“Let us go,” said the queen, glancing at the revolting sight, and turning away with a shudder of repulsion. “Faugh! The sight of blood has made me sick.”
“And taken away my appetite for supper,” added a youthful and elegant beauty beside her. “My Lord Gloucester was hideous enough when living, but, mon Dieu! he is ten times more so when dead!”
“Your ladyship will not have the same story to tell of yonder stranger, when he shares the same fate in an hour or two!” said the dwarf, with a malicious grin; “for I heard you remarking upon his extreme beauty when he first appeared.”
The lady laughed and bowed, and turned her bright eyes upon Sir Norman.
“True! It is almost a pity to cut such a handsome head off—is it not? I wish I had a voice in your highness's council, and I know what I should do.”
“What, Lady Mountjoy?”
“Entreat him to swear fealty, and become one of us; and—”
“And a bridegroom for your ladyship?” suggested the queen, with a curling lip. “I think if Sir Norman Kingsley knew Lady Mountjoy as well as I do, he would even prefer the block to such a fate!”
Lady Mountjoy's brilliant eyes shone like two angry meteors; but she merely bowed and laughed; and the laugh was echoed by the dwarf in his shrillest falsetto.
“Does your highness intend remaining here all night?” demanded the queen, rather fiercely. “If not, the sooner we leave this ghastly place the better. The play is over, and supper is waiting.”
With which the royal virago made an imperious motion for her attendant sprites in gossamer white to precede her, and turned with her accustomed stately step to follow. The music immediately changed from its doleful dirge to a spirited measure, and the whole company flocked after her, back to the great room of state. There they all paused, hovering in uncertainty around the room, while the queen, holding her purple train up lightly in one hand, stood at the foot of the throne, glancing at them with her cold, haughty and beautiful eyes. In their wandering, those same darkly-splendid eyes glanced and lighted on Sir Norman, who, in a state of seeming stupor at the horrible scene he had just witnessed, stood near the green table, and they sent a thrill through him with their wonderful resemblance to Leoline's. So vividly alike were they, that he half doubted for a moment whether she and Leoline were not really one; but no—Leoline never could have had the cold, cruel heart to stand and witness such a horrible sight. Miranda's dark, piercing glance fell as haughtily and disdainfully on him as it had on the rest; and his heart sank as he thought that whatever sympathy she had felt for him was entirely gone. It might have been a whim, a woman's caprice, a spirit of contradiction, that had induced her to defend him at first. Whatever it was, and it mattered not now, it had completely vanished. No face of marble could have been colder, or stonier, or harder, than hers, as she looked at him out of the depths of her great dark eyes; and with that look, his last lingering hope of life vanished.
“And now for the next trial!” exclaimed the dwarf, briskly breaking in upon his drab-colored meditations, and bustling past. “We will get it over at once, and have done with it!”
“You will do no such thing!” said the imperious voice of the queenly shrew. “We will have neither trials nor anything else until after supper, which has already been delayed four full minutes. My lord chamberlain, have the goodness to step in and see that all is in order.”
One of the gilded and decorated gentlemen whom sir Norman had mistaken for ambassadors stepped off, in obedience, through another opening in the tapestry—which seemed to be as extensively undermined with such apertures as a cabman's coat with capes—and, while he was gone, the queen stood drawn up to her full height, with her scornful face looking down on the dwarf. That small man knit up his very plain face into a bristle of the sourest kinks, and frowned sulky disapproval at an order which he either would not, or dared not, countermand. Probably the latter had most to do with it, as everybody looked hungry and mutinous, and a great deal more eager for their supper than the life of Sir Norman Kingsley.
“Your majesty, the royal banquet is waiting,” insinuated the lord high chamberlain, returning, and bending over until his face and his shoe buckles almost touched.
“And what is to be done with this prisoner, while we are eating it?” growled the dwarf, looking drawn swords at his liege lady.
“He can remain here under care of the guards, can he not?” she retorted sharply. “Or, if you are afraid they are not equal to taking care of him, you had better stay and watch him yourself.”
With which answer, her majesty sailed majestically away, leaving the gentleman addressed to follow or not, as he pleased. It pleased him to do so, on the whole; and he went after her, growling anathemas between his royal teeth, and evidently in the same state of mind that induces gentlemen in private life to take sticks to their aggravating spouses, under similar circumstances. However, it might not be just the thing, perhaps, for kings and queens to take broom-sticks to settle their little differences of opinion, like common Christians; and so the prince peaceably followed her, and entered the salle a manger with the rest, and Sir Norman and his keepers were left in the hall of state, monarchs of all they surveyed. Notwithstanding he knew his hours were numbered, the young knight could not avoid feeling curious, and the tapestry having been drawn aside, he looked through the arch with a good deal of interest.
