an old gray fox,
and both with a lifetime of training behind them, and the lust of blood
and hate before them--thrust and parried and cut until those that gazed
awestricken upon the marvellous swordplay scarcely breathed in the
tensity of their wonder.

Back and forth about the room they moved, while those who had come to
kill pressed back to make room for the contestants. Now was the young
man forcing his older foeman more and more upon the defensive. Slowly,
but as sure as death, he was winning ever nearer and nearer to victory.
The old man saw it too. He had devoted years of his life to training
that mighty sword arm that it might deal out death to others, and
now--ah! The grim justice of the retribution he, at last, was to fall
before its diabolical cunning.

He could not win in fair fight against Norman of Torn; that the wily
Frenchman saw; but now that death was so close upon him that he felt its
cold breath condensing on his brow, he had no stomach to die, and so he
cast about for any means whereby he might escape the result of his rash
venture.

Presently he saw his opportunity. Norman of Torn stood beside the body
of one of his earlier antagonists. Slowly the old man worked around
until the body lay directly behind the outlaw, and then with a final
rally and one great last burst of supreme swordsmanship, he rushed
Norman of Torn back for a bare step--it was enough. The outlaw's foot
struck the prostrate corpse; he staggered, and for one brief instant his
sword arm rose, ever so little, as he strove to retain his equilibrium;
but that little was enough. It was what the gray old snake had expected,
and he was ready. Like lightning, his sword shot through the opening,
and, for the first time in his life of continual combat and death,
Norman of Torn felt cold steel tear his flesh. But ere he fell, his
sword responded to the last fierce command of that iron will, and as his
body sank limply to the floor, rolling with outstretched arms, upon its
back, the little, grim, gray man went down also, clutching frantically
at a gleaming blade buried in his chest.

For an instant, the watchers stood as though petrified, and then
Bertrade de Montfort, tearing herself from the restraining hand of her
father, rushed to the side of the lifeless body of the man she loved.
Kneeling there beside him she called his name aloud, as she unlaced
his helm. Tearing the steel headgear from him, she caressed his face,
kissing the white