Books: The Midnight Queen
M >>
May Agnes Fleming >> The Midnight Queen
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 | 17 |
18 |
19 |
20
With a perfectly heart-rending groan, the unfortunate duke walked
on; but when they reached the archway directly before the room,
he came to an obstinate halt, and positively refused to go a step
farther. It was death, anyway, and he resisted with the courage
of desperation, feeling he might as well die there as go in and
be assassinated by his confederates, and not even the persuasive
influence of Hubert's dagger could prevail on him to budge an
inch farther.
"Stay, then!" said the count, with perfect indifference. "And,
soldiers, see that he does not escape! Now, Kingsley, let us
just have a glimpse of what is going on within."
Though the party had made considerable noise in advancing, and
had spoken quite loudly in their little animated discussion with
the duke, so great was the turmoil and confusion within, that it
was not heeded, or even heard. With very different feelings from
those with which he had stood there last, Sir Norman stepped
forward and stood beside the count, looking at the scene within.
The crimson court was in a state of "most admired disorder," and
the confusion of tongues was equal to Babel. No longer were they
languidly promenading, or lolling in the cushioned chairs; but
all seemed running to and fro in the wildest excitement, which
the grandest duke among them seemed to share equally with the
terrified white sylphs. Everybody appeared to be talking
together, and paying no attention whatever to the sentiments of
their neighbors. One universal centre of union alone seemed to
exist, and that was the green, judicial table near the throne,
upon which, while all tongues ran, all eyes turned. For some
minutes, neither of the beholders could make out why, owing to
the crowd (principally of the ladies) pressing around it; but Sir
Norman guessed, and thrilled through with a vague sensation of
terror, lest it should prove to be the dead body of Miranda.
Skipping in and out among the females he saw the dwarf,
performing a sort of war dance of rage and frenzy; twining both
hands in his wig, as if he would have torn it out by the roots,
and anon tearing at somebody else's wig, so that everybody backed
off when he came near them.
"Who is that little fiend?" inquired the count; "and what have
they got there at the and of the room, pray?"
"That little fiend is the ringleader here, and is entitled Prince
Caliban. Regarding your other question," said Sir Norman, with a
faint thrill, "there was a table there when I saw it last, but I
am afraid there is something worse now."
"Could ever any mortal conceive of such a scene," observed the
count to himself; "look at that little picture of ugliness; how
he hops about like a dropsical bull-frog. Some of those women
are very pretty, too, and outshine more than one court-beauty
that I have seen. Upon my word, it is the most extraordinary
spectacle I ever heard of. I wonder what they've got that's so
attractive down there?"
At the same moment, a loud voice within the circle abruptly
exclaimed
"She revives, she revives! Back, back, and give her air!"
Instantly, the throng swayed and fell back; and the dwarf, with a
sort of yell (whether of rage or relief, nobody knew), swept them
from side to side with a wave of his long arms, and cleared a
wide vacancy for his own especial benefit. The action gave the
count an opportunity of gratifying his curiosity. The object of
attraction was now plainly visible. Sir Norman's surmises had
been correct. The green table of the parliament-house of the
midnight court had been converted, by the aid of cushions and
pillows, into an extempore couch.; and half-buried in their downy
depths lay Miranda, the queen. The sweeping robe of royal
purple, trimmed with ermine, the circlets of jewels on arms,
bosom, and head, she still wore, and the beautiful face was
white: than fallen snow. Yet she was not dead, as Sir Norman had
dreaded; for the dark eyes were open, and were fixed with an
unutterable depth of melancholy on vacancy. Her arms lay
helplessly by her side, and someone, the court physician
probably, was bending over her and feeling her pulse.
As the count's eyes fell upon her, he started back, and grasped
Sir Norman's arm with consternation.
"Good heavens, Kingsley!" he cried; "it is Leoline, herself!"
In his excitement he had spoken so loud, that in the momentary
silence that followed the physician's direction, his voice had
rung through the room, and drew every eye upon them.
"We are seen, we are seen!" shouted Hubert, and as he spoke, a
terrible cry idled the room. In an instant every sword leaped
from its scabbard, and the shriek of the startled women rang
appallingly out on the air. Sir Norman drew his sword, too; but
the count, with his eyes yet fixed on Miranda, still held him by
the arm, and excitedly exclaimed
"Tell me, tell me, is it Leoline?"
"Leoline! No - how could it be Leoline? They look alike, that's
all. Draw your sword, count, and defend yourself; we are
discovered, and they are upon us!"