The apartment was smaller than the one in which he stood—though still very large, and instead of being all crimson and gold, was glancing and glittering with blue and silver. These azure hangings were of satin, instead of velvet, and looked quite light and cool, compared to the hot, glowing place where he was. The ceiling was spangled over with silver stars, with the royal arms quartered in the middle, and the chairs were of white, polished wood, gleaming like ivory, and cushioned with blue satin. The table was of immense length, as it had need to be, and flashed and sparkled in the wax lights with heaps of gold and silver plate, cut-glass, and precious porcelain. Golden and crimson wines shone in the carved decanters; great silver baskets of fruit were strewn about, with piles of cakes and confectionery—not to speak of more solid substantials, wherein the heart of every true Englishman delighteth. The queen sat in a great, raised chair at the head, and helped herself without paying much attention to anybody, and the remainder were ranged down its length, according to their rank—which, as they were all pretty much dukes and duchesses, was about equal.
The spirits of the company—depressed for a moment by the unpleasant little circumstance of seeing one of their number beheaded—seemed to revive under the spirituous influence of sherry, sack, and burgundy; and soon they were laughing, and chatting, and hobnobbing, as animatedly as any dinner-party Sir Norman had ever seen. The musicians, too, appeared to be in high feather, and the merriest music of the day assisted the noble banqueters' digestion.
Under ordinary circumstances, it was rather a tantalizing scene to stand aloof and contemplate; and so the guards very likely felt; but Sir Norman's thoughts were of that room in black, the headsman's axe, and Leoline. He felt he would never see her again—never see the sun rise that was to shine on their bridal; and he wondered what she would think of him, and if she was destined to fall into the hands of Lord Rochester or Count L'Estrange. As a general thing, our young friend was not given to melancholy moralizing, but in the present case, with the headsman's axe poised like the sword of Damocles above him by a single hair, he may be pardoned for reflecting that this world is all a fleeting show, and that he had got himself into a scrape, to which the plague was a trifle. And yet, with nervous impatience, he wished the dinner and his trial were over, his fate sealed, and his life ended at once, since it was to be ended soon. For the fulfillment of the first wish, he had not long to wait; the feast, though gay and grand, was of the briefest, and they could have scarcely been half an hour gone when they were all back.
Everybody seemed in better humor, too, after the refection, but the queen and the dwarf—the former looked colder, and harder, and more like a Labrador iceberg tricked out in purple velvet, than ever, and his highness was grinning from ear to ear—which was the very worst possible sign. Not even her majesty could make the slightest excuse for delaying the trial now; and, indeed, that eccentric lady seemed to have no wish to do so, had she the power, but seated herself in silent disdain of them all, and dropping her long lashes over her dark eyes, seemed to forget there was anybody in existence but herself.
His highness and his nobles took their stations of authority behind the green table, and summoned the guards to lead the prisoner up before them, which was done; while the rest of the company were fluttering down into their seats, and evidently about to pay the greatest attention. The cases in this midnight court seemed to be conducted on a decidedly original plan, and with an easy rapidity that would have electrified any other court, ancient or modern. Sir Norman took his stand, and eyed his judges with a look half contemptuous, half defiant; and the proceedings commenced by the dwarf a leaning forward and breaking into a roar of laughter, right in his face.
“My little friend I warned you before not to be so facetious,” said Sir Norman, regarding him quietly; “a rush of mirth to the brain will certainly be the death of you one of these day.”
“No levity, young man!” interposed the lord chancellor, rebukingly; “remember, you are addressing His Royal Highness Prince Caliban, Spouse, and Consort of Her Most Gracious Majesty, Miranda!”
“Indeed! Then all I have to say, is, that her majesty has very bad taste in the selection of a husband, unless, indeed, her wish was to marry the ugliest man in the world, as she herself is the most beautiful of women!”
Her majesty took not the slightest notice of this compliment, not so much as a flatter of her drooping eye-lashes betrayed that she even heard it, but his highness laughed until he was perfectly hoarse.
“Silence!” shouted the duke, shocked and indignant at this glaring disrespect, “and answer truthfully the questions put to you. Your name, you say, is Sir Norman Kingsley?”
“Yes. Has your grace any objection to it?”
His grace waved down the interruption with a dignified wave of the hand, and went on with severe judicial dignity.
“You are the same who shot Lord Ashley between this and the city, some hours ago?”
“I had the pleasure of shooting a highwayman there, and my only regret is, I did not perform the same good office by his companion, in the person of your noble self, before you turned and fled.”
A slight titter ran round the room, and the duke turned crimson.
“These remarks are impertinent, and not to the purpose. You are the murderer of Lord Ashley, let that suffice. Probably you were on your way hither when you did the deed?”
“He was,” said the dwarf, vindictively. “I met him at the Golden Crown but a short time after.”
“Very well, that is another point settled, and either of them is strong enough to seal his death warrant. You came here as a spy, to see and hear and report—probably you were sent by King Charles?”
“Probably—just think as you please about it!” said Sir Norman, who knew his case was as desperate as it could be, and was quite reckless what he answered.
“You admit that you are a spy, then?”
“No such thing. I have owned nothing. As I told you before, you are welcome to put what construction you please on my actions.”
