CHAPTER XVII
When those of the royalists who had not deserted the King and fledprecipitately toward the coast had regained the castle and the Priory,the city was turned over to looting and rapine. In this, Norman of Tornand his men did not participate, but camped a little apart from the townuntil daybreak the following morning, when they started east, towardDover.
They marched until late the following evening, passing some twenty milesout of their way to visit a certain royalist stronghold. The troopsstationed there had fled, having been appraised some few hours earlier,by fugitives, of the defeat of Henry's army at Lewes.
Norman of Torn searched the castle for the one he sought, but, findingit entirely deserted, continued his eastward march. Some few milesfarther on, he overtook a party of deserting royalist soldiery, and fromthem he easily, by dint of threats, elicited the information he desired:the direction taken by the refugees from the deserted castle, theirnumber, and as close a description of the party as the soldiers couldgive.
Again he was forced to change the direction of his march, thistime heading northward into Kent. It was dark before he reached hisdestination, and saw before him the familiar outlines of the castleof Roger de Leybourn. This time, the outlaw threw his fierce hordecompletely around the embattled pile before he advanced with a score ofsturdy ruffians to reconnoiter.
Making sure that the drawbridge was raised, and that he could not hopefor stealthy entrance there, he crept silently to the rear of the greatbuilding and there, among the bushes, his men searched for the ladderthat Norman of Torn had seen the knavish servant of My Lady Claudiaunearth, that the outlaw might visit the Earl of Buckingham,unannounced.
Presently they found it, and it was the work of but a moment to raiseit to the sill of the low window, so that soon the twenty stood besidetheir chief within the walls of Leybourn.
Noiselessly, they moved through the halls and corridors of the castleuntil a maid, bearing a great pasty from the kitchen, turned a suddencorner and bumped full into the Outlaw of Torn. With a shriek that mighthave been heard at Lewes, she dropped the dish upon the stone floor and,turning, ran, still shrieking at the top of her lungs, straight for thegreat dining hall.
So close behind her came the little band of outlaws that scarce had theguests arisen in consternation from the table at the shrill cries of thegirl than Norman of Torn burst through the great door with twenty drawnswords at his back.
The hall was filled with knights and gentlewomen and house servants andmen-at-arms. Fifty swords flashed from fifty scabbards as the men of theparty saw the hostile appearance of their visitors, but before a blowcould be struck, Norman of Torn, grasping his sword in his right hand,raised his left aloft in a gesture for silence.
"Hold!" he cried, and, turning directly to Roger de Leybourn, "I haveno quarrel with thee, My Lord, but again I come for a guest within thyhalls. Methinks thou hast as bad taste in whom thou entertains as didstthy fair lady."
"Who be ye, that thus rudely breaks in upon the peace of my castle, andmakes bold to insult my guests?" demanded Roger de Leybourn.
"Who be I! If you wait, you shall see my mark upon the forehead of yongrinning baboon," replied the outlaw, pointing a mailed finger at onewho had been seated close to De Leybourn.
All eyes turned in the direction that the rigid finger of the outlawindicated, and there indeed was a fearful apparition of a man. Withlivid face he stood, leaning for support against the table; his cravenknees wabbling beneath his fat carcass; while his lips were drawn apartagainst his yellow teeth in a horrid grimace of awful fear.
"If you recognize me not, Sir Roger," said Norman of Torn, drily, "it isevident that your honored guest hath a better memory."
At last the fear-struck man found his tongue, and, though his eyes neverleft the menacing figure of the grim, iron-clad outlaw, he addressed themaster of Leybourn; shrieking in a high, awe-emasculated falsetto:
"Seize him! Kill him! Set your men upon him! Do you wish to live anothermoment, draw and defend yourselves for he be the Devil of Torn, andthere be a great price upon his head.
"Oh, save me, save me! for he has come to kill me," he ended in apitiful wail.
The Devil of Torn! How that name froze the hearts of the assembledguests.
The Devil of Torn! Slowly the men standing there at the board of SirRoger de Leybourn grasped the full purport of that awful name.
Tense silence for a moment held the room in the stillness of asepulchre, and then a woman shrieked, and fell prone across the table.She had seen the mark of the Devil of Torn upon the dead brow of hermate.
And then Roger de Leybourn spoke:
"Norman of Torn, but once before have you entered within the walls ofLeybourn, and then you did, in the service of another, a great servicefor the house of Leybourn; and you stayed the night, an honored guest.But a moment since, you said that you had no quarrel with me. Then whybe you here? Speak! Shall it be as a friend or an enemy that the masterof Leybourn greets Norman of Torn; shall it be with outstretched hand ornaked sword?"
