The Midnight Queen Part 3

"Are you quite sure it is the same, Kingsley?"

"Quite sure?" said Sir Norman, indignantly. "Of course I am! Do you think I could be mistaken is such a case? I tell you I would know that face at Kamschatka or, the North Pole; for I don't believe there ever was such another created."

"So be it, then! Your object, of course, in following that cart is, to take a last look at her?"

"Precisely so. Don't talk; I feel in no mood for it just at present."

Ormiston smiled to himself, and did not talk, accordingly; and in silence the two friends followed the gloomy dead-cart. A faint young moon, pale and sickly, was struggling dimly through drifts of dark clouds, and lighted the lonesome, dreary streets with a wan, watery glimmer. For weeks, the weather had been brilliantly fine--the days all suns.h.i.+ne, the nights all moonlight; but now Ormiston, looking up at the troubled face of the sky, concluded mentally that the Lord Mayor had selected an unpropitious night for the grand illumination. Sir Norman, with his eyes on the pest-cart, and the long white figure therein, took no heed of anything in the heaven above or in the earth beneath, and strode along in dismal silence till they reached, at last, their journey's end.

As the cart stopped the two young men approached the edge of the plague-pit, and looked in with a shudder. Truly it was a horrible sight, that heaving, putrid sea of corruption; for the bodies of the miserable victims were thrown in in cartfuls, and only covered with a handful of earth and quicklime. Here and there, through the cracking and sinking surface, could be seen protruding a fair white arm, or a baby face, mingled with the long, dark tresses of maidens, the golden curls of children, and the white hairs of old age. The pestilential effluvia arising from the dreadful ma.s.s was so overpowering that both shrank back, faint and sick, after a moment's survey. It was indeed as Sir Norman had, said, a horrible grave wherein to lie.

Meantime the driver, with an eye to business, and no time for such nonsense as melancholy moralizing, had laid the body of the young girl on the ground, and briskly turned his cart and dumped the remainder of his load into the pit. Then, having flung a few handfuls of clay over it, he unwound the sheet, and kneeling beside the body, prepared to remove the jewels. The rays of the moon and his dark lantern fell on the lovely, snow-white face together, and Sir Norman groaned despairingly as he saw its death-cold rigidity. The man had stripped the rings off the fingers, the bracelets off the arms; but as he was about to perform the same operation toward the necklace, he was stopped by a startling interruption enough. In his haste, the clasp entered the beautiful neck, inflicting a deep scratch, from which the blood spouted; and at the same instant the dead girl opened her eyes with a shrill cry. Uttering a yell of terror, as well he might, the man sprang back and gazed at her with horror, believing that his sacrilegious robbery had brought the dead to life. Even the two young men-albeit, neither of them given to nervousness nor cowardice--recoiled for an instant, and stared aghast.

Then, as the whole truth struck them, that the girl had been in a deep swoon and not dead, both simultaneously darted forward, and forgetting all fear of infection, knelt by her side. A pair of great, l.u.s.trous black eyes were staring wildly around, and fixed themselves first on one face and then on the other.

"Where am I?" she exclaimed, with a terrified look, as she strove to raise herself on her elbow, and fell instantaneously back with a cry of agony, as she felt for the first time the throbbing anguish of the wound.

"You are with friends, dear lady!" said Sir Norman, in a voice quite tremulous between astonishment and delight. "Fear nothing, for you shall be saved."

The great black eyes turned wildly upon him, while a fierce spasm convulsed the beautiful face.

"O, my G.o.d, I remember! I have the plague!" And, with a prolonged shriek of anguish, that thrilled even to the hardened heart of the dead-cart driver, the girl fell back senseless again. Sir Norman Kingsley sprang to his feet, and with more the air of a frantic lunatic than a responsible young English knight, caught the cold form in his arms, laid it in the dead-cart, and was about springing into the driver's seat, when that individual indignantly interposed.

"Come, now; none of that! If you were the king himself, you shouldn't run away with my cart in that fas.h.i.+on; so you just get out of my place as fast as you can!"

"My dear Kingsley, what are you about to do?" asked Ormiston, catching his excited friend by the arm.

"Do!" exclaimed Sir Norman, in a high key. "Can't you see that for yourself! And I'm going to have that girl cured of the plague, if there is such a thing as a doctor to be had for love or money in London."

"You had better have her taken to the pest house at once, then; there are chirurgeons and nurses enough there."

"To the pest-house! Why man, I might as well have her thrown into the plague-pit there, at once! Not I! I shall have her taken to my own house, and there properly cared for, and this good fellow will drive her there instantly."

