The Midnight Queen Part 22

"Well!"

"Well, hearing and seeing const.i.tute spying, do they not? Therefore, you are a spy."

"I confess it looks like it. What next?"

"Need you ask What is the fate of all spies?"

"No matter what they are in other places, I am pretty certain what they are here!"

"And that is?"

"A room in black, and a chop with an axe--the Earl of Gloucester's fate, in a word!"

"You have said it! Have you any reason why such a sentence should not be p.r.o.nounced on you?"

"None; p.r.o.nounce it as soon as you like."

"With the greatest pleasure!" said the duke, who had been scrawling on another ominous roll of vellum, and now pa.s.sed it to the dwarf. "I never knew anyone it gave me more delight to condemn. Will your highness pa.s.s that to her majesty for signature, and p.r.o.nounce his sentence."

His highness, with a grin of most exquisite delight, did as directed; and Sir Norman looked steadfastly at the queen as she received it. One of the gauzy nymphs presented it to her, kneeling, and she took it with a look half bored, half impatient, and lightly scrawled her autograph.

The long, dark lashes did not lift; no change pa.s.sed over the calm, cold face, as icily placid as a frozen lake in the moonlight--evidently the life or death of the stranger was less than nothing to her. To him she, too, was as nothing, or nearly so; but yet there was a sharp jarring pain at his heart, as he saw that fair hand, that had saved him once, so coolly sign his death warrant now. But there was little time left for to watch her; for, as she pushed it impatiently away, and relapsed into her former proud listlessness, the dwarf got up with one of his death's-head grins, and began:

"Sir Norman Kingsley, you have been tried and convicted as a spy, and the paid-hireling of the vindictive and narrow-minded Charles; and the sentence of this court, over which I have the honor to preside, is, that you be taken hence immediately to the place of execution, and there lose your head by the axe!"

"And a mighty small loss it will be!" remarked the duke to himself, in a sort of parenthesis, as the dwarf concluded his pleasant observation by thrusting himself forward across the table, after his rather discomposing fas.h.i.+on, and breaking out into one of his diabolical laughter-claps.

The queen, who had been sitting pa.s.sive, and looking as if she were in spirit a thousand miles away, now started up with sharp suddenness, and favored his highness with one of her fieriest fiery glances.

"Will your highness just permit somebody else to have a voice in that matter? How many more trials are to come on tonight?"

"Only one," replied the duke, glancing over a little roll which he held; "Lady Castlemaine's, for poisoning the d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland."

"And what is my Lady Castlemaine's fate to be?"

"The same as our friend's here, in all probability," nodding easily, not to say playfully, at Sir Norman.

"And how long will her trial last?"

"Half an hour, or thereabouts. There are some secrets in the matter that have to be investigated, and which will require some time."

"Then let all the trials be over first, and all the beheadings take place together. We don't choose to take the trouble of traveling to the Black Chamber just to see his head chopped off, and then have the same journey to undergo half an hour after, for a similar purpose. Call Lady Castlemaine, and let this prisoner be taken to one of the dungeons, and there remain until the time for execution. Guards, do you hear? Take him away!"

The dwarf's face grew black as a thunder-cloud, and he jumped to his feet and confronted the queen with a look so intensely ugly that no other earthly face could have a.s.sumed it. But that lady merely met it with one of cold disdain and aversion, and, keeping her dark bright eyes fixed chillingly upon him, waved her white hand, in her imperious way, to the guards. Those warlike gentlemen knew better than to disobey her most gracious majesty when she happened to be, like Mrs. Joe Gargary, on the "rampage," which, if her flas.h.i.+ng eye and a certain expression about her handsome mouth spoke the truth, must have been twenty hours out of the twenty-four. As the soldiers approached to lead him away, Sir Norman tried to catch her eye; but in vain, for she kept those brilliant optics most unwinkingly fixed on the dwarf's face.

"Call Lady Castlemaine," commanded the duke, as Sir Norman with his guards pa.s.sed through the doorway leading to the Black Chamber. "Your highness, I presume, is ready to attend to her case."