“Sir Norman Kingsley, this is nonsensical equivocation! You own you came to hear and see?”
“Well!”
“Well, hearing and seeing constitute 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 pronounced on you?”
“None; pronounce 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 passed it to the dwarf. “I never knew anyone it gave me more delight to condemn. Will your highness pass that to her majesty for signature, and pronounce 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 passed 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 fashion, and breaking out into one of his diabolical laughter-claps.
The queen, who had been sitting passive, 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 Duchess 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 assumed 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 flashing 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 passed 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 passage he had walked through before; but instead of entering the chamber of horrors, they passed 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 dashing 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 massive 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 amusement, 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 passage with sprightliness, laughing as he went.
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 fashion 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 spacious, 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 massacred at every step; and great, depraved-looking rats, with flashing 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) passed 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 shining 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, shining eyes were fixed on his face, and were as barren of interest, eagerness, compassion, tenderness, or any other feeling, as the shining, black glass 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?”
“Nothing of the kind! Not one of them would hurt a hair of my head if I refused to sign fifty death-warrants! Now, am I kind?”
“Very likely it would have amounted to the same thing in the end—they would kill me whether you signed it or not; so what does it matter?”
“You are mistaken! They would not kill you; at least, not tonight, if I had not signed it. They would have let you live until their next meeting, which will be this night week; and I would have incurred neither risk nor danger by refusing.”
Sir Norman glanced round the dungeon and shrugged his shoulders.
“I do not know that that prospect is much more inviting than the present one. Even death is preferable to a week's imprisonment in a place like this.”
“But in the meantime you might have escaped.”
“Madame, look at this stone floor, that stone roof, these solid walls, that barred and massive door; reflect that I am some forty feet under ground—cannot perform impossibilities, and then ask yourself how?”
“Sir Norman, have you ever heard of good fairies visiting brave knights and setting them free?”
Sir Norman smiled.
“I am afraid the good fairies and brave knights went the way of all flesh with King Arthur's round table; and even if they were in existence, none of them would take the trouble to limp down so far to save such an unlucky dog as I.”
“Then you forgive me for what I have done?”
“Your majesty, I have nothing to forgive.”
“Bah!” she said, scornfully. “Do not mock me here. My majesty, forsooth! you have but fifteen minutes to live in this world, Sir Norman; and if you have no better way of spending them, I will tell you a strange story—my own, and all about this place.”
“Madame, there is nothing in the world I would like so much to hear.”
“You shall hear it, then, and it may beguile the last slow moments of time before you go out into eternity.”
She set her lamp down on the floor among the rats and beetles, and stood watching the small, red flame a moment with a gloomy, downcast eye; and Sir Norman, gazing on the beautiful darkening face, so like and yet so unlike Leoline, stood eagerly awaiting what was to come.
Meantime, the half-hour sped. In the crimson court the last trial was over, and Lady Castlemaine, a slender little beauty of eighteen stood condemned to die.
“Now for our other prisoner!” exclaimed the dwarf with sprightly animation; “and while I go to the cell, you, fair ladies, and you my lord, will seek the black chamber and await our coming there.”
Ordering one of his attendants to precede him with a light, the dwarf skipped jauntily away, to gloat over his victim. He reached the dungeon door, which the guards, with some trepidation in their countenance, as they thought of what his highness would say when he found her majesty locked in with the prisoner, threw open.
“Come forth, Sir Norman Kingsley!” shouted the dwarf, rushing in. “Come forth and meet your doom!”
But no Sir Norman Kingsley obeyed the pleasant invitation, and a dull echo from the darkness alone answered him. There was a lamp burning on the floor, and near it lay a form, shining and specked with white in the gloom. He made for it between fear and fury, but there was something red and slippery on the ground, in which his foot slipped, and he fell. Simultaneously there was a wild cry from the two guards and the attendant, that was echoed by a perfect screech of rage from the dwarf, as on looking down he beheld Queen Miranda lying on the floor in the pool of blood, and apparently quite dead, and Sir Norman Kingsley gone.
