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

they soon reached it. Like the other, it was all dark and deserted.

"This is the home," said Ormiston, looking at it doubtfully, "but where is La Masque?"

"Here!" said a silvery voice at his elbow; and turning round, they saw a tall, slender figure, cloaked, hooded, and masked. "Surely, you two do not want me again to-night?"

Both gentlemen doffed their plumed hats, and simultaneously bowed.

"Fortune favors us," said Sir Norman. "Yes, madam, it is even so; once again to-night we would tax your skill."

"Well, what do you wish to know?"

"Madam, we are in the street."

"Sir, I'm aware of that. Pray proceed."

"Will you not have the goodness to permit us to enter?" said Sir Norman, inclined to feel offended. "How can you tell us what we wish to know, here?"

"That is my secret," said the sweet voice. "Probably Sir Norman Kingsley wishes to know something of the fair lady I showed him some time ago?"

"Madam, you've guessed it. It is for that purpose I have sought you now."

"Then you have seen her already?"

"I have."

"And love her?"

"With all my heart!"

"A rapid flame," said the musical voice, in a tone that had just a thought of sarcasm; "for one of whose very existence you did not dream two hours ago."

"Madame La Masque," said Norman, flushed sad haughty, "love is not a question of time."

"Sir Norman Kingsley," said the lady, somewhat sadly, "I am aware of that. Tell me what you wish to know, and if it be in my power, you shall know it."

"A thousand thanks! Tell me, then, is she whom I seek living or dead?"

"She is alive."

"She has the plague?" said Sir Norman.

"I know it."

"Will she recover?"

"She will."

"Where is she now?"

La Masque hesitated and seemed uncertain whether or not to reply, Sir Norman passionately broke in:

"Tell me, madam, for I must know!"

"Then you shall; but, remember, if you get into danger, you must not blame me."

"Blame you! No, I think I would hardly do that. Where am I to seek for her?"

"Two miles from London beyond Newgate," said the mask. "There stand the ruins of what was long ago a hunting-lodge, now a crumbling skeleton, roofless and windowless, and said, by rumor, to be haunted. Perhaps you have seen or heard of it?"

"I have seen it a hundred times," broke in Sir Norman. "Surely, you do not mean to say she is there?"

"Go there, and you will see. Go there to-night, and lose no time--that is, supposing you can procure a license."

"I have one already. I have a pass from the Lord Mayor to come and go from the city when I please."

"Good! Then you'll go to-night."

"I will go. I might as well do that as anything else, I suppose; but it is quite impossible," said Sir Norman, firmly, not to say obstinately, "that she can be there."

"Very well you'll see. You had better go on horseback, if you desire to be back in time to witness the illumination."

"I don't particularly desire to see the illumination, as I know of; but I will ride, nevertheless. What am I to do when I get there?"

"You will enter the ruins, and go on till you discover a spiral staircase leading to what was once the vaults. The flags of these vaults are loose from age, and if you should desire to remove any of them, you will probably not find it an impossibility."

"Why should I desire to remove them?" asked Sir Norman, who felt dubious, and disappointed, and inclined to be dogmatical.

"Why, you may see a glimmering of light--hear strange noises; and if you remove the stones, may possibly see strange sights. As I told you before, it is rumored to be haunted, which is true enough, though not in the way they suspect; and so the fools and the common herd stay away."

"And if I am discovered peeping like a rascally valet, what will be the consequences?"

"Very unpleasant ones to you; but you need not be discovered if you take care. Ah! Look there!"

She pointed to the river, and both her companions looked. A barge gayly painted and gilded, with a light in prow and stern, came gliding up among less pretentious craft, and stopped at the foot of a flight of stairs leading to the bridge. It contained four persons--the oarsman, two cavaliers sitting in the stern, and a lad in the rich livery of a court-page in the act of springing out. Nothing very wonderful in all this; and Sir Norman and Ormiston looked at her for an explanation.

"Do you know those two gentlemen?" she asked.

"Certainly," replied Sir Norman, promptly; "one is the Duke of York, the other the Earl of Rochester."

"And that page, to which of them does he belong?"

"The page!" said Sir Norman, with a stare, as he leaned forward to look; "pray, madam, what has the page to do with it?"

"Look and see!"

The two peers has ascended the stairs, and were already on the bridge. The page loitered behind, talking, as it seemed, to the waterman.

"He wears the livery of the Earl of Rochester," said Ormiston, speaking for the first time, "but I cannot see his face."

"He will follow presently, and be sure you see it then! Possibly you may not find it entirely new to you."

