Chapter 20

The effect of the whisper was magical. Everything that had been dark before, became clear as noonday; and Sir Norman sat absolutely astounded at his own stupidity in not having found it out for himself before. Every feature, notwithstanding the disguise of wig and beard, became perfectly familiar; and even through the well-assumed voice, he recognized the royal tones. It struck him all at once, and with it the fact of Leoline's increased danger. Count L'Estrange was a formidable rival, but King Charles of England was even more formidable.

Thought is quick--quicker than the electric telegraph or balloon traveling; and in two seconds the whole stated things, with all the attendant surprises and dangers, danced before his mind's eye like a panorama; and he comprehended the past, the present, and the future, before Hubert had uttered the last word of his whisper. He turned his eyes, with a very new and singular sensation, upon the quondam count, and found that gentlemen looking very hard at him, with, a preternaturally grave expression of countenance. Sir Norman knew well as anybody the varying moods of his royal countship, and, notwithstanding his general good nature, it was not safe to trifle with him at all times; so he repressed every outward sign of emotion whatever, and resolved to treat him as Count L'Estrange until he should choose to sail under his own proper colors.

“Well,” said the count, with unruffled eagerness, “and so you decline to go any further Sir Norman?”

Hubert's eye was fixed with a warning glance upon him, and Sir Norman composedly answered

“No, count; I do not absolutely decline; but before I do go any further, I should like to know by what right do you bring all these men here, and what are your intentions in so doing.”

“And if I refuse to answer?”

“Then I refuse to move a step further in the business!” said Sir Norman, with decision.

“And why, my good friend? You surely can have no objection to anything that can be done against highwaymen and cut-throats.”

“Right! I have no objections, but others may.”

“Whom do you mean by others?”

“The king, for instance. His gracious majesty is whimsical at times; and who knows that he may take it into his royal head to involve us somehow with them. I know the adage, 'put not your trust in princes.'”

“Very good,” said the count, with a slight and irrepressible smile; “your prudence is beyond all praise! But I think, in this matter I may safely promise to stand between you and the king's wrath. Look at those horsemen beyond you, and see if they do not wear the uniform of his majesty's own body-guard.”

Sir Norman looked, and saw the dazzling of their splendid equipments glancing and glistening in the moonbeams.

“I see. Then you have the royal permission for all this?”

“You have said it. Now, most scrupulous of men, proceed!”

“Look there!” exclaimed Hubert, suddenly pointing to a corner of the rain. “Someone has seen us, and is going now to give the alarm.”

“He shall miss it, though!” said Sir Norman, detecting, at the same instant, a dark figure getting through the broken doorway; and striking spurs into his horse, he was instantaneously beside it, out of the saddle, and had grasped the retreater by the shoulder.

“By your leave!” exclaimed Sir Norman. “Not quite so fast! Stand out here in the moonlight, until I see who you are.”

“Let me go!” cried the man, grappling with his opponent. “I know who you are, and I swear you'll never see moonlight or sunlight again, if you do not instantly let me go.”

Sir Norman recognized the voice with a perfect shout of delight.

“The duke, by all that's lucky! O, I'll let you go: but not until the hangman gets hold of you. Villain and robber, you shall pay for your misdeeds now!”

“Hold!” shouted the commanding voice of Count L'Estrange. “Cease, Sir Norman Kingsley! there is no time, and this is no person for you to scoff with. He is our prisoner, and shall show us the nearest way into this den of thieves. Give me your sword, fellow, and be thankful I do not make you shorter by a head with it.”

“You do not know him!” cried Sir Norman; in vivid excitement. “I tell you this is the identical scoundrel who attempted to rob and murder you a few hours ago.”

“So much the better! He shall pay for that and all his other shortcomings, before long! But, in the meantime, I order him to bring us before the rest of this outlawed crew.”

“I shall do nothing of the kind,” said the duke, sullenly.

“Just as you please. Here, my men, two of you take hold of this scoundrel, and dispatch him at once.”

The guard had all dismounted; and two of them came forward with edifying obedience, to do as they were told.

The effect upon the duke was miraculous. Instantly he started up, with an energy perfectly amazing:

“No, no, no! I'll do it! Come this way, gentlemen, and I'll bring you direct into their midst. O good Lord! whatever will become of us?”

This last frantic question was addressed to society in general, but Sir Norman felt called upon to answer:

“That's very easily told, my man. If you and the rest of your titled associates receive your deserts (as there is no doubt you will) from the gracious hand of our sovereign lord, the king, the strongest rope and highest gallows at Tyburn will be your elevated destiny.”

The duke groaned dismally, and would have come to a halt to beg mercy on the spot, had not Hubert given him a probe in, the ribs with the point of his dagger, that sent him on again, with a distracted howl.