The interim between Miranda setting down her lamp on the dungeon floor among the rats and the beetles, and the dwarf's finding her bleeding and senseless, was not more than twenty minutes, but a great deal may be done in twenty minutes judiciously expended, and most decidedly it was so in the present case. Both rats and beetles paused to contemplate the flickering lamp, and Miranda paused to contemplate them, and Sir Norman paused to contemplate her, for an instant or so in silence. Her marvelous resemblance to Leoline, in all but one thing, struck him more and more—there was the same beautiful transparent colorless complexion, the same light, straight, graceful figure, the same small oval delicate features; the same profuse waves of shining dark hair, the same large, dark, brilliant eyes; the same, little, rosy pretty mouth, like one of Correggio's smiling angels. The one thing wanting was expression—in Leoline's face there was a kind of childlike simplicity; a look half shy, half fearless, half solemn in her wonderful eyes; but in this, her prototype, there was nothing shy or solemn; all was cold, hard, and glittering, and the brooding eyes were full of a dull, dusky fire. She looked as hard and cold and bitter, as she was beautiful; and Sir Norman began to perplex himself inwardly as to what had brought her here. Surely not sympathy, for nothing wearing that face of stone, could even know the meaning of such a word. While he looked at her, half wonderingly, half pityingly, half tenderly—a queer word that last, but the feeling was caused by her resemblance to Leoline—she had been moodily watching an old gray rat, the patriarch of his tribe, who was making toward her in short runs, stopping between each one to stare at her, out of his unpleasantly bright eyes. Suddenly, Miranda shut her teeth, clenched her hands, and with a sort of fierce suppressed ejaculation, lifted her shining foot and planted it full on the rat's head. So sudden, so fierce, and so strong, was the stamp, that the rat was crushed flat, and uttered a sharp and indignant squeal of expostulation, while Sir Norman looked at her, thinking she had lost her wits. Still she ground it down with a fiercer and stronger force every second; and with her eyes still fixed upon it, and blazing with reddish black flame, she said, in a sort of fiery hiss:
“Look at it! The ugly, loathsome thing! Did you ever see anything look more like him?”
There must have been some mysterious rapport between them, for he understood at once to whom the solitary personal pronoun referred.
“Certainly, in the general expression of countenance there is rather a marked resemblance, especially in the region of the teeth and eyes.”
“Except that the rat's eyes are a thousand times handsomer,” she broke in, with a derisive laugh.
“But as to shape,” resumed Sir Norman, eyeing the excited and astonished little animal, still shrilly squealing, with the glance of a connoisseur, “I confess I do not see it! The rat is straight and shapely—which his highness, with all reverence be it said—is not, but rather the reverse, if you will not be offended at me for saying so.”
She broke into a short laugh that had a hard, metallic ring, and then her face darkened, blackened, and she ground the foot that crushed the rat fiercer, and with a sort of passionate vindictiveness, as if she had the head of the dwarf under her heel.
“I hate him! I hate him!” she said, through her clenched teeth and though her tone was scarcely above a whisper, it was so terrible in its fiery earnestness that Sir Norman thrilled with repulsion. “Yes, I hate him with all my heart and soul, and I wish to heaven I had him here, like this rat, to trample to death under my feet!”
Not knowing very well what reply to make to this strong and heartfelt speech, which rather shocked his notions of female propriety, Sir Norman stood silent, and looked reflectively after the rat, which, when she permitted it at last to go free, limped away with an ineffably sneaking and crest-fallen expression on his hitherto animated features. She watched it, too, with a gloomy eye, and when it crawled into the darkness and was gone, she looked up with a face so dark and moody that it was almost sullen.
“Yes, I hate him!” she repeated, with a fierce moodiness that was quite dreadful, “yes, I hate him! and I would kill him, like that rat, if I could! He has been the curse of my whole life; he has made life cursed to me; and his heart's blood shall be shed for it some day yet, I swear!”
With all her beauty there was something so horrible in the look she wore, that Sir Norman involuntarily recoiled from her. Her sharp eyes noticed it, and both grew red and fiery as two devouring flames.
“Ah! you, too, shrink from me, would you? You, too, recoil in horror! Ingrate! And I have come to save your life!”
“Madame, I recoil not from you, but from that which is tempting you to utter words like these. I have no reason to love him of whom you speak—you, perhaps, have even less; but I would not have his blood, shed in murder, on my head, for ten thousand worlds! Pardon me, but you do not mean what you say.”
“Do I not? That remains to be seen! I would not call it murder plunging a knife into the heart of a demon incarnate like that, and I would have done it long ago and he knows it, too, if I had the chance!”
“What has he done to you to make you do bitter against him?”
“Bitter! Oh, that word is poor and pitiful to express what I feel when his name is mentioned. Loathing and hatred come a little nearer the mark, but even they are weak to express the utter—the—” She stopped in a sort of white passion that choked her very words.
“They told me he was your husband,” insinuated Sir Norman, unutterably repelled.
“Did they?” she said, with a cold sneer, “he is, too—at least as far as church and state can make him; but I am no more his wife at heart than I am Satan's. Truly of the two I should prefer the latter, for then I should be wedded to something grand—a fallen angel; as it is, I have the honor to be wife to a devil who never was an angel?”
At this shocking statement Sir Norman looked helplessly round, as if for relief; and Miranda, after a moment's silence, broke into another mirthless laugh.
“Of all the pictures of ugliness you ever saw or heard of, Sir Norman Kingsley, do tell me if there ever was one of them half so repulsive or disgusting as that thing?”
“Really,” said Sir Norman, in a subdued tone, “he is not the most prepossessing little man in the world; but, madame, you do look and speak in a manner quite dreadful. Do let me prevail on you to calm yourself, and tell me your story, as you promised.”
