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

than a year elsewhere. Do you know, I imagine when the world was created, this island of yours must have been made late on Saturday night, and then merely thrown in from the refuse to fill up a dent in the ocean."

Sir Norman paused in his walk, and contemplated the speaker a moment in severest silence. But Master Hubert only lifted up his saucy face and laughing black eyes, in dauntless sang froid.

"Master Hubert," began Master Hubert's companion, in his deepest and sternest base, "I don't know your other name, and it would be of no consequence if I did--just listen to me a moment. If you don't want to get run through (you perceive I carry a sword), and have an untimely end put to your career, just keep a civil tongue in your head, and don't slander England. Now come on!"

Hubert laughed and shrugged his shoulders:

"Thought is free, however, so I can have my own opinion in spite of everything. Will you tell me, monsieur, where I can find the lady?"

"You will have it, will you?" exclaimed Sir Norman, half drawing his sword. "Don't ask questions, but answer them. Are you French?"

"Monsieur has guessed it."

"How long have you been with your present master?"

"Monsieur, I object to that term," said Hubert, with calm dignity. "Master is a vulgarism that I dislike; so, in alluding to his lordship, take the trouble to say, patron."

Sir Norman laughed.

"With all my heart! How long, then, have you been with your present patron?"

"Not quite two weeks."

"I do not like to be impertinently inquisitive in addressing so dignified a gentleman, but perhaps you would not consider it too great a liberty, if I inquired how you became his page?"

"Monsieur shall ask as many questions as he pleases, and it shall not be considered the slightest liberty," said the young gentleman, politely. "I had been roaming at large about the city and the palace of his majesty--whom may Heaven preserve, and grant a little more wisdom!--in search of a situation; and among that of all nobles of the court, the Earl of Rochester's livery struck me as being the moat becoming, and so I concluded to patronize him."

"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 ambassador--"

"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 I 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 assuredly, 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 beat place to find her world 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 assuredly 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 assuredly 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 space 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 passed 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 titled assembly 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 noble 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 bear 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 assembly.


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 sex. The said fair sex 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 "hellish 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