"We are upon them, you mean, and it is they who are discovered,"
said the count, doing as directed, and stepping boldly in. "A
pretty hornet's next is this we have lit upon, if ever there was
one."
Side by side with the count, with a dauntless step and eye, Sir
Norman entered, too; and, at sight of him a burst of surprise and
fury rang from lip to lip. There was a yell of "Betrayed,
betrayed!" and the dwarf, with a face so distorted by fiendish
fury that it was scarcely human, made a frenzied rush at him,
when the clear, commanding voice of the count rang like a bugle
blast through the assembly
"Sheathe your swords, the whole of you, and yield yourselves
prisoners. In the king's name, I command you to surrender."
"There is no king here but I!" screamed the dwarf, gnashing his
teeth, and fairly foaming with rage. "Die; traitor and spy! You
have escaped me once, but your hour is come now."
"Allow me to differ from you," said Sir Norman, politely, as he
evaded the blindly-frantic lunge of the dwarf's sword, and
inserted an inch or two of the point of his own in that enraged
little prince's anatomy. "So far from my hour having come - if
you will take the trouble to reflect upon it - you will find it
is the reverse, and that my little friend's brief and brilliant
career in rapidly drawing to a close."
At these bland remarks, and at the sharp thrust that accompanied
them, the dwarfs previous war-dance of anxiety was nothing to the
horn-pipe of exasperation he went through when Sir Norman ceased.
The blood was raining from his side, and from the point of his
adversary's sword, as he withdrew it; and, maddened like a wild
beast at the sight of his own blood, he screeched, and foamed,
and kicked about his stout little legs, and gnashed his teeth,
and made grabs at his wig, and lashed the air with his sword, and
made such desperate pokes with it, at Sir Norman and everybody
else who came in his way, that, for the public good, the young
knight run him through the sword-arm, and, in spite of all his
distracted didos, captured him by the help of Hubert, and passed
him over to the soldiers to cheer and keep company with the duke.
This brisk little affair being over, Sir Norman had time to look
about him. It had all passed in so short a space, and the dwarf
had been so desperately frantic, that the rest had paused
involuntarily, and were still looking on. Missing the count, he
glanced around the room, and discovered him standing on Miranda's
throne, looking over the company with the cool air of a
conqueror. Miranda, aroused, as she very well might be by all
this screaming and fighting, had partly raised herself upon her
elbow, and was looking wildly about her. As her eye fell on Sir
Norman, she sat fairly erect, with a cry of exultation and joy.
"You have come, you have come, as I knew you would," she
excitedly cried, "and the hour of retribution is at hand!"
At the words of one who, a few moments before, they had supposed
to be dead, an awestruck silence fell; and the count, taking
advantage of it, waved his hand, and cried
"Yield yourselves prisoners, I command you! The royal guards are
without; and the first of you who offers the slightest resistance
will die like a dog! Ho, guards I enter, and seize your
prisoners!"
Quick as thought the room was full of soldiers! but the rest of
the order was easier said than obeyed. The robbers, knowing
their doom was death, fought with the fury of desperation, and a
snort, wild, and terrible conflict ensued. Foremost in the melee
was Sir Norman and the count; while Hubert, who had taken
possession of the dwarf's sword, fought like a young lion. The
shrieks of the women were heart-rending, as they all fled,
precipitately, into the blue dining-room; and, crouching in
corners, or flying distractedly about - true to their sex - made
the air resound with the most lamentable cries. Some five or
six, braver than the rest, alone remained; and more than one of
these actually mixed in the affray, with a heroism worthy a
better cause. Miranda, still sitting erect, and supported in the
arms of a kneeling and trembling sylph in white, watched the
conflict with terribly-exultant eyes, that blazed brighter and
brighter with the lurid fire of vengeful joy st every robber that
fell.
"Oh, that I were strong enough to wield a sword!" was her fierce
aspiration every instant; "if I could only mix in that battle for
five minutes, I could die with a happy heart!"
Had she been able to wield a sword for five minutes, according to
her wish, she would probably have wielded it from beginning to
end of the battle; for it did not last much longer than that.
The robbers fought with fury and ferocity; but they had been
taken by surprise, and were overpowered by numbers, and obliged
to yield.
The crimson court was indeed crimson now; for the velvet
carpeting was dyed a more terrible red, and was slippery with a
rain of blood! A score of dead and dying lay groaning on the
ground; and the rest, beaten and bloody, gave up their swords and
surrendered.
