The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs (intellectual books to read txt) 📖

of heavy feet without brought him to a stop, and the jingle of keys as one was fitted to the lock of the door sent him gliding stealthily to the wall beside the doorway, where the inswinging door would conceal him.

As the door was pushed back, a flickering torch lighted up, but dimly, the interior, so that until he had reached the center 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 others, with the Earl, were but circling warily in search of a chance opening—an opening which never came.

Norman of Torn stood with his back against a table in an angle of the room, and behind him stood Joan de Tany.

“Move toward the left,” she whispered. “I know this old pile. When you reach the table that bears the lamp, there will be a small doorway directly behind you. Strike the lamp out with your sword, as you feel my hand in your left, and then I will lead you through that doorway, which you must turn and quickly bolt after us. Do you understand?”

He nodded.

Slowly he worked his way toward the table, the men-at-arms in the meantime keeping up an infernal howling for help. The Earl was careful to keep out of reach of the point of De Conde’s sword, and the men-at-arms were nothing loath to emulate their master’s example.

Just as he reached his goal, a dozen more men burst into the room, and emboldened by this reinforcement, one of the men engaging De Conde came too close. As he jerked his blade from the fellow’s throat, Norman of Torn felt a firm, warm hand slipped into his from behind, and his sword swung with a resounding blow against the lamp.

As darkness enveloped the chamber, Joan de Tany led him through the little door, which he immediately closed and bolted as she had instructed.

“This way,” she whispered, again slipping her hand into his and, in silence, she led him through several dim chambers, and finally stopped before a blank wall in a great oak-panelled room.

Here the girl felt with swift fingers the edge of the molding. More and more rapidly she moved as the sound of hurrying footsteps resounded through the castle.

“What is wrong?” asked Norman of Torn, noticing her increasing perturbation.

“Mon Dieu!” she cried. “Can I be wrong! Surely this is the room. Oh, my friend, that I should have brought you to all this by my willfulness and vanity; and now when I might save you, my wits leave me and I forget the way.”

“Do not worry about me,” laughed the Devil of Torn. “Methought that it was I who was trying to save you, and may heaven forgive me else, for surely, that be my only excuse for running away from a handful of swords. I could not take chances when thou wert at stake, Joan,” he added more gravely.

The sound of pursuit was now quite close, in fact the reflection from flickering torches could be seen in nearby chambers.

At last the girl, with a little cry of “stupid,” seized De Conde and rushed him to the far side of the room.

“Here it is,” she whispered joyously, “here it has been all the time.” Running her fingers along the molding until she found a little hidden spring, she pushed it, and one of the great panels swung slowly in, revealing the yawning mouth of a black opening behind.

Quickly the girl entered, pulling De Conde after her, and as the panel swung quietly into place, the Earl of Buckingham with a dozen men entered the apartment.

“The devil take them,” cried De Fulm. “Where can they have gone? Surely we were right behind them.”

“It is passing strange, My Lord,” replied one of the men. “Let us try the floor above, and the towers; for of a surety they have not come this way.” And the party retraced its steps, leaving the apartment empty.

Behind the panel, the girl stood shrinking close to De Conde, her hand still in his.

“Where now?” he asked. “Or do we stay hidden here like frightened chicks until the war is over and the Baron returns to let us out of this musty hole?”

“Wait,” she answered, “until I quiet my nerves a little. I am all unstrung.” He felt her body tremble as it pressed against his.

With the spirit of protection strong within him, what wonder that his arm fell about her shoulder as though to say, fear not, for I be brave and powerful; naught can harm you while I am here.

Presently she reached her hands up to his face, made brave to do it by the sheltering darkness.

“Roger,” she whispered, her tongue halting over the familiar name. “I thought that they had killed you, and all for me, for my foolish stubbornness. Canst forgive me?”

“Forgive?” he asked, smiling to himself. “Forgive being given an opportunity to fight? There be nothing to forgive, Joan, unless it be that I should ask forgiveness for protecting thee so poorly.”

