Books: The Midnight Queen

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"The watchman told you of the two young men who brought her out
and laid her in the dead-cart - I was one of the two."

"And who was the other?"

"A friend of mine - one Malcolm Ormiston."

"Ah! I know him! Pardon my abruptness, Sir Norman," said the
stranger, once more speaking in his assumed suave tone, "but I
feel deeply on this subject, and was excited at the moment. You
spoke of her being brought to the house of a friend - now, who
may that friend be, for I was not aware that she had any?"

"So I judged," said Sir Norman, rather bitterly, "or she would not
have been left to die alone of the plague. She was brought to my
house, sir, and I am the friend who would have stood by her to
the last!"

Sir Norman sat up very straight and haughty on his horse; and had
it been daylight, he would have seen a slight derisive smile pass
over the lips of his companion.

"I have always heard that Sir Norman Kingsley was a chivalrous
knight," he said; "but I scarcely dreamed his gallantry would
have carried him go far as to brave death by the pestilence for
the sake of an unknown lady - however beautiful. I wonder you,
did not carry her to the pest-house."

"No doubt! Those who could desert her at such a time would
probably be capable of that or any other baseness!"

"My good friend," said the stranger, calmly, "your insinuation is
not over-courteous, but I can forgive it, more for the sake of
what you've done for her to-night than for myself."

Sir Norman's lip curled.

"I'm obliged to you! And now, sir, as you have seen fit to
question me in this free and easy manner, will you pardon me if I
take the liberty of returning the compliment, and ask you a few
in return?"

"Certainly; pray proceed, Sir Norman," said the stranger,
blandly; "you are at liberty to ask as many questions as you
please - so am I to answer them."

"I answered all yours unhesitatingly, and you owe it to me to do
the same," said Sir Norman, somewhat haughtily. "In the first
place, you have an advantage of me which I neither understand,
nor relish; so, to place us on equal terms, will you have the
goodness to tell me your name?"

"Most assuredly! My name," said the stranger, with glib
airiness, "is Count L'Estrange."

"A name unknown to me," said Sir Norman, with a piercing look,
"and equally unknown, I believe, at Whitehall. There is a Lord
L'Estrange in London; or you and he are certainly not one and the
same."

"My friend does not believe me," said the count, almost gayly -
"a circumstance I regret, but cannot help. Is there anything
else Sir Norman wishes to know?"

"If you do not answer my questions truthfully, there to little
use in my asking them," said Sir Norman, bluntly. "Do you mean
to say you are a foreigner?"

"Sir Norman Kingsley is at perfect liberty to answer that
question as he pleases," replied the stranger, with most
provoking indifference.

Sir Norman's eye flashed, and his hand fell on his sword; but,
reflecting that the count might find it inconvenient to answer
any more questions if he ran him through, he restrained himself
and went on.

"Sir, you are impertinent, but that is of no consequence, just
now. Who was that lady - what was her name?"

"Leoline."

"Was she your wife?"

The stranger paused for a moment, as if reflecting whether she
was or not, and then said, meditatively

"No - I don't know as she was. On the whole, I am pretty sure
she was not."

Sir Norman felt as if a ton weight had been suddenly hoisted from
the region of his heart.

"Was she anybody else's wife?"

"I think not. I'm inclined to think that, except myself, she did
not know another man in London."

"Then why was she dressed as a bride?" inquired Sir Norman,
rather mystified.

"Was she? My poor Leoline!" said the stranger, sadly. "Because-"
he hesitated, "because - in short, Sir Norman," said the stranger,
decidedly, "I decline answering any more questions!"

"I shall find out, for all that," said Sir Norman, "and here I
shall bid you good-night, for this by-path leads to my
destination."

"Good-night," said the stranger, "and be careful, Sir
Norman-remember, the plague is abroad."

"And so are highwaymen!" called Sir Norman after him, a little
maliciously; but a careless laugh from the stranger was the only
reply as he galloped away.

CHAPTER V.

THE DWARF AND THE RUIN.

