"What an honor for his lordship! Since you dislike England so much, however, you will probably soon throw up the situation and, patronize the first foreign amba.s.sador--"
"Perhaps! I rather like Whitehall, however. Old Rowlie has taken rather a fancy to me," said the boy speaking with the same easy familiarity of his majesty as he would of a lap-dog. "And what is better, so has Mistress Stewart--so much so, that Heaven forefend the king should become jealous. This, however, is strictly entre nous, and not to be spoken of on any terms."
"Your secret shall be preserved at the risk of my life," said Sir Norman, laying his hand on the left side of his doublet; "and in return, may I ask if you have any relatives living--any sisters for instance?"
"I see! you have a suspicion that the lady in white may be a sister of mine. Well, you may set your mind at rest on that point--for if she is, it is news to me, as I never saw her in my life before tonight. Is she a particular friend of yours, Sir Norman?"
"Never you mind that, my dear boy; but take my advice, and don"t trouble yourself looking for her; for, most a.s.suredly, if you find her, I shall break your head!"
"Much obliged," said Hubert, touching his cap, "but nevertheless, I shall risk it. She had the plague, though, when she jumped into the river, and perhaps the best place to find her would be the pest-house. I shall try."
"Go, and Heaven speed you! Yonder is the way to it, and my road lies here. Good night, master Hubert."
"Good night, Sir Norman," responded the page, bowing airily; "and if I do not find the lady to-night, most a.s.suredly I shall do so to-morrow."
Turning along a road leading to the pest-house, and laughing as he went, the boy disappeared. Fearing lest the page should follow him, and thereby discover a clue to Leoline"s abode, Sir Norman turned into a street some distance from the house, and waited in the shadow until he was out of sight. Then he came forth, and, full of impatience to get back to the ruin, hurried on to where he had left his horse. He was still in the care of the watchman, whom he repaid for his trouble; and as he sprang on his back, he glanced up at the windows of Leoline"s house. It was all buried in profound darkness but that one window from which that faint light streamed, and he knew that she had not yet gone to rest. For a moment he lingered and looked at it in the absurd way lovers will look, and was presently rewarded by seeing what he watched for--a shadow flit between him and the light. The sight was a strong temptation to him to dismount and enter, and, under pretence of warning her against the Earl of Rochester and his "pretty page," see her once again. But reflection, stepping rebukingly up to him, whispered indignantly, that his ladylove was probably by this time in her night robe, and not at home to lovers; and Sir Norman respectfully bowed to reflection"s superior wisdom. He thought of Hubert"s words, "If I do not find her tonight, I shall most a.s.suredly to-morrow," and a chill presentiment of coming evil fell upon him.
"To-morrow," he said, as he turned to go. "Who knows what to-morrow may bring forth! Fairest and dearest Leoline, goodnight!"
He rode away in the moonlight, with the stars shining peacefully down upon him. His heart at the moment was a divided one--one half being given to Leoline, and the other to the Midnight Queen and her mysterious court. The farther he went away from Leoline, the dimmer her star became in the horizon of his thoughts; and the nearer he came to Miranda, the brighter and more eagerly she loomed up, until he spurred his horse to a most furious gallop, lest he should find the castle and the queen lost in the regions of s.p.a.ce when he got there. Once the plague-stricken city lay behind him, his journey was short; and soon, to his great delight, he turned into the silent deserted by-path leading to the ruin.
Tying his horse to a stake in the crumbling wall, he paused for a moment to look at it in the pale, wan light of the midnight moon. He had looked at it many a time before, but never with the same interest as now; and the ruined battlements, the fallen roof, the broken windows, and mouldering sides, had all a new and weird interest for him. No one was visible far or near; and feeling that his horse was secure in the shadow of the wall, he entered, and walked lightly and rapidly along in the direction of the spiral staircase. With more haste, but the same precaution, he descended, and pa.s.sed through the vaults to where he knew the loose flag-stone was. It was well he did know; for there was neither strain of music nor ray of light to guide him now; and his heart sank to zero as he thought he might raise the stone and discover nothing.
His hand positively trembled with eagerness as he lifted it; and with unbounded delight, not to be described, looked down on the same t.i.tled a.s.sembly he had watched before. But there had been a change since--half the lights were extinguished, and the great vaulted room was comparatively in shadow--the music had entirely died away and all was solemnly silent. But what puzzled Sir Norman most of all was, the fact that there seemed to be a trial of acme sort going on.