"You should have done this at first!" said the count, coolly
wiping his blood-stained weapon, end replacing it in its sheath;
"and, by so doing, saved some time and more bloodshed. Where are
all the fair ladies, Kingsley, I saw here when we entered first?"
"They fled like a flock of frightened deer," said Hubert, taking
it upon himself to answer, "through yonder archway when the fight
commenced. I will go in search of them if you like."
"I am rather at a loss what to do with them," said the count,
half-laughing. "It would be a pity to bring such a cavalcade of
pretty women into the city to die of the plague. Can you suggest
nothing, Sir Norman?"
"Nothing, but to leave then here to take care of themselves, or
let them go free."
"They would be a great addition to the court at Whitehall,"
suggested Hubert, in his prettiest tone, "and a thousand times
handsomer than half the damsels therein. There, for instance, is
one a dozen timer more beautiful than Mistress Stuart herself!"
Leaning, in his nonchalant way, on the hilt of his sword, he
pointed to Miranda, whose fiercely-joyful eyes were fixed w with
a glance that made the three of them shudder, on the bloody floor
and the heap of slain.
"Who is that?" asked the count, curiously. "Why is she perched
up there, and why does she bear such an extraordinary resemblance
to Leoline? Do you know anything about her, Kingsley?"
"I know she is the wife of that unlovely little man, whose howls
in yonder passage you can hear, if you listen, and that she was
the queen of this midnight court, and is wounded, if not dying,
now!"
"I never saw such fierce eyes before in a female head! One would
think she fairly exulted in this wholesale slaughter of her
subjects."
"So she does; and she hates both her husband and her subjects,
with an intensity you cannot conceive."
"How very like royalty!" observed Hubert, in parenthesis. "If
she were a real queen, she could not act more naturally."
Sir Norman smiled, and the count glanced at the audacious page,
suspiciously; but Hubert's face was touching to witness, in its
innocent unconsciousness. Miranda, looking up at the same time,
caught the young knight's eye, and made a motion for him to
approach. She held out both her hands to him as he came near,
with the same look of dreadful delight.
"Sir Norman Kingsley, I am dying, and my last words are in
thanksgiving to you for having thus avenged me!"
"Let me hope you have many days to live yet, fair lady," said Sir
Norman, with the same feeling of repulsion he had experienced in
the dungeon. "I am sorry you have been obliged to witness this
terrible scene."
"Sorry!" she cried, fiercely. "Why, since the first hour I
remember at all, I remember nothing that has given me such joy as
what has passed now; my only regret is that I did not see them
all die before my eyes! Sorry! I tell you I would not have
missed it for ten thousand worlds!"
"Madame, you must not talk like this!" said Sir Norman, almost
sternly. "Heaven forbid there should exist a woman who could
rejoice in bloodshed and death. You do not, I know. You wrong
yourself and your own nature in saying so. Be calm, now; do not
excite yourself. You shall come with us, and be properly cared
for; and I feel certain you have a long and happy life before you
yet."
"Who are those men?" she said, not heeding him, "and who - ah,
great Heaven! What is that?"
In looking round, she had met Hubert face to face. She knew that
that face was her own; and, with a horror stamped on every
feature that no words can depict, she fell back, with a terrible
scream and was dead!
Sir Norman was so shocked by the suddenness of the last
catastrophe, that, for some time, he could not realize that she
had actually expired, until he bent over her, and placed his ear
to her lips. No breath was there; no pulse stirred in that
fierce heart - the Midnight Queen was indeed dead!
"Oh, this is fearful!" exclaimed Sir Norman, pale and horrified.
"The sight of Hubert, and his wonderful resemblance to her, has
completed what her wound and this excitement began. Her last is
breathed on earth!"
"Peace be with her!" said the count, removing his hat, which, up
to the present, he had worn. "And now, Sir Norman, if we are to
keep our engagement at sunrise, we had better be on the move;
for, unless I am greatly mistaken, the sky is already grey with
day-dawn."
"What are your commands?" asked Sir Norman, turning away, with a
sigh, from the beautiful form already stiffening in death.
"That you come with me to seek out those frightened fair ones,
who are a great deal too lovely to share the fate of their male
companions. I shall give them their liberty to go where they
please, on condition that they do not enter the city. We have
enough vile of their class there already."
Sir Norman silently followed him into the azure and silver
saloon, where the crowd of duchesses and countesses were "weeping
and wringing their hands," and as white as so many pretty ghosts.
