The Midnight Queen Part 27

"Then do not seek to know," said La Masque, emphatically. "For it is a secret you would tremble to hear. And now I must leave you. Come with me to the door, and fasten it as soon as I go out, lest you should forget it altogether."

Leoline, with a dazed expression, thrust the precious little casket into the bosom of her dress, and taking up the lamp, preceded her visitor down stairs. At the door they paused, and La Masque, with her hand on her arm, repeated, in a low, earnest voice,

"Leoline, beware of Count L'Estrange, and become Lady Kingsley as soon as you can."

"I will hear that name to-morrow!" thought Leoline, with a glad little thrill at her heart, as La Masque flitted out into the moonlight.

Leoline closed and locked the door, driving the bolts into their sockets, and making all secure. "I defy any one to get in again tonight!" she said, smiling at her own dexterity; and lamp in hand, she ran lightly up stairs to read the long unsolved riddle.

So eager was she, that she had crossed the room, laid the lamp on the table, and sat down before it, ere she became aware that she was not alone. Some one was leaning against the mantel, his arm on it, and his eyes do her, gazing with an air of incomparable coolness and ease. It was a man this time--something more than a man,--a count, and Count L'Estrange, at that!

Leoline sprang to her feet with a wild scream, a cry full of terror, amaze, and superst.i.tious dread; and the count raised his band with a self-possessed smile.

"Pardon, fair Leoline, if I intrude! But have I not a right to come at all hours and visit my bride?"

"Leoline is no bride of yours!" retorted that young lady, pa.s.sionately, her indignation overpowering both fear and surprise. "And, what is more, never will be! Now, sir!"

"So my little bird of paradise can fire up, I see! As to your being my bride, that remains to be seen. You promised to be tonight, you know!"

"Then I'll recall that promise. I have changed my mind."

"Well, that's not very astonis.h.i.+ng; it is but the privilege of your s.e.x! Nevertheless, I'm afraid I must insist on your becoming Countess L'Estrange, and that immediately!"

"Never, sir! I will die first!"

"Oh, no! We could not spare such a bright little beauty out of this ugly world! You will live, and live for me!"

"Sir!" cried Leoline, white with pa.s.sion, and her black eyes blazing with a fire that would have killed him, could fiery glances slay! "I do not know how you have entered here; but I do know, if you are a gentleman, you will leave me instantly! Go sir! I never wish to see you again!"

"But when I wish to see you so much, my darling Leoline," said the count, with provoking indifference, "what does a little reluctance on your part signify? Get your hood and mantle, my love--my horse awaits us without--and let us fly where neither plague nor mortal man will interrupt our nuptials!"

"Will no one take this man away?" she cried, looking helplessly round, and wringing her hands.

"Certainly not, my dear--not even Sir Norman Kingsley! George, I am afraid this pretty little vixen will not go peaceably; you had better come in!"

With a smile on his face, he took a step toward her. Shrieking wildly, she darted across the room, and made for the door, just as somebody else was entering it. The next instant, a shawl was thrown over her head, her cries smothered in it, and she was lifted in a pair of strong arms, carried down stairs, and out into the night.

CHAPTER XVI. THE THIRD VISION.

Presentiments are strange things. From the first moment Sir Norman entered the city, and his thoughts had been able to leave Miranda and find themselves wholly on Leoline, a heavy foreboding of evil to her had oppressed him. Some danger, he was sure, had befallen her during his absence--how could it be otherwise with the Earl of Rochester and Count L'Estrange both on her track? Perhaps, by this time, one or other had found her, and alone and unaided she had been an easy victim, and was now borne beyond his reach forever. The thought goaded him and his horse almost to distraction; for the moment it struck him, he struck spurs into his horse, making that unoffending animal jump spasmodically, like one of those prancing steeds Miss Bonheur is fond of depicting. Through the streets he flew at a frantic rate, growing more excited and full of apprehension the nearer he came to old London Bridge; and calling himself a select litany of hard names inwardly, for having left the dear little thing at all.

"If I find her safe and well," thought Sir Norman, emphatically, "nothing short of an earthquake or dying of the plague will ever induce me to leave her again, until she is Lady Kingsley, and in the old manor of Devons.h.i.+re. What a fool, idiot, and ninny I must have been, to have left her as I did, knowing those two sleuth-hounds were in full chase!