“Why, this is a perfect Hades!” said the count, as he stumbled after, in the darkness. “Are you sure we are going right, Kingsley?”

The inquiry was not unnatural, for the blackness was perfectly Tartarian, and the soldiers behind were knocking their tall shins against all sorts of obstacles as they groped blindly along, invoking from them countless curses, not loud, but deep.

“I don't know whether we are or not,” said Sir Norman significantly; “only, God help him if we're not! Where are you taking us to, you black-looking bandit?”

“I give you my word of honor, gentlemen,” said an imploring voice in the darkness, “that I'm leading you, by the nearest way, to the Midnight Court. All I ask of you in return is, that you will let me enter before you; for if they find that I lead you in, my life will not be worth a moment's purchase.”

“As if it ever was worth it,” said Sir Norman, contemptuously. “On with you, and be thankful I don't save your companions the trouble, by making an end of you where you stand.”

“Rush along, old fellow,” suggested Hubert, giving him another poke with his dagger, that drew forth a second doleful howl.

Notwithstanding the darkness, Sir Norman discovered that they were being led in a direction exactly opposite that by which he had previously effected an entrance. They were in the vault, he knew, by the darkness, though they had descended no staircase, and he was just wondering if their guide was not meditating some treachery by such a circuitous route, when suddenly a tumult of voices, and uproar, and confusion, met his ear. At the same instant, their guide opened a door, revealing a dark passage, illuminated by a few rays of light, and which Sir Norman instantly recognized as that leading to the Black Chamber. Here again the duke paused, and turned round to them with a wildly-imploring face.

“Gentlemen, I do conjure you to let me enter before you do! I tell you they will murder me the very instant they discover I have led you here!”

“That would be a great pity!” said the count; “and the gallows will be cheated of one of its brightest ornaments! That is your den of thieves, I suppose, from which all this uproar comes?”

“It is. And as I have guided you safely to it, surely I deserve this trifling boon.”

“Trifling, do you call it,” interposed Sir Norman, “to let you make your escape, as you most assuredly will do the moment you are out of our sight! No, no; we are too old birds to be caught with such chaff; and though the informer always gets off scot-free, your services deserve no such boon; for we could have found our way without your help! On with you, Sir Robber; and if your companions do kill you, console yourself with the thought that they have only anticipated the executioner by a few days!”

With a perfectly heart-rending groan, the unfortunate duke walked on; but when they reached the archway directly before the room, he came to an obstinate halt, and positively refused to go a step farther. It was death, anyway, and he resisted with the courage of desperation, feeling he might as well die there as go in and be assassinated by his confederates, and not even the persuasive influence of Hubert's dagger could prevail on him to budge an inch farther.

“Stay, then!” said the count, with perfect indifference. “And, soldiers, see that he does not escape! Now, Kingsley, let us just have a glimpse of what is going on within.”

Though the party had made considerable noise in advancing, and had spoken quite loudly in their little animated discussion with the duke, so great was the turmoil and confusion within, that it was not heeded, or even heard. With very different feelings from those with which he had stood there last, Sir Norman stepped forward and stood beside the count, looking at the scene within.

The crimson court was in a state of “most admired disorder,” and the confusion of tongues was equal to Babel. No longer were they languidly promenading, or lolling in the cushioned chairs; but all seemed running to and fro in the wildest excitement, which the grandest duke among them seemed to share equally with the terrified white sylphs. Everybody appeared to be talking together, and paying no attention whatever to the sentiments of their neighbors. One universal centre of union alone seemed to exist, and that was the green, judicial table near the throne, upon which, while all tongues ran, all eyes turned. For some minutes, neither of the beholders could make out why, owing to the crowd (principally of the ladies) pressing around it; but Sir Norman guessed, and thrilled through with a vague sensation of terror, lest it should prove to be the dead body of Miranda. Skipping in and out among the females he saw the dwarf, performing a sort of war dance of rage and frenzy; twining both hands in his wig, as if he would have torn it out by the roots, and anon tearing at somebody else's wig, so that everybody backed off when he came near them.

“Who is that little fiend?” inquired the count; “and what have they got there at the and of the room, pray?”

“That little fiend is the ringleader here, and is entitled Prince Caliban. Regarding your other question,” said Sir Norman, with a faint thrill, “there was a table there when I saw it last, but I am afraid there is something worse now.”

“Could ever any mortal conceive of such a scene,” observed the count to himself; “look at that little picture of ugliness; how he hops about like a dropsical bull-frog. Some of those women are very pretty, too, and outshine more than one court-beauty that I have seen. Upon my word, it is the most extraordinary spectacle I ever heard of. I wonder what they've got that's so attractive down there?”

