ajesty has placed a price,
Norman of Torn; and if all of your English highwaymen be as courteous
and pleasant gentlemen as he, I shall ride always alone and unarmed
through your realm that I may add to my list of pleasant acquaintances."

"The Devil of Torn?" asked Henry, incredulously. "Some one be hoaxing
you."

"Nay, Your Majesty, I think not," replied Philip, "for he was indeed a
grim and mighty man, and at his back rode as ferocious and awe-inspiring
a pack as ever I beheld outside a prison; fully a thousand strong they
rode. They be camped not far without the city now."

"My Lord," said Henry, turning to Simon de Montfort, "be it not time
that England were rid of this devil's spawn and his hellish brood?
Though I presume," he added, a sarcastic sneer upon his lip, "that it
may prove embarrassing for My Lord Earl of Leicester to turn upon his
companion in arms."

"I owe him nothing," returned the Earl haughtily, "by his own word."

"You owe him victory at Lewes," snapped the King. "It were indeed a
sad commentary upon the sincerity of our loyalty-professing lieges
who turned their arms against our royal person, 'to save him from the
treachery of his false advisers,' that they called upon a cutthroat
outlaw with a price upon his head to aid them in their 'righteous
cause'."

"My Lord King," cried De Montfort, flushing with anger, "I called not
upon this fellow, nor did I know he was within two hundred miles of
Lewes until I saw him ride into the midst of the conflict that day.
Neither did I know, until I heard his battle cry, whether he would fall
upon baron or royalist."

"If that be the truth, Leicester," said the King, with a note of
skepticism which he made studiously apparent, "hang the dog. He be just
without the city even now."

"You be King of England, My Lord Henry. If you say that he shall be
hanged, hanged he shall be," replied De Montfort.

"A dozen courts have already passed sentence upon him, it only remains
to catch him, Leicester," said the King.

"A party shall sally forth at dawn to do the work," replied De Montfort.

"And not," thought Philip of France, "if I know it, shall the brave
Outlaw of Torn be hanged tomorrow."

In his camp without the city of Battel, Norman of Torn paced back and
forth waiting an answer to his message.

Sentries patrolled the entire circumference of the bivouac, for the
outlaw knew full well that he had put his head within the lion's jaw
when he had ridde