The by-path down which Sir Norman rode, led to an inn, "The
Golden Crown," about a quarter of a mile from the ruin. Not
wishing to take his horse, lest it should lead to discovery, he
proposed leaving it here till his return; and, with this
intention, and the strong desire for a glass of wine - for the
heat and his ride made him extremely thirsty - he dismounted at
the door, and consigning the animal to the care of a hostler, he
entered the bar-room. It was not the most inviting place in the
world, this same bar-room - being illy-lighted, dim with
tobacco-smoke, and pervaded by a strong spirituous essence of
stronger drinks than malt or cold water. A number of men were
loitering about, smoking, drinking, and discussing the
all-absorbing topic of the plague, and the fires that might be
kindled. There was a moment's pause, as Sir Norman entered, took
a seat, and called for a glass of sack, and then the conversation
went on as before. The landlord hastened to supply his wants by
placing a glass and a bottle of wine before him, and Sir Norman
fell to helping himself, and to ruminating deeply on the events
of the night. Rather melancholy these ruminations were, though
to do the young gentleman justice, sentimental melancholy was not
at all in his line; but then you will please to recollect he was
in love, and when people come to that state, they are no longer
to be held responsible either for their thoughts or actions. It
is true his attack had been a rapid one, but it was no less
severe for that; and if any evil-minded critic is disposed to
sneer at the suddenness of his disorder, I have only to say, that
I know from observation, not to speak of experience, that love at
first sight is a lamentable fact, and no myth.

Love is not a plant that requires time to flourish, but is quite
capable of springing up like the gourd of Jonah full grown in a
moment. Our young friend, Sir Norman, had not been aware of the
existence of the object of his affections for a much longer space
than two hours and a half, yet he had already got to such a
pitch, that if he did not speedily find her, he felt he would do
something so desperate as to shake society to its utmost
foundations. The very mystery of the affair spurred him on, and
the romantic way in which she had been found, saved, and
disappeared, threw such a halo of interest round her, that he was
inclined to think sometimes she was nothing but a shining vision
from another world. Those dark, splendid eyes; that lovely
marblelike face; those wavy ebon tresses; that exquisitely
exquisite figure; yes, he felt they were all a great deal too
perfect for this imperfect and wicked world. Six Norman was in a
very bad way, beyond doubt, but no worse than millions of young
men before and after him; and he heaved a great many profound
sighs, and drank a great many glasses of sack, and came to the
sorrowful conclusion that Dame Fortune was a malicious jade,
inclined to poke fun at his best affections, and make a
shuttlecock of his heart for the rest of his life. He thought,
too, of Count L'Estrange; and the longer he thought, the more he
became convinced that he knew him well, and had met him often.
But where? He racked his brain until, between love, Leoline, and
the count, he got that delicate organ into such a maze of
bewilderment and distraction, that he felt he would be a case of
congestion, shortly, if he did not give it up. That the count's
voice was not the only thing about him assumed, he was positive;
and he mentally called over the muster-roll of his past friends,
who spent half their time at Whitehall, and the other half going
through the streets, making love to the honest citizens' pretty
wives and daughters; but none of them answered to Count
L'Estrange. He could scarcely be a foreigner - he spoke English
with too perfect an accent to be that; and then he knew him, Sir
Norman, as if he had been his brother. In short, there was no
use driving himself insane trying to read so unreadable a riddle;
and inwardly consigning the mysterious count to Old Nick, he
swallowed another glass of sack, and quit thinking about him.

So absorbed had Sir Norman been in his own mournful musings, that
he paid no attention whatever to those around him, and had nearly
forgotten their very presence, when one of them, with aloud cry,
sprang to his feet, and then fell writhing to the floor. The
others, in dismay, gathered abut him, but the ne=t instant fell
back with a cry of, "He has the plague!" At that dreaded
announcement, half of them scampered off incontinently; and the
other half with the landlord at their head, lifted the sufferer
whose groans and cries were heart-rendering, and carried him out
of the house. Sir Norman, rather dismayed himself, had risen to
his feet, fully aroused from his reverie, and found himself and
another individual sole possessors of the premises. His
companion he could not very well make out; for he was sitting, or
rather crouching, in a remote and shadowy corner, where nothing
was clearly visible but the glare of a pair of fiery eyes. There
was a great redundancy of hair, too, about his head and face,
indeed considerable more about the latter than there seemed any
real necessity for, and even with the imperfect glimpse he caught
of him the young man set him down in his own mind as about as
hard-looking a customer as he had ever seen. The fiery eyes were
glaring upon him like those of a tiger, through a jungle of bushy
hair, but their owner spoke never a word, though the other stared
back with compound interest. There they sat, beaming upon each
other - one fiercely, the other curiously, until the
re-appearance of the landlord with a very lugubrious and
woebegone countenance. It struck Sir Norman that it was about
time to start for the ruin; and, with an eye to business, he
turned to cross-examine mine host a trifle.