Sir Norman backed this insinuation by putting a broad gold-piece into the driver's hand, which instantly produced a magical effect on his rather surly countenance.

"Certainly, sir," he began, springing into his seat with alacrity.

"Where shall I drive the young lady to?"

"Follow me," said Sir Norman. "Come along, Ormiston." And seizing his friend by the arm, he hurried along with a velocity rather uncomfortable, considering they both wore cloaks, and the night was excessively sultry. The gloomy vehicle and its fainting burden followed close behind.

"What do you mean to do with her?" asked Ormiston, as soon as he found breath enough to speak.

"Haven't I told you?" said Sir Norman, impatiently. "Take her home, of course."

"And after that?"

"Go for a doctor."

"And after that?"

"Take care of her till she gets well."

"And after that?"

"Why--find out her history, and all about her."

"And after that?"

"After that! After that! How do I know what after that!" exclaimed Sir Norman, rather fiercely. "Ormiston, what do you mean?"

Ormiston laughed.

"And after that you'll marry her, I suppose!"

"Perhaps I may, if she will have me. And what if I do?"

"Oh, nothing! Only it struck me you may be saving another man's wife."

"That's true!" said Sir Norman, in a subdued tone, "and if such should unhappily be the case, nothing will remain but to live in hopes that he may be carried off by the plague."

"Pray Heaven that we may not be carried off by it ourselves!" said Ormiston, with a slight shudder. "I shall dream of nothing but that horrible plague-pit for a week. If it were not for La Masque, I would not stay another hour in this pest-stricken city."

"Here we are," was Sir Norman's rather inapposite answer, as they entered Piccadilly, and stopped before a large and handsome house, whose gloomy portal was faintly illuminated by a large lamp. "Here, my man just carry the lady in."

He unlocked the door as he spoke, and led the way across a long hall to a sleeping chamber, elegantly fitter up. The man placed the body on the bed and departed while Sir Norman, seizing a handbell, rang a peal that brought a staid-looking housekeeper to the scene directly. Seeing a lady, young and beautiful, in bride robes, lying apparently dead on her young master's bed at that hour of the night, the discreet matron, over whose virtuous head fifty years and a snow-white cap had pa.s.sed, started back with a slight scream.

"Gracious me, Sir Norman! What on earth is the meaning of this?"

"My dear Mrs. Preston," began Sir Norman blandly, "this young lady is ill of the plague, and--"

But all further explanation was cut short by a horrified shriek from the old lady, and a precipitate rush from the room. Down stairs she flew, informing the other servants as she went, between her screams, and when Sir Norman, in a violent rage, went in search of her five minutes after, he found not only the kitchen, but the whole house deserted.

"Well," said Ormiston, as Sir Norman strode back, looking fiery hot and savagely angry.

"Well, they have all fled, every man and woman of them, the--" Sir Norman ground out something not quite proper, behind his moustache. "I shall have to go for the doctor, myself. Doctor Forbes is a friend of mine, and lives near; and you," looking at him rather doubtfully, "would you mind staying here, lest she should recover consciousness before I return?"

"To tell you the truth," said Ormiston, with charming frankness, "I should! The lady is extremely beautiful, I must own; but she looks uncomfortably corpse-like at this present moment. I do not wish to die of the plague, either, until I see La Masque once more; and so if it is all the same to you, my dear friend, I will have the greatest pleasure in stepping round with you to the doctor's."

Sir Norman, though he did not much approve of this, could not very well object, and the two sallied forth together. Walking a short distance up Piccadilly, they struck off into a bye street, and soon reached the house they were in search of. Sir Norman knocked loudly at the door, which was opened by the doctor himself. Briefly and rapidly Sir Norman informed him how and where his services were required; and the doctor being always provided with everything necessary for such cases, set out with him immediately. Fifteen minutes after leaving his own house, Sir Norman was back there again, and standing in his own chamber. But a simultaneous exclamation of amazement and consternation broke from him and Ormiston, as on entering the room they found the bed empty, and the lady gone!

A dead pause followed, during which the three looked blankly at the bed, and then at each other. The scene, no doubt, would have been ludicrous enough to a third party; but neither of our trio could saw anything whatever to laugh at. Ormiston was the first to speak.

"What in Heaven's name has happened!" he wonderingly exclaimed.

"Some one has been here," said Sir Norman, turning very pale, "and carried her off while we were gone."

"Let us search the house," said the doctor; "you should have locked your door, Sir Norman; but it may not be too late yet."

Acting on the hint, Sir Norman seized the lamp burning on the table, and started on the search. His two friends followed him, and