A long table, covered with green velvet, and looking not unlike a modern billiard table, stood at the right of the queen"s crimson throne; and behind it, perched in a high chair, and wearing a long, solemn, black robe, sat a small, thick personage, whose skin Sir Norman would have known on a bush. He glanced at the lower throne and found it as he expected, empty; and he saw at once that his little highness was not only prince consort, but also supreme judge in the kingdom. Two or three similar black-robed gentry, among whom was recognizable the n.o.ble duke who so narrowly escaped with his life under the swords of Sir Norman and Count L"Estrange. Before this solemn conclave stood a man who was evidently the prisoner under trial, and who wore the whitest and most frightened face Sir Norman thought he had ever beheld. The queen was lounging negligently back on her throne, paying very little attention to the solemn rites, occasionally gossiping with some of the snow-white sylphs beside her, and often yawning behind her pretty finger-tips, and evidently very much bored by it all.
The rest of the company were decorously seated in the crimson and gilded arm-chairs, some listening with interest to what was going on, others holding whispered tete-a-tetes, and all very still and respectful.
Sir Norman"s interest was aroused to the highest pitch; he imprudently leaned forward too far, in order to hear and see, and lost his balance.
He felt he was going, and tried to stop himself, but in vain; and seeing there was no help for it, he made a sudden spring, and landed right in the midst of the a.s.sembly.
CHAPTER XI. THE EXECUTION.
In an instant all was confusion. Everybody sprang to their feet--ladies shrieked in chorus, gentlemen swore and drew their swords, and looked to see if they might not expect a whole army to drop from the sky upon them, as they stood. No other battalion, however, followed this forlorn hope; and seeing it, the gentlemen took heart of grace and closed around the unceremonious intruder. The queen had sprung from her royal seat, and stood with her bright lips parted, and her brighter eyes dilating in speechless wonder. The bench, with the judge at their head, had followed her example, and stood staring with all their might, looking, truth to tell, as much startled by the sudden apparition as the fair s.e.x. The said fair s.e.x were still firing off little volleys of screams in chorus, and clinging desperately to their cavaliers; and everything, in a word, was in most admired disorder.
Tam O"Shanter"s cry, "Weel done, Cutty sark!" could not have produced half such a commotion among his "h.e.l.lish legion" as the emphatic debut of Sir Norman Kingsley among these human revelers. The only one who seemed rather to enjoy it than otherwise was the prisoner, who was quietly and quickly making off, when the malevolent and irrepressible dwarf espied him, and the one shock acting as a counter-irritant to the other, he bounced fleetly over the table, and grabbed him in his crab-like claws.
This brisk and laudable instance of self-command had a wonderful and inspiriting effect on the rest; and as he replaced the pale and palsied prisoner in his former position, giving him a vindictive shake and vicious kick with his royal boots as he did so, everybody began to feel themselves again. The ladies stopped screaming, the gentlemen ceased swearing, and more than one exclamation of astonishment followed the cries of terror.
"Sir Norman Kingsley! Sir Norman Kingsley!" rang from lip to lip of those who recognized him; and all drew closer, and looked at him as if they really could not make up their mind to believe their eyes. As for Sir Norman himself, that gentleman was destined literally, if not metaphorically, to fall on his legs that night, and had alighted on the crimson velvet-carpet, cat-like, on his feet. In reference to his feelings--his first was one of frantic disapproval of going down; his second, one of intense astonishment of finding himself there with unbroken bones; his third, a disagreeable conviction that he had about put his foot in it, and was in an excessively bad fix; and last, but not least, a firm and rooted determination to make the beet of a bad bargain, and never say die.
His first act was to take off his plumed hat, and make a profound obeisance to her majesty the queen, who was altogether too much surprised to make the return politeness demanded, and merely stared at him with her great, beautiful, brilliant eyes, as if she would never have done.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" said Sir Norman, turning gracefully to the company; "I beg ten thousand pardons for this unwarrantable intrusion, and promise you, upon my honor, never to do it again. I beg to a.s.sure you that my coming here was altogether involuntary on my part, and forced by circ.u.mstances over which I had no control; and I entreat you will not mind me in the least, but go on with the proceeding, just as you did before. Should you feel my presence here any restraint, I am quite ready and willing to take my departure at any moment; and as I before insinuated, will promise, on the honor of a gentleman and a knight, never again to take the liberty of tumbling through the ceiling down on your heads."
This reference to the ceiling seemed to explain the whole mystery; and everybody looked up at the corner whence he came from, and saw the flag that had been removed. As to his speech, everybody had listened to it with the greatest of attention; and sundry of the ladies, convinced by this time that he was flesh and blood, and no ghost, favored the handsome young knight with divers glances, not at all displeased or unadmiring. The queen sank back into her seat, keeping him still transfixed with her darkly-splendid eyes; and whether she admired or otherwise, no one could tell from her still, calm face. The prince consort"s feelings--for such there could be no doubt he was--were involved in no such mystery; and he broke out into a hyena-like scream of laughter, as he recognized, upon a second look, his young friend of the Golden Crown.