"What have they done with that man?" he asked by way of preface.

"Sent him to the pest-house," replied the landlord, resting his
elbows on the counter and his chin in his hands, and staring
dismally at the opposite wall. "Ah! Lord 'a' mercy on us I
these be dreadful times!"

"Dreadful enough!" said Sir Norman, sighing deeply, as he thought
of his beautiful Leoline, a victim of the merciless pestilence.
"Have there been many deaths here of the distemper?"

"Twenty-five to-day!" groaned the man. "Lord! what will become of
us?"

"You seem rather disheartened," said Sir Norman, pouring out a
glass of wine and handing it to him. "Just drink this, and don't
borrow trouble. They say sack is a sure specific against the
plague."

Mine host drained the bumper, and wiped his mouth, with another
hollow groan.

"If I thought that, sir, I'd not be sober from one week's end to
t'other; but I know well enough I will be in a plague-pit in less
than a week. O Lord! have mercy on us!"

"Amen!" said Sir Norman, impatiently. "If fear has not taken
away your wits, my good sir, will you tell me what old ruin that
is I saw a little above here as I rode up?"

The man started from his trance of terror, and glanced, first at
the fiery eyes in the corner, and then at Sir Norman, in evident
trepidation of the question.

"That ruin, sir? You must be a stranger in this place, surely,
or you would not need to ask that question."

"Well, suppose I am a stranger? What then?"

"Nothing, sir; only I thought everybody knew everything about
that ruin."

"But I do not, you see? So fill your glass again, and while you
are drinking it, just tell me what that everything comprises."

Again the landlord glanced fearfully st the fiery eyes in the
corner, and again hesitated.

"Well!" exclaimed Sir Norman, at once surprised and impatient at
his taciturnity, "Can't you speak man? I want you to tell me all
about it."

"There is nothing to tell, sir," replied the host, goaded to
desperation. "It is an old, deserted ruin that's been here ever
since I remember; and that's all I know about it."

While, he spoke, the crouching shape in the corner reared itself
upright, and keeping his fiery eyes still glaring upon Sir
Norman, advanced into the light. Our young knight was in the act
of raising his glass to his lips; but as the apparition
approached, he laid it down again, untasted, and stared at it in
the wildest surprise and intensest curiosity. Truly, it was a
singular-looking creature, not to say a rather startling one. A
dwarf of some four feet high, and at least five feet broad
across the shoulders, with immense arms and head - a giant in
everything but height. His immense skull was set on such a
trifle of a neck as to be scarcely worth mentioning, and was
garnished by a violent mat of coarse, black hair, which also
overran the territory of his cheeks and chin, leaving no neutral
ground but his two fiery eyes and a broken nose all twisted awry.
On a pair of short, stout legs he wore immense jack-boots, his
Herculean shoulders and chest were adorned with a leathern
doublet, and in the belt round his waist were conspicuously stuck
a pair of pistols and a dagger. Altogether, a more ugly or
sinister gentleman of his inches it would have been hard to find
in all broad England. Stopping deliberately before Sir Norman,
he placed a hand on each hip, and in a deep, guttural voice,
addressed him:

"So, sir knight - for such I perceive you are - you are anxious
to know something of that old ruin yonder?"

"Well," said Sir Norman, so far recovering from his surprise as
to be able to speak, "suppose I am? Have you anything to say
against it, my little friend?"

"Oh, not in the least!" said the dwarf, with a hoarse chuckle.
"Only, instead of wasting your breath asking this good man, who
professes such utter ignorance, you had better apply to me for
information."

Again Sir Norman surveyed the little Hercules from head to foot
for a moment, in silence, as one, nowadays, would an intelligent
gorilla.

"You think so - do you? And what may you happen to know about
it, my pretty little friend?"

"O Lord!" exclaimed the landlord, to himself, with a frightened
face, while the dwarf "grinned horribly a ghastly smile" from ear
to ear.

"So much, my good sir, that I would strongly advise you not to go
near it, unless you wish to catch something worse than the
plague. There have been others - our worthy host, there, whose
teeth, you may perceive, are chattering in his head, can tell you
about those that have tried the trick, and - "

"Well?" said Sir Norman, curiously.