In a somewhat brief and forcible manner, considering his
characteristic gallantry, the count made his proposal, which,
with feelings of pleasure and relief, was at once acceded to; and
the two gentlemen bowed themselves out, and left the startled
ladies.
On returning to the crimson court, he commanded a number of his
soldiers to remain and bury the dead, and assist the wounded; and
then, followed by the remainder and the prisoners under their
charge, passed out, and were soon from the heated atmosphere in
the cool morning air. The moon was still serenely shining, but
the stars that kept the earliest hours were setting, and the
eastern sky was growing light with the hazy gray of coming morn.
"I told you day-dawn was at hand," said the count, as he sprang
into his saddle; "and, lo! in the sky it is gray already."
"It is time for it!" said Sir Norman, as he, too, got into his
seat; "this has been the longest night I have ever known, and the
most eventful one of my life."
"And the end is not yet! Leoline waits to decide between us!"
Sir Norman shrugged his shoulders.
"True! But I have little doubt what that decision will be! I
presume you will have to deliver up your prisoners before you can
visit her, and I will avail myself of the opportunity to snatch a
few moments to fulfill a melancholy duty of my own."
"As you please. I have no objection; but in that case you will
need some one to guide you to the place of rendezvous; so I will
order my private attendant, yonder, to keep you in sight, and
guide you to me when your business is ended."
The count had given the order to start, the moment they had left
the ruin, and the conversation had been carried on while riding
at a break-neck gallop. Sir Norman thanked him for his offer,
and they rode in silence until they reached the city, and their
paths diverged; Sir Norman's leading to the apothecary's shop
where be had left Ormiston, and the count's leading - he best
knew where. George - the attendant referred to - joined the
knight, and leaving his horse in his care, Sir Norman entered the
shop, and encountered the spectral proprietor at the door.
"What of my friend?" was his eager inquiry. "Has he yet shown
signs of returning consciousness?"
"Alas, no!" replied the apothecary, with a groan, that came
wailing up like a whistle; "he was so excessively dead, that
there was no use keeping him; and as the room was wanted for
other purposes, I - pray, my dear sir, don't look so violent - I
put him in the pest-cart and had him buried."
"In the plague-pit!" shouted Sir Norman, making a spring at him;
but the man darted off like a ghostly flash into the inner room,
and closed and bolted the door in a twinkling.
Sir Norman kicked at it spitefully, but it resisted his every
effort; and, overcoming a strong temptation to smash every bottle
in the shop, he sprang once more into the saddle, and rode off to
the plague-pit. It was the second time within the last twelve
hours he had stood there; and, on the previous occasion, he who
now lay in it, had stood by his side. He looked down, sickened
and horror-struck. Perhaps, before another morning, he, too,
might be there; and, feeling his blood run cold at the thought,
he was turning away, when some one came rapidly up, and sank down
with a moaning gasping cry on its very edge. That shape - tall
and slender, and graceful - he well knew; and, leaning over her,
ho laid his hand on her shoulder, and exclaimed:
"La Masque!"
CHAPTER, XXI.
WHAT WAS BEHIND TWO MASK.
The cowering form rose up; but, seeing who it was, sank down
again, with its face groveling in the dust, and with another
prolonged, moaning cry.
"Madame Masque!" he said, wonderingly; "what is this?"
He bent to raise her; but, with a sort of scream she held out her
arms to keep him back.
"No, no, no I Touch me not! Hate me - kill me! I have murdered
your friend!"
Sir Norman recoiled as if from a deadly tent.
"Murdered him! Madame, in Heaven's name, what have you said?"
"Oh, I have not stabbed him, or poisoned him, or shot him; but I
am his murderer, nevertheless!" she wailed, writhing in a sort of
gnawing inward torture.
"Madame, I do not understand you at all! Surely you are raving
when you talk like this."
Still moaning on the edge of the plague-pit, she half rose up,
with both hands clasped tightly over her heart, as if she would
have held back from all human ken the anguish that was destroying
her
"NO - no! I am not mad - pray Heaven I were! Oh, that they had
strangled me in the first hour of my birth, as they would a
viper, rather than I should have lived through all this life of
misery and guilt, to end it by this last, worst crime of all!"
Sir Norman stood and looked at her still with a dazed expression.
He knew well enough whose murderer she called herself; but why
she did so, or how she could possibly bring about his death, was
a mystery altogether too deep for him to solve.
"Madame, compose yourself, I beseech you, and tell me what you
mean. It is to my friend, Ormiston, you allude - is it not?"