“Do not say that,” she commanded. “Never was such bravery or such swordsmanship in all the world before; never such a man.”

He did not answer. His mind was a chaos of conflicting thoughts. The feel of her hands as they had lingered momentarily, and with a vague caress upon his cheek, and the pressure of her body as she leaned against him sent the hot blood coursing through his veins. He was puzzled, for he had not dreamed that friendship was so sweet. That she did not shrink from his encircling arms should have told him much, but Norman of Torn was slow to realize that a woman might look upon him with love. Nor had he a thought of any other sentiment toward her than that of friend and protector.

And then there came to him as in a vision another fair and beautiful face—Bertrade de Montfort’s—and Norman of Torn was still more puzzled; for at heart he was clean, and love of loyalty was strong within him. Love of women was a new thing to him, and, robbed as he had been all his starved life of the affection and kindly fellowship, of either men or women, it is little to be wondered at that he was easily impressionable and responsive to the feeling his strong personality had awakened in two of England’s fairest daughters.

But with the vision of that other face, there came to him a faint realization that mayhap it was a stronger power than either friendship or fear which caused that lithe, warm body to cling so tightly to him. That the responsibility for the critical stage their young acquaintance had so quickly reached was not his had never for a moment entered his head. To him, the fault was all his; and perhaps it was this quality of chivalry that was the finest of the many noble characteristics of his sterling character. So his next words were typical of the man; and did Joan de Tany love him, or did she not, she learned that night to respect and trust him as she respected and trusted few men of her acquaintance.

“My Lady,” said Norman of Torn, “we have been through much, and we are as little children in a dark attic, and so if I have presumed upon our acquaintance,” and he lowered his arm from about her shoulder, “I ask you to forgive it for I scarce know what to do, from weakness and from the pain of the blow upon my head.”

Joan de Tany drew slowly away from him, and without reply, took his hand and led him forward through a dark, cold corridor.

“We must go carefully now,” she said at last, “for there be stairs near.”

He held her hand pressed very tightly in his, tighter perhaps than conditions required, but she let it lie there as she led him forward, very slowly down a flight of rough stone steps.

Norman of Torn wondered if she were angry with him and then, being new at love, he blundered.

“Joan de Tany,” he said.

“Yes, Roger de Conde; what would you?”

“You be silent, and I fear that you be angry with me. Tell me that you forgive what I have done, an it offended you. I have so few friends,” he added sadly, “that I cannot afford to lose such as you.”

“You will never lose the friendship of Joan de Tany,” she answered. “You have won her respect and—and—” But she could not say it and so she trailed off lamely—“and undying gratitude.”

But Norman of Torn knew the word that she would have spoken had he dared to let her. He did not, for there was always the vision of Bertrade de Montfort before him; and now another vision arose that would effectually have sealed his lips had not the other—he saw the Outlaw of Torn dangling by his neck from a wooden gibbet.

Before, he had only feared that Joan de Tany loved him, now he knew it, and while he marvelled that so wondrous a creature could feel love for him, again he blamed himself, and felt sorrow for them both; for he did not return her love nor could he imagine a love strong enough to survive the knowledge that it was possessed by the Devil of Torn.

Presently they reached the bottom of the stairway, and Joan de Tany led him, gropingly, across what seemed, from their echoing footsteps, a large chamber. The air was chill and dank, smelling of mold, and no ray of light penetrated this subterranean vault, and no sound broke the stillness.

“This be the castle’s crypt,” whispered Joan; “and they do say that strange happenings occur here in the still watches of the night, and that when the castle sleeps, the castle’s dead rise from their coffins and shake their dry bones.

“Sh! What was that?” as a rustling noise broke upon their ears close upon their right; and then there came a distinct moan, and Joan de Tany fled to the refuge of Norman of Torn’s arms.

“There is nothing to fear, Joan,” reassured Norman of Torn. “Dead men wield not swords, nor do they move, or moan. The wind, I