"Before I attend to hers or any one else's case," said the dwarf, hopping over the table like an overgrown toad, "I will first see that this guest of ours is properly taken care, of, and does not leave us without the ceremony of saying good-bye."

With which, he seized one of the wax candles, and trotted, with rather unprincely haste, after Sir Norman and his conductors. The young knight had been led down the same long pa.s.sage he had walked through before; but instead of entering the chamber of horrors, they pa.s.sed through the centre arch, and found themselves in another long, vaulted corridor, dimly lit by the glow of the outer one. It was as cold and dismal a place, Sir Norman thought, as he had ever seen; and it had an odor damp and earthy, and of the grave. It had two or three great, ponderous doors on either side, fastened with huge iron bolts; and before one of these his conductors paused. Just as they did so, the glimmer of the dwarf's taper pierced the gloom, and the next moment, smiling from ear to ear, he was by their side.

"Down with the bars!" he cried. "This is the one for him--the strongest and safest of them all. Now, my das.h.i.+ng courtier, you will see how tenderly your little friend provides for his favorites!"

If Sir Norman made any reply, it was drowned in the rattle and clank of the ma.s.sive bars, and is hopelessly lost to posterity. The huge door swung back; but nothing was visible but a sort of black velvet pall, and effluvia much stronger than sweet. Involuntarily he recoiled as one of the guards made a motion for him to enter.

"I Shove him in! shove him in!" shrieked the dwarf, who was getting so excited with glee that he was dancing about in a sort of jig of delight.

"In with him--in with him! If he won't go peaceably, kick him in head-foremost!"

"I would strongly advise them not to try it," said Sir Norman, as he stepped into the blackness, "if they have any regard for their health!

It does not make much difference after all, my little friend, whether I spend the next half-hour in the inky blackness of this place or the blood-red grandeur of your royal court. My little friend, until we meet again, permit me to say, au revoir."

The dwarf laughed in his pleasant way, and pushed the candle cautiously inside the door.

"Good-by for a little while, my dear young sir, and while the headsmen is sharpening his axe, I'll leave you to think about your little friend.

Lest you should lack amus.e.m.e.nt, I'll leave you a light to contemplate your apartment; and for fear you may get lonesome, these two gentlemen will stand outside your door, with their swords drawn, till I come back.

Good-by, my dear young sir--good-bye!"

The dungeon-door swung to with a tremendous bang Sir Norman was barred in his prison to await his doom and the dwarf was skipping along the pa.s.sage with sprightliness, laughing as he went.

CHAPTER XIII. ESCAPED.

Probably not one of you; my dear friends, who glance graciously over this, was ever shut up in a dungeon under expectation of bearing the unpleasant operation of decapitation within half an hour. It never happened to myself, either, that I can recollect; so, of course, you or I personally can form no idea what the sensation may be like; but in this particular case, tradition saith Sir Norman Kingsley's state of mind was decidedly depressed. As the door shut violently, he leaned against it, and listened to his jailers place the great bars into their sockets, and felt he was shut in, in the dreariest, darkest, dismalest, disagreeablest place that it had ever been his misfortune to enter.

He thought of Leoline, and reflected that in all probability she was sleeping the sleep of the just--perhaps dreaming of him, and little knowing that his head was to be cut off in half an hour.

In course of time morning would come--it was not likely the ordinary course of nature would be cut off because he was; and Leoline would get up and dress herself, and looking a thousand times prettier than ever, stand at the window and wait for him. Ah! she might wait--much good would it do her; about that time he would probably be--where? It was a rather uncomfortable question, but easily answered, and depressed him to a very desponding degree indeed.

He thought of Ormiston and La Masque--no doubt they were billing and cooing in most approved fas.h.i.+on just then, and never thinking of him; though, but for La Masque and his own folly, he might have been half married by this time. He thought of Count L'Estrange and Master Hubert, and become firmly convinced, if one did not find Leoline the other would; and each being equally bad, it was about a toss up in agony which got her.