“Calm myself!” repeated the gentle lady, in a tone half snappish, half harsh, “do you think I am made of iron, to tell you my story and be calm? I hate him! I hate him! I would kill him if I could: and if you, Sir Norman, are half the man I take you to be, you will rid the world of the horrible monster before morning dawns!”
“My dear lady, you seem to forget that the case is reversed, and that he is going to rid the world of me,” said Sir Norman, with a sigh.
“No, not if you do as I tell you; and when I have told you how much cause I have to abhor him, you will agree with me that killing him will be no murder! Oh, if there is One above who rules this world, and will judge us all, why, why does He permit such monsters to live?”
“Because He is more merciful than his creatures,” replied Sir Norman, with calm reverence,—“though His avenging hand is heavy on this doomed city. But, madame, time is on the wing, and the headsman will be here before your story is told.”
“Ah, that story! How am I to tell it, I wonder, two words will comprise it all—sin and misery—misery and sin! For, buried alive here, as I am—buried alive, as I've always been—I know what both words mean; they have been branded on heart and brain in letters of fire. And that horrible monstrosity is the cause of all—that loathsome, misshapen, hideous abortion has banned and cursed my whole life! He is my first recollection. As far back as I can look through the dim eye of childhood's years, that horrible face, that gnarled and twisted trunk, those devilish eyes glare at me like the eyes and face of a wild beast. As memory grows stronger and more vivid, I can see that same face still—the dwarf! the dwarf! the dwarf!—Satan's true representative on earth, darkening and blighting ever passing year. I do not know where we lived, but I imagine it to have been one of the vilest and lowest dens in London, though the rooms I occupied were, for that matter, decent and orderly enough. Those rooms the daylight never entered, the windows were boarded up within, and fastened by shutters without, so that of the world beyond I was as ignorant as a child of two hours old. I saw but two human faces, his”—she seemed to hate him too much even to pronounce his name—“and his housekeeper's, a creature almost as vile as himself, and who is now a servant here; and with this precious pair to guard me I grew up to be fifteen years old. My outer life consisted of eating, sleeping, reading—for the wretch taught me to read—playing with my dogs and birds, and listening to old Margery's stories. But there was an inward life, fierce and strong, as it was rank and morbid, lived and brooded over alone, when Margery and her master fancied me sleeping in idiotic content. How were they to know that the creature they had reared and made ever had a thought of her own—ever wondered who she was, where she came from, what she was destined to be, and what lay in the great world beyond? The crooked little monster made a great mistake in teaching me to read, he should have known that books sow seed that grow up and flourish tall and green, till they become giants in strength. I knew enough to be certain there was a bright and glad world without, from which they shut me in and debarred me; and I knew enough to hate them both for it, with a strong and heartfelt hatred, only second to what I feel now.”
She stopped for a moment, and fixed her dark, gloomy eyes on the swarming floor, and shook off, with out a shudder, the hideous things that crawled over her rich dress. She had scarcely looked at Sir Norman since she began to speak, but he had done enough looking for them both, never once taking his eyes from the handsome darkening face. He thought how strangely like her story was to Leoline's—both shut in and isolated from the outer world. Verily, destiny seemed to have woven the woof and warp of their fates wonderfully together, for their lives were as much the same as their faces. Miranda, having shook off her crawling acquaintances, watched them glancing along the foul floor in the darkness, and went moodily on.
“It was three years ago when I was fifteen years old, as I told you, that a change took place in my life. Up to that time, that miserable dwarf was what people would call my guardian, and did not trouble me much with his heavenly company. He was a great deal from our house, sometimes absent for weeks together; and I remember I used to envy the freedom with which he came and went, far more than I ever wondered where he spent his precious time. I did not know then that he belonged to the honorable profession of highwaymen, with variations of coining when travelers were few and money scarce. He was then, and is still, at the head of a formidable gang, over whom he wields most desperate authority—as perhaps you have noticed during the brief and pleasant period of your acquaintance.”
“Really, madam, it struck me that your authority over them was much more despotic than his,” said Sir Norman, in all sincerity, feeling called upon to give the—well, I'd rather not repeat the word, which is generally spelled with a d and a dash—his due.
“No thanks to him for that! He would make me a slave now, as he did then, if he dared, but he has found that, poor, trodden worm as I was, I had life enough left to turn and sting.”
“Which you do with a vengeance! Oh! you're a Tartar!” remarked Sir Norman to himself. “The saints forefend that Leoline should be like you in temper, as she is in history and face; for if she is, my life promises to be a pleasant one.”
“This rascally crew of cut-throats, whom his villainous highness headed,” said Miranda, “were an almost immense number then, being divided in three bodies—London cut-purses, Hounslow Heath highwaymen, and assistant-coiners, but all owning him for their lord and master. He told me all this himself, one day when, in an after-dinner and most gracious mood, he made a boasting display of his wealth and greatness; told me I was growing up very pretty indeed, and that I was shortly to be raised to the honor and dignity, and bliss of being his wife.