"Yes - yes! surely you need not ask."
"I know that he is dead, and buried in this horrible place; but
why you should accuse yourself of murdering him, I confess I do
not know."
"Then you shall!" she cried, passionately. "And you will wonder
at it no longer! You are the last one to whom the revelation can
ever be made on earth; and, now that my hours are numbered, it
matters little whether it is told or not! Was it not you who
first found him dead?"
"It was I - yes. And how he came to his end, I have been
puzzling myself in vain to discover ever since."
She rose up, drew herself to her full majestic height, and looked
at him with a terrible glance
"Shall I tell you?"
"You have had no hand in it," he answered, with a cold chill at
the tone and look, "for he loved you!"
"I have had a hand in it - I alone have been the cause of it.
But for me he would be living still!"
"Madame," exclaimed Sir Norman, in horror.
"You need not look as if you thought me mad, for I tell you it is
Heaven's truth! You say right - he loved me; but for that love
he would be living now!"
"You speak in riddles which I cannot read. How could that love
have caused his death, since his dearest wishes were to be
granted to-night?"
"He told you that, did he?"
"He did. He told me you were to remove your mask; and if, on
seeing you, he still loved you, you were to be his wife."
"Then woe to him for ever having extorted such a promise from me!
Oh, I warned him again, and again, and again. I told him how it
would be - I begged him to desist; but no, he was blind, he was
mad; he would rush on his own doom! I fulfilled my promise, and
behold the result!"
She pointed with a frantic gesture to the plague-pit, and wrung
her beautiful hands with the same moaning of anguish.
"Do I hear aright?" said Sir Norman, looking at her, and really
doubting if his ears had not deceived him. "Do you mean to say
that, in keeping your word and showing him your face, you have
caused his death?"
"I do. I had warned him of it before. I told him there were
sights too horrible to look on and live, but nothing would
convince him! Oh, why was the curse of life ever bestowed upon
such a hideous thing as I!"
Sir Norman gazed at her in a state of hopeless bewilderment. He
had thought, from the moment he saw her first, that there was
something wrong with her brain, to make her act in such a
mysterious, eccentric sort of way; but he had never positively
thought her so far gone as this. In his own mind, he set her
down, now, as being mad as a March hare, and accordingly answered
in that soothing tone people use to imbeciles
"My dear Madame Masque, pray do not excite yourself, or say such
dreadful things. I am sure you would not willfully cause the
death of any one, much less that of one who loved you as he did."
La Masque broke into a wild laugh, almost worse to hear than her
former despairing moans.
"The man thinks me mad! He will not believe, unless he sees and
knows for himself! Perhaps you, too, Sir Norman Kingsley," she
cried, changing into sudden fierceness, "would like to see the
face behind this mask? - would like to see what has slain your
friend, and share his fate?"
"Certainly," said Sir Norman. "I should like to see it; and I
think I may safely promise not to die from the effects. But
surely, madame, you deceive yourself; no face, however ugly -
even supposing you to possess such a one - could produce such
dismay as to cause death."
"You shall see."
She was looking down into the plague-pit, standing so close to
its cracking edge, that Sir Norman's blood ran cold, in the
momentary expectation to see her slip and fall headlong in. Her
voice was less fierce and less wild, but her hands were still
clasped tightly over her heart, as if to ease the unutterable
pain there. Suddenly, she looked up, and said, in an altered
tone:
"You have lost Leoline?"
"And found her again. She is in the power of one Count
L'Estrange."
"And if in his power, pray, how have you found her?"
"Because we are both to meet in her presence within this very
hour, and she is to decide between us,"
"Has Count L'Estrange promised you this?"
"He has."
"And you have no doubt what her decision will be?"
"Not the slightest."
"How came you to know she was carried off by this count?"
"He confessed it himself."
"Voluntarily?"
"No; I taxed him with it, and he owned to the deed; but he
voluntarily promised to take me to her and abide by her
decision."
"Extraordinary!" said La Masque, as if to herself. "Whimsical as
he is, I scarcely expected he would give her up no easily as
this."
"Then you know him, madame?" said Sir Norman, pointedly.
"There are few things I do not know, and rare are the disguises I
cannot penetrate. So you have discovered it, too?"
"No, madame, my eyes were not sharp enough, nor had I sufficient
cleverness, even, for that. It was Hubert, the Earl of
Rochester's page, who told me who he was."
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 | 17 |
18 |
19 |
20