enter of the room, the
visitor did not see that the cot was empty.

He was a man-at-arms, and at his side hung a sword. That was enough for
the Devil of Torn--it was a sword he craved most; and, ere the fellow
could assure his slow wits that the cot was empty, steel fingers closed
upon his throat, and he went down beneath the giant form of the outlaw.

Without other sound than the scuffing of their bodies on the floor, and
the clanking of their armor, they fought, the one to reach the dagger at
his side, the other to close forever the windpipe of his adversary.

Presently, the man-at-arms found what he sought, and, after tugging
with ever diminishing strength, he felt the blade slip from its sheath.
Slowly and feebly he raised it high above the back of the man on top of
him; with a last supreme effort he drove the point downward, but ere it
reached its goal, there was a sharp snapping sound as of a broken bone,
the dagger fell harmlessly from his dead hand, and his head rolled
backward upon his broken neck.

Snatching the sword from the body of his dead antagonist, Norman of Torn
rushed from the tower room.

As John de Fulm, Earl of Buckingham, laid his vandal hands upon Joan
de Tany, she turned upon him like a tigress. Blow after blow she rained
upon his head and face until, in mortification and rage, he struck her
full upon the mouth with his clenched fist; but even this did not subdue
her and, with ever weakening strength, she continued to strike him. And
then the great royalist Earl, the chosen friend of the King, took the
fair white throat between his great fingers, and the lust of blood
supplanted the lust of love, for he would have killed her in his rage.

It was upon this scene that the Outlaw of Torn burst with naked sword.
They were at the far end of the apartment, and his cry of anger at the
sight caused the Earl to drop his prey, and turn with drawn sword to
meet him.

There were no words, for there was no need of words here. The two men
were upon each other, and fighting to the death, before the girl had
regained her feet. It would have been short shrift for John de Fulm had
not some of his men heard the fracas, and rushed to his aid.

Four of them there were, and they tumbled pell-mell into the room,
fairly falling upon Norman of Torn in their anxiety to get their swords
into him; but once they met that master hand, they went more slowly, and
in a moment, two of them went no more at all, and the ot