Sire," he said.  "Methinks it had
been better had Richard remained lost.  It will do the
honor of the Plantagenets but little good to acknowl-
edge the Outlaw of Torn as a prince of the blood."

But they would not have it so, and it remained for a
later King of England to wipe the great name from
the pages of history--perhaps a jealous king.

Presently the King and Queen, adding their pleas
to those of the chirurgeon, prevailed upon him to lie
down once more, and when he had done so they left
him, that he might sleep again; but no sooner had the
door closed behind them than he arose and left the
apartment by another exit.

It was by chance that, in a deep set window, he
found her for whom he was searching.  She sat looking
wistfully into space, an expression half sad upon her
beautiful face.  She did not see him as he approached,
and he stood there for several moments watching her
dear profile, and the rising and falling of her bosom
over that true and loyal heart that had beaten so proud-
ly against all the power of a mighty throne for the
despised Outlaw of Torn.

He did not speak, but presently that strange, subtile
sixth sense which warns us that we are not alone,
though our eyes see not nor our ears hear, caused her
to turn.

With a little cry she arose, and then, curtsying low
after the manner of the court, said:

"What would My Lord Richard, Prince of England,
of his poor subject?" And then, more gravely, "My
Lord, I have been raised at court, and I understand
that a prince does not wed rashly, and so let us forget
what passed between Bertrade de Montfort and Nor-
man of Torn."

"Prince Richard of England will in no wise disturb
royal precedents," he replied, "for he will wed not
rashly, but most wisely, since he will wed none but
Bertrade de Montfort."  And he who had been the
Outlaw of Torn took the fair young girl in his arms,
adding: "If she still loves me, now that I be a prince?"

She put her arms about his neck, and drew his cheek
down close to hers.

"It was not the outlaw that I loved, Richard, nor
be it the prince I love now; it be all the same to me,
prince or highwayman--it be thee I love, dear heart--
just thee."



End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Outlaw of Torn
by Burroughs


I have made the following changes to the text:
PAGE  LINE  ORIGINAL          CHANGED TO
  17    17  merks             marks
  55     4  ertswhile         erstwhile
  59     1  so so             do so
  90    26  beats             beasts
  93     4  presntly          presently
 124    20  rescurer          rescuer
 171    27  walls."           walls.
 184     3  gnetlemen         gentlemen
 185    20  fored,            formed,
 186     6  to forces         the forces
 195    19  those father      whose father
 217     2  precipitably      precipitately
 217     5  litle             little
 221    30  Monfort           Montfort
 230    30  Montforth         Montfort
 245    15  muderer's         murderer's