The Outlaw of Torn
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman

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 jave