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Midnight Queen, The

<h2> CHAPTER X. THE PAGE, THE FIRES, AND THE FALL. </h2> The night was intensely dark when Sir Norman got into it once more; and to any one else would have been intensely dismal, but to Sir Norman all was bright as the fair hills of Beulah. When all is bright within, we see no darkness without; and just at that 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 shores of the Dead Sea itself a very paradise. It was now near midnight, and there was an unusual concourse of people in the streets, 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 is 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," said 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, and 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 during 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 raising his hat and 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 is 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 in 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 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 bass, "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 most 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! 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 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 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 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 assembly. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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