“I fancy I must have had a very vague idea of what that one small word meant, and was besides in an unusually contented and peaceful state of mind, or I should, undoubtedly, have raised one of his cut-glass decanters and smashed in his head with it. I know how I should receive such an assertion from him now, but I think I took it then with a resignation, he must have found mighty edifying; and when he went on to tell me that all this richness and greatness were to be shared by me when that celestial time came, I think I rather liked the idea than otherwise. The horrible creature seemed to have woke up that day, for the first time, and all of a sudden, to a conviction that I was in a fair way to become a woman, and rather a handsome one, and that he had better make sure of me before any accident interfered to take me from him. Full of this laudable notion, he became a daily visitor of mine from thenceforth, and made the discovery, simultaneously with myself, that the oftener he came the less favor he found in my sight. I had, before, tacitly disliked him, and shrank with a natural repulsion from his dreadful ugliness; but now, from negative dislike, I grew to positive hate. The utter loathing and abhorrence I have had for him ever since, began then—I grew dimly and intuitively conscious of what he would make me, and shrank from my fate with a vague horror not to be told in words. I became strong in my fearful dread of it. I told him I detested, abhorred, loathed, hated him; that he might keep his riches, greatness, and ungainly self for those who wanted him; they were temptations too weak to move me.
“Of course, there was raving, and storming, threatening, terrible looks and denunciations, and I quailed and shrank like a coward, but was obstinate still. Then as a dernier resort, he tried another bribe—the glorious one of liberty, the one he knew would conquer me, and it did. He promised me freedom—if I married him, I might go out into the great unknown world, fetterless and free; and I, O! fool that I was! consented. Not that my object was to stay with him one instant longer her my prison doors were opened; no, I was not quite so besotted as that—once out, and the little demon might look for me with last year's partridges. Of course, those demoniac eyes read my heart like an open book; and when I pronounced the fatal 'yes,' he laughed in that delightful way of his own, which will probably be the last thing you will hear when you lay your head under the axe.
“I don't know who the clergyman who married us was; but he was a clergyman: there can be no doubt about that. It was three days after, and for the first time in my fifteen years of life, I stood in sunshine, and daylight, and open air. We drove to the cathedral—for it was in St. Paul's the sacrilege was committed. I never could have walked there, I was so stunned, and giddy, and bewildered. I never thought of the marriage—I could think of nothing but the bright, crashing, sun-shiny world without, till I was led up before the clergyman, with much the air, I suppose, of one walking in her sleep. He was a very young man, I remember, and looked from the dwarf to me, and from me to the dwarf, in a great state of fear and uncertainty, but evidently not daring to refuse. Margery and one of his gang were our only attendants, and there, in God's temple, the deed was done, and I was made the miserable thing I am to-day.”
The suppressed passion, rising and throbbing like a white flame in her face and eyes, made her stop for a moment, breathing hard. Looking up she met Sir Norman's gaze, and as if there was something in its quiet, pitying tenderness that mesmerized her into calm, she steadily and rapidly went on.
“I awoke to a new life, after that; but not to one of freedom and happiness. I was as closely, even more closely, guarded than ever; and I found, when too late, that I had bartered myself, soul and body, for an empty promise. The only difference was, that I saw more new faces; for the dwarf began to bring his confederates and subordinates to the house, and would have me dressed up and displayed to them, with a demoniac pride that revolted me beyond everything else, if I were a painted puppet or an overgrown wax doll. Most of the precious crew of scoundrels had wives of their own and these began to be brought with them of an evening; and then, what with dancing, and music, and cards, and feasting, we had quite a carnival of it till morning.
“I liked this part of the business excessively well at first, and I was flattered and fooled to the top of my bent, and made from the first, the reigning belle and queen. There was more policy in that than admiration, I fancy; for the dwarf was all-powerful among them and dreaded accordingly, and I was the dwarf's pet and plaything, and all-powerful with him. The hideous creature had a most hideous passion for me then, and I could wind him round my finger as easily as Delilah and Samson; and by his command and their universal consent, the mimicry of royalty was begun, and I was made mistress and sovereign head, even over the dwarf himself. It was a queer whim; but that crooked slug was always taking such odd notions into his head, which nobody there dared laugh at. The band were bound together by a terrible oath, women and all; but they had to take another oath then, that of allegiance to me.