She drew back into the shadow as she spoke; and the two nobles, as they advanced, talking earnestly, beheld Sir Norman and Ormiston. Both raised their hats with a look of recognition, and the salute was courteously returned by the others.

"Good-night, gentlemen," said Lord Rochester; "a hot evening, is it not? Have you come here to witness the illumination?"

"Hardly," said Sir Norman; "we have come for a very different purpose, my lord."

"The fires will have one good effect," said Ormiston laughing; "if they clear the air and drive away this stifling atmosphere."

"Pray God they drive away the plague!" said the Duke of York, as he and his companion passed from view.

The page sprang up the stairs after them, humming as he came, one of his master's love ditties--songs, saith tradition, savoring anything but the odor of sanctity. With the warning of La Masque fresh in their mind, both looked at him earnestly. His gay livery was that of Lord Rochester, and became his graceful figure well, as he marched along with a jaunty swagger, one hand on his aide, and the other toying with a beautiful little spaniel, that frisked in open violation of the Lord Mayor's orders, commanding all dogs, great and small, to be put to death as propagators of the pestilence. In passing, the lad turned his face toward them for a moment--a bright, saucy, handsome face it was--and the next instant he went round an angle and disappeared. Ormiston suppressed an oath. Sir Norman stifled a cry of amazement--for both recognized that beautiful colorless face, those perfect features, and great, black, lustrous eyes. It was the face of the lady they had saved from the plague-pit!

"Am I sane or mad?" inquired Sir Norman, looking helplessly about him for information. "Surely that is she we are in search of."

"It certainly is!" said Ormiston. "Where are the wonders of this night to end?"

"Satan and La Masque only know; for they both seem to have united to drive me mad. Where is she?"

"Where, indeed?" said Ormiston; "where is last year's snow?" And Sir Norman, looking round at the spot where she had stood a moment before, found that she, too, had disappeared.


CHAPTER IV. THE STRANGER.

The two friends looked at each other in impressive silence for a moment, and spake never a word. Not that they were astonished--they were long past the power of that emotion: and if a cloud had dropped from the sky at their feet, they would probably have looked at it passively, and vaguely wonder if the rest would follow. Sir Norman, especially, had sank into a state of mind that words are faint and feeble to describe. Ormiston, not being quite so far gone, was the first to open his lips.

"Upon my honor, Sir Norman, this is the most astonishing thing ever I heard of. That certainly was the face of our half-dead bride! What, in the name ad all the gods, can it mean, I wonder?"

"I have given up wondering," said Sir Norman, in the same helpless tone. "And if the earth was to open and swallow London up, I should not be the least surprised. One thing is certain: the lady we are seeking and that page are one and the same."

"And yet La Masque told you she was two miles from the city, in the haunted ruin; and La Masque most assuredly knows."

"I have no doubt she is there. I shall not be the least astonished if I find her in every street between this and Newgate."

"Really, it is a most singular affair! First you see her in the magic caldron; then we find her dead; then, when within an ace of being buried, she comes to life; then we leave her lifeless as a marble statue, shut up in your room, and fifteen minutes after, she vanishes as mysteriously as a fairy in a nursery legend. And, lastly, she turns up in the shape of a court-page, and swaggers along London Bridge at this hour of the night, chanting a love song. Faith! it would puzzle the sphinx herself to read this riddle, I've a notion!"

"I, for one, shall never try to read it," said Sir Norman. "I am about tired of this labyrinth of mysteries, and shall save time and La Masque to unravel them at their leisure."

"Then you mean to give up the pursuit?"

"Not exactly. I love this mysterious beauty too well to do that; and when next I find her, be it where it may, I shall take care she does not slip so easily through my fingers."

"I cannot forget that page," said Ormiston, musingly. "It is singular, since, he wears the Earl of Rochester's livery, that we have never seen him before among his followers. Are you quite sure, Sir Norman, that you have not?"

"Seen him? Don't be absurd, Ormiston! Do you think I could ever forget such a face as that?"

"It would not be easy, I confess. One does not see such every day. And yet--and yet--it is most extraordinary!"

"I shall ask Rochester about him the first thing to-morrow; and unless he is an optical illusion--which I vow I half believe is the case--I will come at the truth in spite of your demoniac friend, La Masque!"

"Then you do not mean to look for him to-night?"

"Look for him? I might as well look for a needle in a haystack. No! I have promised La Masque to visit the old ruins, and there I shall go forthwith. Will you accompany me?"

"I think not. I have a word to say to La, Masque, and you and she kept talking so busily, I had no chance to put it in."

Sir Norman laughed.

"Besides, I have no doubt it is a word you would not like to utter in the presence of a third party, even though that third party be your