The Midnight Queen by May Agnes Fleming (best books under 200 pages txt) 📖

moment our young knight had got into one of those green and golden glimpses of sunshine that here and there checker life's rather dark pathway, and with Leoline beside him would have thought the dreary whores of the Dead Sea itself a very paradise.

It was now near midnight, and there was an unusual concourse of people in the sheets, waiting for St. Paul's to give the signal to light the fires. He looked around for Ormiston; but Ormiston was nowhere to be seen--horse and rider had disappeared. His own horse stood tethered where he had left him. Anxious as he was to ride back to the ruin, and see the play played out, he could not resist the temptation of lingering a brief period in the city, to behold the grand spectacle of the myriad fires. Many persons were hurrying toward St. Paul's to witness it from the dome; and consigning his horse to the care of the sentinel on guard at the house opposite, he joined them, and was soon striding along, at a tremendous pace, toward the great cathedral. Ere he reached it, its long-tongued clock tolled twelve, and all the other churches, one after another, took up the sound, and the witching hour of midnight rang and rerang from end to end of London town. As if by magic, a thousand forked tongues of fire shot up at once into the blind, black night, turning almost in an instant the darkened face of the heavens to an inflamed, glowing red. Great fires were blazing around the cathedral when they reached it, but no one stopped to notice them, but only hurried on the faster to gain their point of observation.

Sir Norman just glanced at the magnificent pile--for the old St. Paul's was even more magnificent than the new,--and then followed after the rest, through many a gallery, tower, and spiral staircase till the dome was reached. And there a grand and mighty spectacle was before him--the whole of London swaying and heaving in one great sea of fire. From one end to the other, the city seemed wrapped in sheets of flame, and every street, and alley, and lane within it shone in a lurid radiance far brighter than noonday. All along the river fires were gleaming, too; and the whole sky had turned from black to blood-red crimson. The streets were alive and swarming--it could scarcely be believed that the plague-infested city contained half so many people, and all were unusually hopeful and animated; for it was popularly believed that these fires would effectually check the pestilence. But the angry fiat of a Mighty Judge had gone forth, and the tremendous arm of the destroying angel was not to be stopped by the puny hand of man.

It has been said the weather for weeks was unusually brilliant, days of cloudless sunshine, nights of cloudless moonlight, and the air was warm and sultry enough for the month of August in the tropics. But now, while they looked, a vivid flash of lightning, from what quarter of the heavens no man knew, shot athwart the sky, followed by another and another, quick, sharp, and blinding. Then one great drop of rain fell like molten lead on the pavement, then a second and a third quicker, faster, and thicker, until down it crashed in a perfect deluge. It did not wait to rain; it fell in floods--in great, slanting sheets of water, an if the very floodgates of heaven had opened for a second deluge. No one ever remembered to have seen such torrents fall, and the populace fled before it in wildest dismay. In five minutes, every fire, from one extremity of London to the other, was quenched in the very blackness of darkness, and on that night the deepest gloom and terror reigned throughout the city. It was clear the hand of an avenging Deity was in this, and He who had rained down fire on Sodom and Gomorrah had not lost His might. In fifteen minutes the terrific flood was over; the dismal clouds cleared away, a pale, fair, silver moon shone serenely out, and looked down on the black, charred heaps of ashes strewn through the streets of London. One by one, the stars that all night had been obscured, glanced and sparkled over the sky, and lit up with their soft, pale light the doomed and stricken town. Everybody had quitted the dome in terror and consternation; and now Sir Norman, who had been lost in awe, suddenly bethought him of his ride to the ruin, and hastened to follow their example. Walking rapidly, not to say recklessly, along, he abruptly knocked against some one sauntering leisurely before him, and nearly pitched headlong on the pavement. Recovering his centre of gravity by a violent effort, he turned to see the cause of the collision, and found himself accosted by a musical and foreign-accented voice.

"Pardon," paid the sweet, and rather feminine tones; "it was quite an accident, I assure you, monsieur. I had no idea I was in anybody's way."

Sir Norman looked at the voice, or rather in the direction whence it came, and found it proceeded from a lad in gay livery, whose clear, colorless face, dark eyes, end exquisite features were by no means unknown. The boy seemed to recognize him at the same moment, and slightly touched his gay cap.

"Ah! it is Sir Norman Kingsley! Just the very person, but one, in the world that I wanted most to see."

"Indeed! And, pray, whom have I the honor of addressing?" inquired Sir Norman, deeply edified by the cool familiarity of the accoster.

"They call me Hubert--for want of a better name, I suppose," said the lad, easily. "And may I ask, Sir Norman, if you are shod with seven-leagued boots, or if your errand is one of life and death, that you stride along at such a terrific rate?"