He thought of Queen Miranda, and of the adage, "put no trust in princes," and sighed deeply as he reflected what a bad sign of human nature it was--more particularly such handsome human nature--that she could, figuratively speaking, pat him on the back one moment, and kick him to the scaffold the next. He thought, dejectedly, what a fool he was ever to have come back; or even having come back, not to have taken greater pains to stay up aloft, instead of pitching abruptly head-foremost into such a select company without an invitation. He thought, too, what a cold, damp, unwholesome chamber they had lodged him in, and how apt he would be to have a bad attack of ague and miasmatic fever, if they would only let him live long enough to enjoy those blessings. And this having brought him to the end of his melancholy meditation, he began to reflect how he could best amuse himself in the interim, before quitting this vale of tears. The candle was still blinking feebly on the floor, shedding tears of wax in its feeble prostration, and it suddenly reminded him of the dwarf's advice to examine his dark bower of repose. So he picked it up and snuffed it with his fingers, and held it aloof, much as Robinson Crusoe held the brand in the dark cavern with the dead goat.

In the velvet pall of blackness before alluded to, its small, wan ray pierced but a few inches, and only made the darkness visible. But Sir Norman groped his way to the wall, which he found to be all over green and noisome slime, and broken out into a cold, clammy perspiration, as though it were at its last gasp. By the aid of his friendly light, for which he was really much obliged--a fact which, had his little friend known, he would not have left it--he managed to make the circuit of his prison, which he found rather s.p.a.cious, and by no means uninhabited; for the walls and floor were covered with fat, black beetles, whole families of which interesting specimens of the insect-world he crunched remorselessly under foot, and ma.s.sacred at every step; and great, depraved-looking rats, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes and sinister-teeth, who made frantic dives and rushes at him, and bit at his jack-boots with fierce, fury. These small quadrupeds reminded him forcibly of the dwarf, especially in the region of the eyes and the general expression of countenance; and he began to reflect that if the dwarf's soul (supposing him to possess such an article as that, which seemed open to debate) pa.s.sed after death into the body of any other animal, it would certainly be into that of a rat.

He had just come to this conclusion, and was applying the flame of the candle to the nose of an inquisitive beetle, when it struck him he heard voices in altercation outside his door. One, clear, ringing, and imperious, yet withal feminine, was certainly not heard for the first time; and the subdued and respectful voices that answered, were those of his guards.

After a moment, he heard the sound of the withdrawing bolts, and his heart beat fast. Surely, his half-hour had not already expired; and if it had, would she be the person to conduct him to death? The door opened; a puff of wind extinguished his candle, but not until he had caught the glimmer of jewels, the s.h.i.+ning of gold, and the flutter of long, black hair; and then some one came in. The door was closed; the bolts shot back!--and he was alone with Miranda, the queen.

There was no trouble about recognising her, for she carried in her hand a small lamp, which she held up between them, that its rays might fall directly on both faces. Each was rather white, perhaps, and one heart was going faster than it had ever gone before, and that one was decidedly not the queen's. She was dressed exactly as he had seen her, in purple and ermine, in jewels and gold; and strangely out of place she looked there, in her splendid dress and splendid beauty, among the black beetles and rats. Her face might have been a dead, blank wall, or cut out of cold, white stone, for all it expressed; and as she lightly held up her rich robes in one hand, and in the other bore the light, the dark, s.h.i.+ning eyes were fixed on his face, and were as barren of interest, eagerness, compa.s.sion, tenderness, or any other feeling, as the s.h.i.+ning, black gla.s.s ones of a wax doll. So they stood looking at each other for some ten seconds or so, and then, still looking full at him, Miranda spoke, and her voice was as clear and emotionless as her eyes,

"Well, Sir Norman Kingsley, I have come to see you before you die."

"Madame," he stammered, scarcely knowing what he said, "you are kind."

"Am I? Perhaps you forget I signed your death-warrant."

"Probably it would have been at the risk of your own life to refuse?"