"So you have come, have you?" he cried, thrusting his unlovely visage over the table, till it almost touched sir Norman"s. "You have come, have you, after all I said?"
"Yes, sir I have come!" said Sir Norman, with a polite bow.
"Perhaps you don"t know me, my dear young sir--your little friend, you know, of the Golden Crown."
"Oh, I perfectly recognize you! My little friend," said Sir Norman, with bland suavity, and unconsciously quoting Leoline, "once seen in not easy to be-forgotten."
Upon this, his highness net up such another screech of mirth that it quite woke an echo through the room; and all Sir Norman"s friends looked grave; for when his highness laughed, it was a very bad sign.
"My little friend will hurt himself," remarked Sir Norman, with an air of solicitude, "if he indulges in his exuberant and gleeful spirits to such an extent. Let me recommend you, as a well-wisher, to sit down and compose yourself."
Instead of complying, however, the prince, who seemed blessed with a lively sense of the ludicrous, was so struck with the extreme funniness of the young man"s speech, that he relaxed into another paroxysm of levity, shriller and more unearthly, if possible, than any preceding one, and which left him so exhausted, that he was forced to sink into his chair and into silence through sheer fatigue. Seizing this, the first opportunity, Miranda, with a glance of displeased dignity at Caliban, immediately struck in:
"Who are you, sir, and by what right do you dare to come here?"
Her tone was neither very sweet nor suave; but it was much pleasanter to be cross-examined by the owner of such a pretty face than by the ugly little monster, for the moment gasping and extinguished; and Sir Norman turned to her with alacrity, and a bow.
"Madame, I am Sir Norman Kingsley, very much at your service; and I beg to a.s.sure you I did not come here, but fell here, through that hole, if you perceive, and very much against my will."
"Equivocation will not serve you in this case, sir," said the queen, with an austere dignity. "And, allow me to observe, it is just probable you would not have fallen through that hole in our royal ceiling if you had kept away from it. You raised that flag yourself--did you not?"
"Madam, I fear I must say yes!"
"And why did you do so?" demanded her majesty, with far more sharp asperity than Sir Norman dreamed could ever come from such beautiful lips.
"The rumor of Queen Miranda"s charms has gone forth; and I fear I must own that rumor drew me hither," responded Sir Norman, inventing a polite little work of fiction for the occasion; "and, let me add, that I came to find that rumor had under-rated instead of exaggerated her majesty"s said charms."
Here Sir Norman, whose spine seemed in danger of becoming the shape of a rainbow, in excess of good breeding, made another genuflection before the queen, with his hand over the region of his heart. Miranda tried to look grave, and wear that expression of severe solemnity I am told queens and rich people always do; but, in spite of herself, a little pleased smile rippled over her face; and, noticing it, and the bow and speech, the prince suddenly and sharply set up such another screech of laughter as no steamboat or locomotive, in the present age of steam, could begin to equal in ghastliness.
"Will your highness have the goodness to hold your tongue?" inquired the queen, with much the air and look of Mrs. Caudle, "and allow me to ask this stranger a few questions uninterrupted? Sir Norman Kingsley, how long have you been above there, listening and looking on?"
"Madame, I was not there five minutes when I suddenly, and to my great surprise, found myself here."
"A lie!--a lie!" exclaimed the dwarf, furiously. "It is over two hours since I met you at the bar of the Golden Crown."
"My dear little friend," said Sir Norman, drawing his sword, and flourishing it within an inch of the royal nose, "just make that remark again, and my sword will cleave your pretty head, as the cimetar of Saladin clove the cushion of down! I earnestly a.s.sure you, madame, that I had but just knelt down to look, when I discovered to my dismay, that I was no longer there, but in your charming presence."
"In that case, my lords and gentlemen," said the queen, glancing blandly round the apartment, "he has witnessed nothing, and, therefore, merits but slight punishment."
"Permit me, your majesty," said the duke, who had read the roll of death, and who had been eyeing Sir Norman sharply for some time, "permit me one moment! This is the very individual who slew the Earl of Ashley, while his companion was doing for my Lord Craven. Sir Norman Kingsley,"
said his grace, turning, with awful impressiveness to that young person, "do you know me?"
"Quite as well as I wish to," answered Sir Norman, with a cool and rather contemptuous glance in his direction. "You look extremely like a certain highwayman, with a most villainous countenance, I encountered a few hours back, and whom I would have made mince most of if he had not been coward enough to fly. Probably you may be the name; you look fit for that, or anything else."
"Cut him down!" "Dash his brains out!" "Run him through!" "Shoot him!"
were a few of the mild and pleasant insinuations that went off on every side of him, like a fierce volley of pop-guns; and a score of bright blades flashed blue and threatening on every side; while the prince broke out into another shriek of laughter, that rang high over all.