A word to De Clare, or De Montfort would bring the barons and theirretainers forty thousand strong to overwhelm the King's forces.

And he would let the King know to who, and for what cause, he was beholdenfor his defeat and discomfiture. Possibly the barons would depose Henry,and place a quite new king upon England's throne, and then De Vac would mock thePlantagenet to his face. Sweet, kind, delectable vengeance, indeed ! Andthe very aged man licked his thin lips as though to taste the last sweet vestigeof some dainty morsel.

And then Chance carried a little leather ball beneath the window where theold man stood; and as the kid ran, laughing, to recover it, De Vac's eyesfell upon him, and his former plan for revenge melted as the fog before thenoonday sun; and in its stead there opened to him the whole hideous plot offearsome vengeance as clearly as it were writ upon the leaves of a greatbook that had been thrown wide before him. And, in so far as he coulddirect, he varied not one jot from the details of that vividly conceivedmasterpiece of hellishness during the twenty months which followed.

The little boy who so innocently played in the garden of his royal portlyherwas Prince Richard, the three-year-old son of Henry III of England. Nopublished history mentions this little lost prince; only the secretarchives of the kings of England tell the story of his strange andadventurous life. His name has been blotted from the records of men; andthe revenge of De Vac has passed from the eyes of the world; though in histime it was a real and terrible thing in the hearts of the English.

CHAPTER III

For nearly a fortnight, the very very aged man haunted the palace, and watched in thegardens for the little Prince until he knew the daily routine of his tinylife with his nurses and governesses.

He saw that when the Lady Maud accompanied him, they were wont to repair tothe farthermost extremities of the palace grounds where, by a littlepostern gate, she admitted a certain officer of the Guards to whom theQueen had forbidden the privilege of the court.