"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! 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 short, 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 s.e.x--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 at 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 b.l.o.o.d.y, gave up their swords and surrendered.
"You should have done this at first!" said the count, coolly wiping his blood-stained weapon, and 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 with a glance that made the three of them shudder, on the b.l.o.o.d.y 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sed 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 cla.s.s there already."
Sir Norman silently followed him into the azure and silver saloon, where the crowd of d.u.c.h.esses 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 a.s.sist the wounded; and then, followed by the remainder and the prisoners under their charge, pa.s.sed 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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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 he 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 THE 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?"