What are all the Mirandas and midnight queens to me, if Leoline is lost?"

That last question was addressed to the elements in general; and as they disdained reply, he cantered on furiously, till the old house by the river was reached. It was the third time that night he had paused to contemplate it, and each time with very different feelings; first, from simple curiosity; second, in an ecstasy of delight, and third and last, in an agony of apprehension. All around was peaceful and still; moon and stars sailed serenely through a sky of silver and snow; a faint cool breeze floated up from the river and fanned his hot and fevered forehead; the whole city lay wrapped in stillness as profound and deathlike as the fabled one of the marble prince in the Eastern tale-nothing living moved abroad, but the lonely night-guard keeping their dreary vigils before the plague-stricken houses, and the ever-present, ever-busy pest-cart, with its mournful bell and dreadful cry.

As far as Sir Norman could see, no other human being but himself and the solitary watchman, so often mentioned, were visible. Even he could scarcely be said to be present; for, though leaning against the house with his halberd on his shoulder, he was sound asleep at his post, and far away in the land of dreams. It was the second night of his watch; and with a good conscience and a sound digestion, there is no earthly anguish short of the toothache, strong enough to keep a man awake two nights in succession. So sound were his balmy slumbers in his airy chamber, that not even the loud clatter of Sir Norman's horse's hoofs proved strong enough to arouse him; and that young gentleman, after glancing at him, made up his mind to try to find out for himself before arousing him to seek information.

Securing his horse, he looked up at the house with wistful eyes, and saw that the solitary light still burned in her chamber. It struck him now how very imprudent it was to keep that lamp burning; for if Count L'Estrange saw it, it was all up with Leoline--and there was even more to be dreaded from him than from the earl. How was he to find out whether that illuminated chamber had a tenant or not? Certainly, standing there staring till doomsday would not do it; and there seemed but two ways, that of entering the house at once or arousing the man.

But the man was sleeping so soundly that it seemed a pity to awake him for a trifle; and, after all, there could be no great harm or indiscretion in his entering to see if his bride was safe. Probably Leoline was asleep, and would know nothing about it; or, even were she wide awake, and watchful, she was altogether too sensible a girl to be displeased at his anxiety about her. If she were still awake, and waiting for day-dawn, he resolved to remain with her and keep her from feeling lonesome until that time came--if she were asleep, he would steal out softly again, and keep guard at her door until morning.

Full of these praiseworthy resolutions, he tried the handle of the door, half expecting to find it locked, and himself obliged to effect an entrance through the window; but no, it yielded to his touch, and he went in. Hall and staircase were intensely dark, but he knew his way without a pilot this time, and steered clear of all shoals and quicksands, through the hall and up the stairs.

The door of the lighted room--Leoline's room--lay wide open, and he paused on the threshold to reconnoitre. He had gone softly for fear of startling her, and now, with the same tender caution, he glanced round the room. The lamp burned on the dainty dressing table, where undisturbed lay jewels, perfume bottles and other knickknacks. The cithern lay unmolested on the couch, the rich curtains were drawn; everything was as he had left it last--everything, but the pretty pink figure, with drooping eyes, and pearls in the waves of her rich, black hair. He looked round for the things she had worn, hoping she had taken them off and retired to rest, but they were not to be seen; and with a cold sinking of the heart, he went noiselessly across the room, and to the bed. It was empty, and showed no trace of having been otherwise since he and the pest-cart driver had borne from it the apparently lifeless form of Leoline.

Yes, she was gone; and Sir Norman turned for a moment so sick with utter dread, that he leaned against one of the tall carved posts, and hated himself for having left her with a heartlessness that his worst enemy could not have surpa.s.sed. Then aroused into new and spasmodic energy by the exigency of the case, he seized the lamp, and going out to the hall, made the house ring from bas.e.m.e.nt to attic with her name. No reply, but that hollow, melancholy echo that sounds so lugubriously through empty houses, was returned; and he jumped down stairs with an impetuous rush, flinging back every door in the hall below with a crash, and flying wildly from room to room. In solemn grim repose they lay; but none of them held the bright figure in rose-satin he sought. And he left them in despair, and went back to her chamber again.

