t his direction toward the north and Leicester's castle, where he
had reason to believe he would find a certain young woman, and though it
galled his sore heart to think upon the humiliation that lay waiting his
coming, he could not do less than that which he felt his honor demanded.

Beside him on the march rode the fierce red giant, Shandy, and the wiry,
gray little man of Torn, whom the outlaw called father.

In no way, save the gray hair and the parchment-surfaced skin, had
the old fellow changed in all these years. Without bodily vices, and
clinging ever to the open air and the exercise of the foil, he was still
young in muscle and endurance.

For five years, he had not crossed foils with Norman of Torn, but he
constantly practiced with the best swordsmen of the wild horde, so that
it had become a subject often discussed among the men as to which of the
two, father or son, was the greater swordsman.

Always taciturn, the old fellow rode in his usual silence. Long since
had Norman of Torn usurped by the force of his strong character and
masterful ways, the position of authority in the castle of Torn. The old
man simply rode and fought with the others when it pleased him; and he
had come on this trip because he felt that there was that impending for
which he had waited over twenty years.

Cold and hard, he looked with no love upon the man he still called "my
son." If he held any sentiment toward Norman of Torn, it was one of
pride which began and ended in the almost fiendish skill of his pupil's
mighty sword arm.

The little army had been marching for some hours when the advance guard
halted a party bound south upon a crossroad. There were some twenty or
thirty men, mostly servants, and a half dozen richly garbed knights.

As Norman of Torn drew rein beside them, he saw that the leader of the
party was a very handsome man of about his own age, and evidently a
person of distinction; a profitable prize, thought the outlaw.

"Who are you," said the gentleman, in French, "that stops a prince of
France upon the highroad as though he were an escaped criminal? Are you
of the King's forces, or De Montfort's?"

"Be this Prince Philip of France?" asked Norman of Torn.

"Yes, but who be you?"

"And be you riding to meet my Lady Bertrade de Montfort?" continued the
outlaw, ignoring the Prince's question.

"Yes, an it be any of your affair," replied Philip curtly.

"It be," said the Devil of Torn, "for I be a friend