"I come for this man, whom you may all see has good reason to fear me.And when I go, I take part of him with me. I be in a great hurry, so Iwould prefer to take my great and good friend, Peter of Colfax, withoutinterference; but, if you wish it otherwise; we be a score strong withinyour walls, and nigh a thousand lie without. What say you, My Lord?"
"Your grievance against Peter of Colfax must be a mighty one, that yousearch him out thus within a day's ride from the army of the King whohas placed a price upon your head, and from another army of men who beequally your enemies."
"I would gladly go to hell after Peter of Colfax," replied the outlaw."What my grievance be matters not. Norman of Torn acts first andexplains afterward, if he cares to explain at all. Come forth, Peter ofColfax, and for once in your life, fight like a man, that you may saveyour friends here from the fate that has found you at last after twoyears of patient waiting."
Slowly, the palsied limbs of the great coward bore him tottering to thecenter of the room, where gradually a little clear space had been made;the men of the party forming a circle, in the center of which stoodPeter of Colfax and Norman of Torn.
"Give him a great draught of brandy," said the outlaw, "or he will sinkdown and choke in the froth of his own terror."
When they had forced a goblet of the fiery liquid upon him, Peter ofColfax regained his lost nerve enough so that he could raise his swordarm and defend himself and, as the fumes circulated through him, and theprimal instinct of self-preservation asserted itself, he put up a moreand more creditable fight, until those who watched thought that he mightindeed have a chance to vanquish the Outlaw of Torn. But they did notknow that Norman of Torn was but playing with his victim, that he mightmake the torture long, drawn out, and wreak as terrible a punishmentupon Peter of Colfax, before he killed him, as the Baron had visitedupon Bertrade de Montfort because she would not yield to his basedesires.
The guests were craning their necks to follow every detail of thefascinating drama that was being enacted before them.
"God, what a swordsman!" muttered one.
"Never was such swordplay seen since the day the first sword wasdrawn from the first scabbard!" replied Roger de Leybourn. "Is it notmarvellous!"
Slowly but surely was Norman of Torn cutting Peter of Colfax to pieces;little by little, and with such fiendish care that, except for lossof blood, the man was in no way crippled; nor did the outlaw touchhis victim's face with his gleaming sword. That he was saving for thefulfillment of his design.
And Peter of Colfax, cornered and fighting for his life, was nomarrowless antagonist, even against the Devil of Torn. Furiously hefought; in the extremity of his fear, rushing upon his executioner withfrenzied agony. Great beads of cold sweat stood upon his livid brow.
And then the gleaming point of Norman of Torn flashed, lightning-like,in his victim's face, and above the right eye of Peter of Colfax was athin vertical cut from which the red blood had barely started to
oozeere another swift move of that master sword hand placed a fellow toparallel the first.
Five times did the razor point touch the forehead of Peter of Colfax,until the watchers saw there, upon the brow of the doomed man, the sealof death, in letters of blood--NT.
It was the end. Peter of Colfax, cut to ribbons yet fighting like themaniac he had become, was as good as dead, for the mark of the Outlaw ofTorn was upon his brow. Now, shrieking and gibbering through his frothylips, his yellow fangs bared in a mad and horrid grin, he rushed fullupon Norman of Torn. There was a flash of the great sword as the outlawswung it to the full of his mighty strength through an arc that passedabove the shoulders of Peter of Colfax, and the grinning head rolledupon the floor, while the loathsome carcass, that had been a baron ofEngland, sunk in a disheveled heap among the rushes of the great hall ofthe castle of Leybourn.
A little shudder passed through the wide-eyed guests. Some one brokeinto hysterical laughter, a woman sobbed, and then Norman of Torn,wiping his blade upon the rushes of the floor as he had done uponanother occasion in that same hall, spoke quietly to the master ofLeybourn.
"I would borrow yon golden platter, My Lord. It shall be returned, or amightier one in its stead."
Leybourn nodded his assent, and Norman of Torn turned, with a few wordsof instructions, to one of his men.
The fellow gathered up the head of Peter of Colfax, and placed it uponthe golden platter.
"I thank you, Sir Roger, for your hospitality," said Norman of Torn,with a low bow which included the spellbound guests. "Adieu." Thusfollowed by his men, one bearing the head of Peter of Colfax upon theplatter of gold, Norman of Torn passed quietly from the hall and fromthe castle.
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