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Midnight Queen, The

<h2> CHAPTER XXII. DAY-DAWN. </h2> All this time, the attendant, George, had been sitting, very much at his ease, on horseback, looking after Sir Norman's charger and admiring the beauties of sunrise. He had seen Sir Norman in conversation with a strange female, and not much liking his near proximity to the plague-pit, was rather impatient for it to come to an end; but when he saw the tragic manner in which it did end, his consternation was beyond all bounds. Sir Norman, in his horrified flight, would have fairly passed him unnoticed, had not George arrested him by a loud shout. "I beg your pardon, Sir Norman," he exclaimed, as that gentleman turned his distracted face; "but, it seems to me, you are running away. Here is your horse; and allow me to say, unless we hurry we will scarcely reach the count by sunrise." Sir Norman leaned against his horse, and shaded his eyes with his hand, shuddering like one in an ague. "Why did that woman leap into the plague-pit?" inquired George, looking at him curiously. "Was it not the sorceress, La Masque?" "Yes, yes. Do not ask me any questions now," replied Sir Norman, in a smothered voice, and with an impatient wave of his hand. "Whatever you please, sir," said George, with the flippancy of his class; "but still I must repeat, if you do not mount instantly, we will be late; and my master, the count, is not one who brooks delay." The young knight vaulted into the saddle without a word, and started off at a break-neck pace into the city. George, almost unable to keep up with him, followed instead of leading, rather skeptical in his own mind whether he were not riding after a moon-struck lunatic. Once or twice he shouted out a sharp-toned inquiry as to whether he knew where he was going, and that they were taking the wrong way altogether; to all of which Sir Norman deigned not the slightest reply, but rode more and more recklessly on. There were but few people abroad at that hour; indeed, for that matter, the streets of London, in the dismal summer of 1665, were, comparatively speaking, always deserted; and the few now wending their way homeward were tired physicians and plague-nurses from the hospitals, and several hardy country folks, with more love of lucre than fear of death bending their steps with produce to the market-place. These people, sleepy and pallid in the gray haze of daylight, stared in astonishment after the two furious riders; and windows were thrown open, and heads thrust out to see what the unusual thunder of horses' hoofs at that early hour meant. George followed dauntlessly on, determined to do it or die in the attempt; and if he had ever heard of the Flying Dutchman, would undoubtedly have come to the conclusion that he was just then following his track on dry land. But, unlike the hapless Vanderdecken, Sir Norman came to a halt at last, and that so suddenly that his horse stood on his beam ends, and flourished his two fore limbs in the atmosphere. It was before La Masque's door; and Sir Norman was out of the saddle in a flash, and knocking like a postman with the handle of his whip on the door. The thundering reveille rang through the house, making it shake to its centre, and hurriedly brought to the door, the anatomy who acted as guardian-angel of the establishment. "La Masque is not at home, and I cannot admit you," was his sharp salute. "Then I shall just take the trouble of admitting myself," said Sir Norman, shortly. And without further ceremony, he pushed aside the skeleton and entered. But that outraged servitor sprang in his path, indignant and amazed. "No, sir; I cannot permit it. I do not know you; and it is against all orders to admit strangers in La Masque's absence." "Bah! you old simpleton!" remarked Sir Norman, losing his customary respect for old age in his impatience, "I have La Masque's order for what I am about to do. Get along with you directly, will you? Show me to her private room, and no nonsense!" He tapped his sword-hilt significantly as he spoke, and that argument proved irresistible. Grumbling, in low tones, the anatomy stalked up-stairs; and the other followed, with very different feelings from those with which he had mounted that staircase last. His guide paused in the hall above, with his hand on the latch of a door. "This is her private room, is it!" demanded Sir Norman. "Yes." "Just stand aside, then, and let me pass." The room he entered was small, simply furnished, and seemed to answer as bed-chamber and study, all in one. There was a writing-table under a window, covered with books, and he glanced at them with some curiosity. They were classics, Greek and Latin, and other little known tongues—perhaps Sanscrit and Chaldaic, French belles lettres, novels, and poetry, and a few rare old English books. There were no papers, however, and those were what he was in search of; so spying a drawer in the table, he pulled it hastily open. The sight that met his eyes fairly dazzled him. It was full of jewels of incomparable beauty and value, strewn as carelessly about as if they were valueless. The blaze of gems at the midnight court seemed to him as nothing compared