"And what is that to you?" asked Sir Norman, indignant at his free-and-easy impudence.

"Nothing; only I should like to keep up with you, if my legs were long enough; and as they're not, and as company is not easily to be had in these forlorn streets, I should feel obliged to you if you would just slacken your pace a trifle, and take me in tow."

The boy's face in the moonlight, in everything but expression, was exactly that of Leoline, to which softening circumstance may be attributed Sir Norman's yielding to the request, and allowing the page to keep along side.

"I've met you once before to-night?" inquired Sir Norman, after a prolonged and wondering stare at him.

"Yes; I have a faint recollection of seeing you and Mr. Ormiston on London Bridge, a few hours ago, and, by the way, perhaps I may mention I am now in search of that same Mr. Ormiston."

"You are! And what may you want of him, pray?"

"Just a little information of a private character--perhaps you can direct me to his whereabouts."

"Should be happy to oblige you, my dear boy, but, unfortunately, I cannot. I want to see him myself, if I could find any one good enough to direct me to him. Is your business pressing?"

"Very--there is a lady in the case; and such business, you are aware, is always pressing. Probably you have heard of her--a youthful angel, in virgin white, who took a notion to jump into the Thames, not a great while ago."

"Ah!" said Sir Norman, with a start that did not escape the quick eyes of the boy. "And what do you want of her?"

The page glanced at him.

"Perhaps you know her yourself, sir Norman? If so, you will answer quite as well as your friend, as I only want to know where she lives."

"I have been out of town to-night," said Sir Norman, evasively, "and there may have been more ladies than one jumped into the Thames, daring my absence. Pray, describe your angel in white."

"I did not notice her particularly myself," said the boy, with easy indifference, "as I am not in the habit of paying much attention to young ladies who run wild about the streets at night and jump promiscuously into rivers. However, this one was rather remarkable, for being dressed as a bride, having long black hair, and a great quantity of jewelry about her, and looking very much like me. Having said she looks like me, I need not add she is handsome."

"Vanity of vanities, all in vanity!" murmured Sir Norman, meditatively. "Perhaps she is a relative of yours, Master Hubert, since you take such an interest in her, and she looks so much like you."

"Not that I know of," said Hubert, in his careless way. "I believe I was born minus those common domestic afflictions, relatives; and I don't take the slightest interest in her, either; don't think it!"

"Then why are you in search of her?"

"For a very good reason--because I've been ordered to do so."

"By whom--your master?"

"My Lord Rochester," said that nobleman's page, waving off the insinuation by a motion of his hand and a little displeased frown; "he picked her up adrift, and being composed of highly inflammable materials, took a hot and vehement fancy for her, which fact he did not discover until your friend, Mr. Ormiston, had carried her off."

Sir Norman scowled.

"And so he sent you in search of her, has he?"

"Exactly so; and now you perceive the reason why it is quite important that I find Mr. Ormiston. We do not know where he has taken her to, but fancy it must be somewhere near the river."

"You do? I tell you what it is, my boy," exclaimed Sir Norman, suddenly and in an elevated key, "the best thing you can do is, to go home and go to bed, and never mind young ladies. You'll catch the plague before you'll catch this particular young lady--I can tell you that!"

"Monsieur is excited," lisped the lad raining his hat end running his taper fingers through his glossy, dark curls. "Is she as handsome as they say she is, I wonder?"

"Handsome!" cried Sir Norman, lighting up with quite a new sensation at the recollection. "I tell you handsome doesn't begin to describe her! She is beautiful, lovely, angelic, divine--" Here Sir Norman's litany of adjectives beginning to give out, he came to a sudden halt, with a face as radiant as the sky at sunrise.

"Ah! I did not believe them, when they told me she was so much like me; but if she in as near perfection as you describe, I shall begin to credit it. Strange, is it not, that nature should make a duplicate of her greatest earthly chef d'oeuvre?"

"You conceited young jackanapes!" growled Sir Norman, in deep displeasure. "It is far stranger how such a bundle of vanity can contrive to live in this work-a-day world. You are a foreigner, I perceive?"

"Yes, Sir Norman, I am happy to say I am."

"You don't like England, then?"

"I'd be sorry to like it; a dirty, beggarly, sickly place as I ever saw!"

Sir Norman eyed the slender specimen of foreign manhood, uttering this sentiment is the sincerest of tones, and let his hand fall heavily on his shoulder.

"My good youth, be careful! I happen to be a native, and not altogether used to this sort of talk. How long have you been here? Not long, I know myself--at least, not in the Earl of Rochester's service, or I would have seen you."

"Right! I have not been here a month; but that month has seemed longer