“It quite turned my brain at first; and my eyes were so dazzled by the pitiful glistening of the pageant, the sham splendor of the sham court, and the half-mocking, half-serious homage paid me, that I could see nothing beyond the shining surface, and the blackness, and corruption, and horror within, were altogether lost upon me. This feeling increased when, as months and months went by, they were added to the mock peers of the Midnight Court, real nobles from that of St. Charles. I did not know then that they were ruined gamesters, vicious profligates, and desperate broken-downrous, who would have gone to pandemonium itself, nightly, for the mad license and lawless excesses they could indulge in here to their heart's content. But I got tired of it all, after a time: my eyes began slowly to open, and my heart—at least, what little of that article I ever had—turned sick with horror within me at what I had done. The awful things I saw, the fearful deeds that were perpetrated, would curdle your very blood with horror, were I to relate them. You have seen a specimen yourself, in the cold-blooded murder of that wretch half an hour ago; and his is not the only life crying for vengeance on these men. The slightest violation of their oath was punished, and the doom of traitors and informers was instant death, whether male or female. The sham trials and executions always took place in presence of the whole court, to strike a salutary terror into them, and never occurred but once a week, when the whole band regularly met. My power continued undiminished; for they knew either the dwarf or I must be supreme; and though the queen was bad, the prince was worse. The said prince would willingly have pulled me down from my eminence, and have mounted it himself; but that he was probably restrained by a feeling that law-makers should not be law-breakers, and that, if he set the example, there would be no end to the insubordination and rebellion that would follow.”
“Were you living here or in London then?” inquired Sir Norman, taking an advantage of a pause, employed by Miranda in shaking off the crawling beetles.
“Oh, in London! We did not come here until the outbreak of the plague—that frightened them, especially the female portion, and they held a scared meeting, and resolved that we should take up our quarters somewhere else. This place being old and ruined, and deserted and with all sorts of evil rumors hanging about it, was hit upon; and secretly, by night, these mouldering old vaults were fitted up, and the goods and chattels of the royal court removed. And here I, too, was brought by night under the dwarf's own eye; for he well knew I would have risked a thousand plagues to escape from him. And here I have been ever since, and here the weekly revels are still held, and may for years to come, unless something is done to-night to prevent it.
“The night before these weekly anniversaries they all gather; but during the rest of the time I am alone with Margery and the dwarf, and have learned more secrets about this place than they dream of. For the rest, there is little need of explanation—the dwarf and his crew have industriously circulated the rumor that it is haunted; and some of those white figures you saw with me, and who, by the way, are the daughters of these robbers, have been shown on the broken battlements, as if to put the fact beyond doubt.
“Now, Sir Norman, that is all—you have heard my whole history as far as I know it; and nothing remains but to tell you what you must see yourself, that I am mad for revenge, and must have it, and you must help me!”
Her eyes were shining with the fierce red fire he had seen in them before, and the white face wore a look so deadly and diabolical that, with all its beauty, it was absolutely repulsive. He took a step from her—for in each of those gleaming eyes sat a devil.
“You must help me!” she persisted. “You—you, Sir Norman! For many a day I have been waiting for a chance like this, and until now I have waited in vain. Alone, I want physical strength to kill him, and I dare not trust any one else. No one was ever cast among us before as you have been; and now, condemned to die, you must be desperate, and desperate men will do desperate things. Fate, Destiny, Providence—whatever you like—has thrown you in my way, and help me you must and shall!”
“Madame, madame I what are you saying? How can I help you?”
“There is but one way—this!”
She held up in the pale ray of the lamp, something she drew from the folds of her dress, that glistened blue, and bright, and steelly in the gloom.
“A dagger!” he exclaimed, with a shudder, and a recoil. “Madame, are you talking of murder?”
“I told you!” she said, through her closed teeth, and with her eyes flaming like fire, “that ridding the earth of that fiend incarnate would be a good deed, and no murder! I would do it myself if I could take him off his guard; but he never is that with me; and then my arm is not strong enough to reach his black heart through all that mass of brawn, and blood, and muscle. No, Sir Norman, Doom has allotted it to you—obey, and I swear to you, you shall go free; refuse—and in ten minutes your head will roll under the executioner's axe!”
“Better that than the freedom you offer! Madame, I cannot murder!”
“Coward!” she passionately cried; “you fear to do it, and yet you have but a life to lose, and that is lost to you now!”
Sir Norman raised his head; and even in the darkness she saw the haughty flush that crimsoned his face.
“I fear no man living; but, madame, I fear One who is higher than man!”
“But you will die if you refuse; and I repeat, again and again, there is no risk. These guards will not let you out; but there are more ways of leaving a room than through the door, and I can lead you up behind the tapestry to where he is standing, and you can stab him through the back, and escape with me! Quick, quick, there is no time to lose!”
“I cannot do it!” he said, resolutely, drawing back and folding his arms. “In short, I will not do it!”
There was such a terrible look in the beautiful eyes, that he half expected to see her spring at him like a wild cat, and bury the dagger in his own breast. But the rule of life works by contraries: expect a blow and you will get a kiss, look for an embrace, and you will be startled by a kick. When the virago spoke, her voice was calm, compared with what it had been before, even mild.
“You refuse! Well, a willful man must have him way; and since you are so qualmish about a little bloodletting, we must try another plan. If I release you—for short as the time is, I can do it—will you promise me to go direct to the king this very night, and inform him of all you've seen and heard here?”
She looked at him with an eagerness that was almost fierce; and in spite of her steady voice, there was something throbbing and quivering, deadly and terrible, in her upturned face. The form she looked at was erect and immovable, the eyes were quietly resolved, the mouth half-pityingly, half-sadly smiling.