with the Golconda, the Valley of Diamonds shooting forth sparks of rainbow-fire before him now. Around one magnificent diamond necklace was entwined a scrap of paper, on which was written: "The family jewels of the Montmorencis. To be given to my sisters when I am dead." That settled their destiny. All this blaze of diamonds, rubies, and opals were Leoline's; and with the energetic rapidity characteristic of our young friend that morning, he swept them out on the table, and resumed his search for papers. No document was there to reward his search, but the brief one twined round the necklace; and he was about giving up in despair, when a small brass slide in one corner caught his eye. Instantly he was at it, trying it every way, shoving it out and in, and up and down, until at last it yielded to his touch, disclosing an inner drawer, full of papers and parchments. One glance showed them to be what he was in search of—proofs of Leoline and Hubert's identity, with the will of the marquis, their father, and numerous other documents relative to his wealth and estates. These precious manuscripts he rolled together in a bundle, and placed carefully in his doublet, and then seizing a beautifully-wrought brass casket, that stood beneath the table, he swept the jewels in, secured it, and strapped it to his belt. This brisk and important little affair being over, he arose to go, and in turning, saw the skeleton porter standing in the door-way, looking on in speechless dismay. "It's all right my ancient friend!" observed Sir Norman, gravely. "These papers must go before the king, and these jewels to their proper owner." "Their proper owner!" repeated the old man, shrilly; "that is La Masque. Thief-robber-housebreaker—stop!" "My good old friend, you will do yourself a mischief if you bawl like that. Undoubtedly these things were La Masque's, but they are so no longer, since La Masque herself is among the things that were!" "You shall not go!" yelled the old man, trembling with rage and anger. "Help! help! help!" "You noisy old idiot!" cried Sir Norman, losing all patience, "I will throw you out of the window if you keep up such a clamor as this. I tell you La Masque is dead!" At this ominous announcement, the ghastly porter fell back, and became, if possible, a shade more ghastly than was his wont. "Dead and buried!" repeated Sir Norman, with gloomy sternness, "and there will be somebody else coming to take possession shortly. How many more servants are there here beside yourself?" "Only one, sir—my wife Joanna. In mercy's name, sir, do not turn us out in the streets at this dreadful time!" "Not I! You and your wife Joanna may stagnate here till you blue-mold, for me. But keep the door fast, my good old friend, and admit no strangers, but those who can tell you La Masque is dead!" With which parting piece of advice Sir Norman left the house, and joined George, who sat like an effigy before the door, in a state of great mental wrath, and who accosted him rather suddenly the moment he made his appearance. "I tell you what, Sir Norman Kingsley, if you have many more morning calls to make, I shall beg leave to take my departure. As it is, I know we are behind time, and his ma—the count, I mean, is not one who it accustomed or inclined to be kept waiting." "I am quite at your service now," said Sir Norman, springing on horseback; "so away with you, quick as you like." George wanted no second order. Before the words were well out of his companion's mouth, he was dashing away like a bolt from a bow, as furiously as if on a steeple-chase, with Sir Norman close at his heels; and they rode, flushed and breathless, with their steeds all a foaming, into the court-yard of the royal palace at Whitehall, just as the early rising sun was showing his florid and burning visage above the horizon. <hr /> The court-yard, unlike the city streets, swarmed with busy life. Pages, and attendants, and soldiers, moving hither and thither, or lounging about, preparing for the morning's journey to Oxford. Among the rest Sir Norman observed Hubert, lying very much at his ease wrapped in his cloak, on the ground, and chatting languidly with a pert and pretty attendant of the fair Mistress Stuart. He cut short his flirtation, however, abruptly enough, and sprang to his feet as he saw Sir Norman, while George immediately darted off and disappeared from the palace. "Am I late Hubert?" said his hurried questioner, as he drew the lad's arm within his own, and led him off out of hearing. "I think not. The count," said Hubert, with laughing emphasis, "has not been visible since he entered yonder doorway, and there has been no message that I have heard of. Doubtless, now that George has arrived, the message will soon be here, for the royal procession starts within half an hour." "Are you sure there is no trick, Hubert? Even now he may be with Leoline!" Hubert shrugged his shoulders. "He maybe; we must take our chance for that; but we have his royal word to the contrary. Not that I have much faith in that!" said Hubert. "If he were king of the world instead of only England," cried Sir Norman, with flashing eyes, "he shall not have Leoline while I wear a sword to defend