"And have never returned to tell what they found!" concluded the
little monster, with a diabolical leer. And as the landlord
fell, gray and gasping, back in his seat, he broke out into a
loud and hyena-like laugh.

"My dear little friend," said Sir Norman, staring at him in
displeased wonder, "don't laugh, if you can help it. You are
unprepossessing enough at best, but when you laugh, you look like
the very (a downward gesture) himself!"

Unheeding this advice, the dwarf broke again into an unearthly
cachinnation, that frightened the landlord nearly into fits, and
seriously discomposed the nervous system even of Sir Norman
himself. Then, grinning like a baboon, and still transfixing our
puissant young knight with the same tiger-like and unpleasant
glare, he nodded a farewell; and in this fashion, grinning, and
nodding, and backing, he got to the door, and concluding the
interesting performance with a third hoarse and hideous laugh,
disappeared in the darkness.

For fully ten minutes after he was gone, the young man kept his
eyes blankly fixed on the door, with a vague impression that he
was suffering from an attack of nightmare; for it seemed
impossible that anything so preposterously ugly as that dwarf
could exist out of one. A deep groan from the landlord, however,
convinced him that it was no disagreeable midnight vision, but a
brawny reality; and turning to that individual, he found him
gasping, in the last degree of terror, behind the counter.

"Now, who in the name of all the demons oat of Hades may that
ugly abortion be?" inquired Sir Norman.

"O Lord I be merciful! sir, it's Caliban; and the only wonder is,
he did not leave you a bleeding corpse at his feet!"

"I should like to see him try it. Perhaps he would have found
that is a game two can play at! Where does he come from and who
is he!"

The landlord leaned over the counter, and placed a very pale and
startled face close to Sir Norman's.

"That's just what I wanted to tell you, sir, but I was afraid to
speak before him. I think he lives up in that same old ruin you
were inquiring about - at least, he is often seen hanging around
there; but people are too much afraid of him to ask him any
questions. Ah, sir, it's a strange place, that ruin, and there
be strange stories afloat about it," said the man, with a
portentious shake of the head.

"What are they?" inquired Sir Norman. "I should particularly
like to know."

"Well, sir, for one thing, some folks say it is haunted, on
account of the queer lights and noises abort it, sometimes; but,
again, there be other folks, sir, that say the ghosts are alive,
and that he" - nodding toward the door - "is a sort of ringleader
among them."

"And who are they that out up such cantrips in the old place,
pray?"

"Lord only knows, sir. I'm sure I don't. I never go near it
myself; but there are others who have, and some of them tell of
the most beautiful lady, all in white, with long, black hair, who
walks on the battlements moonlight nights."

"A beautiful lady, all in white, with long, black hair! Why,
that description applies to Leoline exactly."

And Sir Norman gave a violent start, and arose to proceed to the
place directly.

"Don't you go near it, sir!" said the host, warningly. "Others
have gone, as he told you, and never come back; for these be
dreadful times, and men do as they please. Between the plague
and their wickedness, the Lord only known what will become of
us!"

"If I should return here for my horse in an hour or two, I
suppose I can get him?" sad Sir Norman, as he turned toward the
door.

"It's likely you can, sir, if I'm not dead by that time," said
the landlord, as he sank down again, groaning dismally, with his
chin between his hands.

The night was now profoundly dark; but Sir Norman knew the road
and ruin well, and, drawing his sword, walked resolutely on. The
distance between it and the ruin was trifling, and in less than
ten minutes it loomed up before him, a mass of deeper black in
the blackness. No white vision floated on the broken battlements
this night, as Sir Norman looked wistfully up at them; but
neither was there any ungainly dwarf, with two-edged sword,
guarding the ruined entrance; and Sir Norman passed unmolested
in. He sought the spiral staircase which La Masque had spoken
of, and, passing carefully from one ancient chamber to another,
stumbling over piles of rubbish and stones as he went, he reached
it at last. Descending gingerly its tortuous steepness, he found
himself in the mouldering vaults, and, as he trod them, his ear
was greeted by the sound of faint and far-off music. Proceeding
farther, he heard distinctly, mingled with it, a murmur of voices
and laughter, and, through the chinks in the broken flags, he
perceived a few faint rays of light. Remembering the directions
of La Masque, and feeling intensely curious, he cautiously knelt
down, and examined the loose flagstones until he found one he
could raise; he pushed it partly aside, and, lying flat on the
stones, with his face to the aperture, Sir Norman beheld a most
wonderful sight.