"Leoline! Leoline! Leoline!" he called, while he rushed impetuously up stairs, and down stairs, and in my lady's chamber; but Leoline answered not--perhaps never would answer more! Even "hoping against hope," he had to give up the chase at last--no Leoline did that house hold; and with this conviction despairingly impressed on his mind, Sir Norman Kingsley covered his face with his hands, and uttered a dismal groan.

Yet, forlorn as was the case, he groaned but once, "only that and nothing more;" there was no time for such small luxuries as groaning and tearing his hair, and boiling over with wrath and vengeance against the human race generally, and those two diabolical specimens of it, the Earl of Rochester and Count L'Estrange, particularly. He plunged head foremost down stairs, and out of the door. There he was impetuously brought up all standing; for somebody stood before it, gazing up at the gloomy front with as much earnestness as he had done himself, and against this individual he rushed recklessly with a shock that nearly sent the pair of them over into the street.

"Sacr-r-re!" cried a shrill voice, in tones of indignant remonstrance.

"What do you mean, monsieur? Are you drunk, or crazy, that you come running head foremost into peaceable citizens, and throwing them heels uppermost on the king's highway! Stand off, sir! And think yourself lucky that I don't run you through with my dirk for such an insult!"

At the first sound of the outraged treble tones, Sir Norman had started back and glared upon the speaker with much the same expression of countenance as an incensed tiger. The orator of the spirited address had stooped to pick up his plumed cap, and recover his centre of gravity, which was considerably knocked out of place by the unexpected collision, and held forth with very flas.h.i.+ng eyes, and altogether too angry to recognize his auditor. Sir Norman waited until he had done, and then springing at him, grabbed him by the collar.

"You young hound!" he exclaimed, fairly lifting him off his feet with one hand, and shaking him as if he would have wriggled him out of hose and doublet. "You infernal young jackanapes! I'll run you through in less than two minutes, if you don't tell me where you have taken her."

The astonishment, not to say consternation, of Master Hubert for that small young gentleman and no other it was--on thus having his ideas thus shaken out of him, was unbounded, and held him perfectly speechless, while Sir Norman glared at him and shook him in a way that would have instantaneously killed him if his looks were lightning. The boy had recognized his aggressor, and after his first galvanic shock, struggled like a little hero to free himself, and at last succeeded by an artful spring.

"Sir Norman Kingsley," he cried, keeping a safe yard or two of pavement between him and that infuriated young knight, "have you gone mad, or what, is Heaven's name, is the meaning of all this?"

"It means," exclaimed Sir Norman, drawing his sword, and flouris.h.i.+ng it within an inch of the boy's curly head,--"that you'll be a dead page in less than half a minute, unless you tell me immediately where she has been taken to."

"Where who has been taken to?" inquired Hubert, opening his bright and indignant black eyes in a way that reminded Sir Norman forcibly of Leoline. "Pardon, monsieur, I don't understand at all."

"You young villain! Do you mean to stand up there and tell me to my face that you have not searched for her, and found her, and have carried her off?"

"Why, do you mean the lady we were talking of, that was saved from the river?" asked Hubert, a new light dawning upon him.

"Do I mean the lady we were talking of?" repeated Sir Norman, with another furious flourish of his sword. "Yes, I do mean the lady we were talking of; and what's more--I mean to pin you where you stand, against that wall, unless you tell me, instantly, where she has been taken."

"Monsieur!" exclaimed the boy, raising his hands with an earnestness there was no mistaking, "I do a.s.sure you, upon my honor, that I know nothing of the lady whatever; that I have not found her; that I have never set eyes on her since the earl saved her from the river."

The earnest tone of truth would, in itself, almost have convinced Sir Norman, but it was not that, that made him drop his sword so suddenly.

The pale, startled face; the dark, solemn eyes, were so exactly like Leoline's, that they thrilled him through and through, and almost made him believe, for a moment, he was talking to Leoline herself.

"Are you--are you sure you are not Leoline?" he inquired, almost convinced, for an instant, by the marvelous resemblance, that it was really so.

"I? Positively, Sir Norman, I cannot understand this at all, unless you wish to enjoy yourself at my expense."

"Look here, Master Hubert!" said Sir Norman with a sudden change of look and tone. "If you do not understand, I shall just tell you in a word or two how matters are, and then let me hear you clear yourself. You know the lady we were talking about, that Lord Rochester picked up afloat, and sent you in search of?"

"Yes--yes."