“Are you aware, dear lady, what the result of such a step would be?”
“Death!” she said, coldly.
“Death, transportation, or life-long imprisonment to them all—misery and disgrace to many a noble house; for some I saw there were once friends of mine, with families I honor and respect. Could I bring the dwarf and his attendant imps to Tyburn, and treat them to a hempen cravat, I would do it without remorse—though the notion of being informer, even then, would not be very pleasant; but as it is, I cannot be the death of one without ruining all, and as I told you, some of those were once my friends. No, madame, I cannot do it. I have but once to die and I prefer death here, to purchasing life at such a price.”
There was a short silence, during which they gazed into each other's eyes ominously, and one was about as colorless as the other.
“You refuse?” she coldly said.
“I must! But if you can save my life, as you say, why not do it, and fly with me? You will find me the truest and most grateful of friends, while life remains.”
“You are very kind; but I want no friendship, Sir Norman—nothing but revenge! As to escaping, I could have done that any time since we came here, for I have found out a secret means of exit from each of these vaults, that they know nothing of. But I have staid to see him dead at my feet—if not by my hand, at least by my command; and since you will not do it, I will make the attempt myself. Farewell, Sir Norman Kingsley; before many minutes you will be a corpse, and your blood be upon yourself!”
She gave him a glance as coldly fierce as her dagger's glance, and turned to go, when he stepped hastily forward, and interposed:
“Miranda—Miranda—you are crazed! Stop and tell me what you intend to do.”
“What you feared to attempt,” she haughtily replied; “Sheathe this dagger in his demon heart!”
“Miranda, give me the dagger. You must not, you shall not, commit such a crime!”
“Shall not?” she uttered scornfully. “And who are you that dares to speak to me like this? Stand aside, coward, and let me pass!”
“Pardon me, but I cannot, while you hold that dagger. Give it to me, and you shall go free; but while you hold it with this intention, for your own sake, I will detain you till some one comes.”
She uttered a low, fierce cry, and struck at him with it, but he caught her hand, and with sudden force snatched it from her. In doing so he was obliged to hold it with its point toward her, and struggling for it in a sort of frenzy, as he raised the hand that held it, she slipped forward and it was driven half-way to the hilt in her side. There was a low, grasping cry—a sudden clasping of both hands over her heart, a sway, a reel, and she fell headlong prostrate on the loathsome floor.
Sir Norman stood paralyzed. She half raised herself on her elbow, drew the dagger from the wound, and a great jet of blood shot up and crimsoned her hands. She did not faint—there seemed to be a deathless energy within her that chained life strongly in its place—she only pressed both hands hard over the wound, and looked mournfully and reproachfully up in his face. Those beautiful, sad, solemn eyes, void of everything savage and fierce, were truly Leoline's eyes now.
Through all his first shock of horror, another thing dawned on his mind; he had looked on this scene before. It was the second view in La Masque's caldron, and but one remained to be verified.
The next instant, he was down on his knees in a paroxysm of grief and despair.
“What have I done? what have I done?” was his cry.
“Listen!” she said, faintly raising one finger. “Do you hear that?”
Distant steps were echoing along the passage. Yes; he heard them, and knew what they were.
“They are coming to lead you to death!” she said, with some of her old fire; “but I will baffle them yet. Take that lamp—go to the wall yonder, and in that corner, near the floor, you will see a small iron ring. Pull it—it does not require much force—and you will find an opening leading through another vault; at the end there is a broken flight of stairs, mount them, and you will find yourself in the same place from which you fell. Fly, fly! There is not a second to lose!”
“How can I fly? how can I leave you dying here?”
“I am not dying!” she wildly cried, lifting both hands from the wound to push him away, while the blood flowed over the floor. “But we will both die if you stay. Go-go-go!”
The footsteps had paused at his door. The bolts were beginning to be withdrawn. He lifted the lamp, flew across his prison, found the ring, and took a pull at it with desperate strength. Part of what appeared to be the solid wall drew out, disclosing an aperture through which he could just squeeze sideways. Quick as thought he was through, forgetting the lamp in his haste. The portion of the wall slid noiselessly back, just as the prison door was thrown open, and the dwarfs voice was heard, socially inviting him, like Mrs. Bond's ducks, to come and be killed.
Some people talk of darkness so palpable that it may be felt, and if ever any one was qualified to tell from experience what it felt like, Sir Norman was in that precise condition at that precise period. He groped his way through the blind blackness along what seemed an interminable distance, and stumbled, at last, over the broken stairs at the end. With some difficult, and at the serious risk of his jugular, he mounted them, and found himself, as Miranda had stated, in a place he knew very well. Once here he allowed no grass to grow under his feet; and, in five minutes after, to his great delight, he found himself where he had never hoped to be again—in the serene moonlight and the open air, fetterless and free.
His horse was still where he had left him, and in a twinkling he was on his back, and dashing away to the city, to love—to Leoline!