CHAPTER VI.

"Love is like a dizziness," says the old song. Love is something
else - it is the most selfish feeling in existence. Of course, I
don't allude to the fraternal or the friendly, or any other such
nonsensical old-fashioned trash that artless people still believe
in, but to the real genuine article that Adam felt for Eve when
he first saw her, and which all who read this - above the
innocent and unsusceptible age of twelve - have experienced. And
the fancy and the reality are so much alike, that they amount to
about the same thing. The former perhaps, may be a little
short-lived; but it is just as disagreeable a sensation while it
lasts as its more enduring sister. Love is said to be blind, and
it also has a very injurious effect on the eyesight of its
victims - an effect that neither spectacles nor oculists can aid
in the slightest degree, making them see whether sleeping or
waking, but one object, and that alone.

I don't know whether these were Mr. Malcolm or Ormiston's
thoughts, as he leaned against the door-way, and folded his arms
across his chest to await the shining of his day-star. In fact,
I am pretty sure they were not: young gentlemen, as a general
thing, not being any more given to profound moralizing in the
reign of His Most Gracious Majesty, Charles II., than they are at
the present day; but I do know, that no sooner was his bosom
friend and crony, Sir Norman Kingsley, out of eight, than he
forgot him as teetotally an if he had never known that
distinguished individual. His many and deep afflictions, his
love, his anguish, and his provocations; his beautiful,
tantalizing, and mysterious lady-love; his errand and its
probable consequences, all were forgotten; and Ormiston thought
of nothing or nobody in the world but himself and La Masque. La
Masque! La Masque! that was the theme on which his thoughts
rang, with wild variations of alternate hope and fear, like every
other lover since the world began, and love was first an
institution. "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall
be," truly, truly it is an odd and wonderful thing. And you and
I may thank our stars, dear readers, that we are a great deal too
sensible to wear our hearts in our sleeves for such a
bloodthirsty dew to peck at. Ormiston's flame was longer-lived
than Sir Norman's; he had been in love a whole month, and had it
badly, and was now at the very crisis of a malady. Why did she
conceal her face - would she ever disclose it - would she listen
to him - would she ever love him? feverishly asked Passion; and
Common Sense (or what little of that useful commodity he had
left) answered - probably because she was eccentric - possibly
she would disclose it for the same reason; that he had only to
try and make her listen; and as to her loving him, why, Common
Sense owned he had her there.

I can't say whether the adage! "Faint heart never won fair lady!"
was extant in his time; but the spirit of it certainly was, and
Ormiston determined to prove it. He wanted to see La Masque, and
try his fate once again; and see her he would, if he had to stay
there as a sort of ornamental prop to the house for a week. He
knew he might as well look for a needle in a haystack as his
whimsical beloved through the streets of London - dismal and dark
now as the streets of Luxor and Tadmor in Egypt; and he wisely
resolved to spare himself and his Spanish leathers boots the
trial of a one-handed game of "hide-and-go-to-seek." Wisdom,
like Virtue, is its own reward; and scarcely had he come to this
laudable conclusion, when, by the feeble glimmer of the
house-lamps, he saw a figure that made his heart bound, flitting
through the night-gloom toward him. He would have known that
figure on the sands of Sahara, in an Indian jungle, or an
American forest - a tall, slight, supple figure, bending and
springing like a bow of steel, queenly and regal as that of a
young empress. It was draped in a long cloak reaching to the
ground, in color as black as the night, and clasped by a jewel
whose glittering flash, he saw even there; a velvet hood of the
same color covered the stately head; and the mask - the tiresome,
inevitable mask covered the beautiful - he was positive it was
beautiful - face. He had seen her a score of times in that very
dress, flitting like a dark, graceful ghost through the city
streets, and the sight sent his heart plunging against his side
like an inward sledge-hammer. Would one pulse in her heart stir
ever so faintly at sight of him? Just as he asked himself the
question, and was stepping forward to moot her, feeling very like
the country swain in love - "hot and dry like, with a pain in his
side like" - he suddenly stopped. Another figure came forth from
the shadow of an opposite house, and softly pronounced her name.
It was a short figure - a woman's figure. He could not see the
face, and that was an immense relief to him, and prevented his
having jealousy added to his other pains sad tribulations. La
Masque paused as well as he, and her soft voice softly asked:

"Who calls?"

"It is I, madame - Prudence."

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