her!" "Regicide!" exclaimed Hubert, holding up both hands in affected horror. "Do my ears deceive me? Is this the loyal and chivalrous Sir Norman Kingsley, ready to die for king and country—" "Stuff and nonsense!" interrupted Sir Norman, impatiently. "I tell you any one, be he whom he may, that attempts to take Leoline from me, must reach her over my dead body!" "Bravo! You ought to be a Frenchman, Sir Norman! And what if the lady herself, finding her dazzling suitor drop his barnyard feathers, and soar over her head in his own eagle plumes, may not give you your dismissal, and usurp the place of pretty Madame Stuart." "You cold-blooded young villain! if you insinuate such a thing again, I'll throttle you! Leoline loves me, and me alone!" "Doubtless she thinks so; but she has yet to learn she has a king for a suitor!" "Bah! You are nothing but a heartless cynic," said Sir Norman, yet with an anxious and irritated flush on his face, too: "What do you know of love?" "More than you think, as pretty Mariette yonder could depose, if put upon oath. But seriously, Sir Norman, I am afraid your case is of the most desperate; royal rivals are dangerous things!" "Yet Charles has kind impulses, and has been known to do generous acts." "Has he? You expect him, beyond doubt, to do precisely as he said; and if Leoline, different from all the rest of her sex, prefers the knight to the king, he will yield her unresistingly to you." "I have nothing but his word for it!" said Sir Norman, in a distracted tone, "and, at present, can do nothing but bide my time." "I have been thinking of that, too! I promised, you know, when I left her, last night, that we would return before day-dawn, and rescue her. The unhappy little beauty will doubtless think I have fallen into the tiger's jaws myself, and has half wept her bright eyes out by this time!" "My poor Leoline! And O Hubert, if you only knew what she is to you!" "I do know! She told me she was my sister!" Sir Norman looked at him in amazement. "She told you, and you take it like this?" "Certainly, I take it like this. How would you have me take it? It is nothing to go into hysterics about, after all!" "Of all the cold-blooded young reptiles I ever saw," exclaimed Sir Norman, with infinite disgust, "you are the worst! If you were told you were to receive the crown of France to-morrow, you would probably open your eyes a trifle, and take it as you would a new cap!" "Of course I would. I haven't lived in courts half my life to get up a scene for a small matter! Besides, I had an idea from the first moment I saw Leoline that she must be my sister, or something of that sort." "And so you felt no emotion whatever on hearing it?" "I don't know as I properly understand what you mean by emotion," said Herbert, reflectively. "But ye-e-s, I did feel somewhat pleased—she is so like me, and so uncommonly handsome!" "Humph! there's a reason! Did she tell you how she discovered it herself?" "Let me see—no—I think not—she simply mentioned the fact." "She did not tell you either, I suppose, that you had more sisters than herself?" "More than herself! No. That would be a little too much of a good thing! One sister is quite enough for any reasonable mortal." "But there were two more, my good young friend!" "Is it possible?" said Hubert, in a tone that betrayed not the slightest symptom of emotion. "Who are they?" Sir Norman paused one instant, combating a strong temptation to seize the phlegmatic page by the collar, and give him such another shaking as he would not get over for a week to come; but suddenly recollecting he was Leoline's brother, and by the same token a marquis or thereabouts, he merely paused to cast a withering look upon him, and walked on. "Well," said Hubert, "I am waiting to be told." "You may wait, then!" said Sir Norman, with a smothered growl; "and I give you joy when I tell you. Such extra communicativeness to one so stolid could do no good!" "But I am not stolid! I am in a perfect agony of anxiety," said Hubert. "You young jackanapes!" said Sir Norman, half-laughing, half-incensed. "It were a wise deed and a godly one to take you by the hind-leg and nape of the neck, and pitch you over yonder wall; but for your master's sake I will desist." "Which of them?" inquired Hubert, with provoking gravity. "It would be more to the point if you asked me who the others were, I think." "So I have, and you merely abused me for it. But I think I know one of them without being told. It is that other fac-simile of Leoline and myself who died in the robber's ruin!" "Exactly. You and she, and Leoline, were triplets!" "And who is the other?" "Her name is La Masque. Have you ever heard it?" "La Masque! Nonsense!" exclaimed Hubert, with some energy in his voice at last. "You but jest, Sir Norman Kingsley!" "No such thing! It is a positive fact! She told me the whole story herself!" "And what is the whole story; and why did she not tell it to me instead of you." "She told it to Leoline, thinking, probably, she had the most sense; and she told it to me, as Leoline's future husband. It is somewhat long to relate, but it will help to beguile the time while we are waiting for the royal summons." And hereupon Sir Norman, without farther preface, launched into a rapid resume of La Masque's story, feeling the cold chill with which he had witnessed it creep over him as he narrated her fearful end. "It struck me," concluded Sir Norman, "that it would be better to procure any papers she might possess at once, lest, by accident, they should fall into other hands; so I rode there directly, and, in spite of the cantankerous old porter, searched diligently, until I found them. Here they are," said Sir Norman, drawing forth the roll. "And what do you intend doing with them?" inquired Hubert, glancing at the papers with an unmoved countenance. "Show them to the king, and, though his mediation with Louis, obtain for you the restoration of your rights." "And do you think his majesty will give himself so much trouble for the Earl of Rochester's page?" "I think he will take the trouble to see justice done, or at least he ought to. If he declines, we will take the matter in our own hands, my Hubert; and you and I will seek Louis ourselves. Please God, the Earl of Rochester's page will yet wear the coronet of the De Montmorencis!" "And the sister of a marquis will be no unworthy mate even for a Kingsley," said Hubert. "Has La Masque left nothing for her?" "Do you see this casket?" tapping the one of cared brass dangling from his belt; "well, it is full of jewels worth a king's ransom. I found them in a drawer of La Masque's house, with directions that they were to be given to her sisters at her death. Miranda being dead, I presume they are all Leoline's now." "This is a queer business altogether!" said Hubert, musingly; "and I am greatly mistaken if King Louis will not regard it as a very pretty little work of fiction." "But I have proofs, lad! The authenticity of these papers cannot be doubted." "With all my heart. I have no objections to be made a marquis of, and go back to la belle France, out of this land of plague and fog. Won't some of my friends here be astonished when they hear it, particularly the Earl of Rochester, when he finds out that he has had a marquis for a page? Ah, here comes George, and bearing a summons from Count L'Estrange at last." George approached, and intimated that Sir Norman was to follow him to the presence of his master. "Au revoir, then," said Hubert. "You will find me here when you come back." Sir Norman, with a slight tremor of the nerves at what was to come, followed the king's page through halls and anterooms, full of loiterers, courtiers, and their attendants. Once a hand was laid on his shoulder, a laughing voice met his ear, and the Earl of Rochester stood beside him! "Good-morning, Sir Norman; you are abroad betimes. How have you left your friend, the Count L'Estrange?" "Your lordship has probably seen him since I have, and should be able to answer that question best." "And how does his suit progress with the pretty Leoline?" went on the gay earl. "In faith, Kingsley, I never saw such a charming little beauty; and I shall do combat with you yet—with both the count and yourself, and outwit the pair of you!" "Permit me to differ from your lordship. Leoline would not touch you with a pair of tongs!" "Ah! she has better taste than you give her credit for; but if I should fail, I know what to do to console myself." "May I ask what?" "Yes! there is Hubert, as like her an two peas in a pod. I shall dress him up in lace and silks, and gewgaws, and have a Leoline of my own already made its order." "Permit me to doubt that, too! Hubert is as much lost to you as Leoline!" Leaving the volatile earl to put what construction pleased him best on this last sententious remark, he resumed his march after George, and was ushered, at last, into an ante-room near the audience-chamber. Count L'Estrange, still attired as Count L'Estrange, stood near a window overlooking the court-yard, and as the page salaamed and withdrew, he turned round, and greeted Sir Norman with his suavest air. "The appointed hour is passed, Sir Norman Kingsley, but that is partly your own fault. Your guide hither tells me that you stopped for some time at the house of a fortune-teller, known as La Masque. Why was this!" "I was forced to stop on most important business," answered the knight, still resolved to treat him as the count, until it should please him to doff his incognito, "of which you shall hear anon. Just now, our business is with Leoline." "True! And as in a short time I start with yonder cavalcade, there is but little time to lose. Apropos, Kingsley, who is that mysterious woman, La Masque?" "She is, or was (for she is dead now) a French lady, of noble birth, and the sister of Leoline!" "Her sister! And have you discovered Leoline's history?" "I have." "And her name!" "And her name. She is Leoline De Montmorenci! And with the proudest blood of France in her veins, living obscure and unknown—a stranger in a strange land since childhood; but, with God's grace and your help, I hope to see her restored to all she has lost, before long." "You know me, then?" said his companion, half-smiling. "Yes, your majesty," answered Sir Norman, bowing low before the king. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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