At the same moment, a loud voice within the circle abruptly exclaimed

“She revives, she revives! Back, back, and give her air!”

Instantly, the throng swayed and fell back; and the dwarf, with a sort of yell (whether of rage or relief, nobody knew), swept them from side to side with a wave of his long arms, and cleared a wide vacancy for his own especial benefit. The action gave the count an opportunity of gratifying his curiosity. The object of attraction was now plainly visible. Sir Norman's surmises had been correct. The green table of the parliament-house of the midnight court had been converted, by the aid of cushions and pillows, into an extempore couch; and half-buried in their downy depths lay Miranda, the queen. The sweeping robe of royal purple, trimmed with ermine, the circlets of jewels on arms, bosom, and head, she still wore, and the beautiful face was whiter than fallen snow. Yet she was not dead, as Sir Norman had dreaded; for the dark eyes were open, and were fixed with an unutterable depth of melancholy on vacancy. Her arms lay helplessly by her side, and someone, the court physician probably, was bending over her and feeling her pulse.

As the count's eyes fell upon her, he started back, and grasped Sir Norman's arm with consternation.

“Good heavens, Kingsley!” he cried; “it is Leoline, herself!”

In his excitement he had spoken so loud, that in the momentary silence that followed the physician's direction, his voice had rung through the room, and drew every eye upon them.

“We are seen, we are seen!” shouted Hubert, and as he spoke, a terrible cry idled the room. In an instant every sword leaped from its scabbard, and the shriek of the startled women rang appallingly out on the air. Sir Norman drew his sword, too; but the count, with his eyes yet fixed on Miranda, still held him by the arm, and excitedly exclaimed,

“Tell me, tell me, is it Leoline?”

“Leoline! No--how could it be Leoline? They look alike, that's all. Draw your sword, count, and defend yourself; we are discovered, and they are upon us!”

“We are upon them, you mean, and it is they who are discovered,” said the count, doing as directed, and stepping boldly in. “A pretty hornet's nest is this we have lit upon, if ever there was one.”

Side by side with the count, with a dauntless step and eye, Sir Norman entered, too; and, at sight of him a burst of surprise and fury rang from lip to lip. There was a yell of “Betrayed, betrayed!” and the dwarf, with a face so distorted by fiendish fury that it was scarcely human, made a frenzied rush at him, when the clear, commanding voice of the count rang like a bugle blast through the assembly,

“Sheathe your swords, the whole of you, and yield yourselves prisoners. In the king's name, I command you to surrender.”

“There is no king here but I!” screamed the dwarf, gnashing his teeth, and fairly foaming with rage. “Die; traitor and spy! You have escaped me once, but your hour is come now.”

“Allow me to differ from you,” said Sir Norman, politely, as he evaded the blindly-frantic lunge of the dwarf's sword, and inserted an inch or two of the point of his own in that enraged little prince's anatomy. “So far from my hour having come--if you will take the trouble to reflect upon it--you will find it is the reverse, and that my little friend's brief and brilliant career is rapidly drawing to a close.”

At these bland remarks, and at the sharp thrust that accompanied them, the dwarfs previous war-dance of anxiety was nothing to the horn-pipe of exasperation he went through when Sir Norman ceased. The blood was raining from his side, and from the point of his adversary's sword, as he withdrew it; and, maddened like a wild beast at the sight of his own blood, he screeched, and foamed, and kicked about his stout little legs, and gnashed his teeth, and made grabs at his wig, and lashed the air with his sword, and made such desperate pokes with it, at Sir Norman and everybody else who came in his way, that, for the public good, the young knight run him through the sword-arm, and, in spite of all his distracted didos, captured him by the help of Hubert, and passed him over to the soldiers to cheer and keep company with the duke.

This brisk little affair being over, Sir Norman had time to look about him. It had all passed in so short a space, and the dwarf had been so desperately frantic, that the rest had paused involuntarily, and were still looking on. Missing the count, he glanced around the room, and discovered him standing on Miranda's throne, looking over the company with the cool air of a conqueror. Miranda, aroused, as she very well might be by all this screaming and fighting, had partly raised herself upon her elbow, and was looking wildly about her. As her eye fell on Sir Norman, she sat fairly erect, with a cry of exultation and joy.

“You have come, you have come, as I knew you would,” she excitedly cried, “and the hour of retribution is at hand!”

At the words of one who, a few moments before, they had supposed to be dead, an awestruck silence fell; and the count, taking advantage of it, waved his hand, and cried,

“Yield yourselves prisoners, I command you! The royal guards are without; and the first of you who offers the slightest resistance will die like a dog! Ho, guards! enter, and seize your prisoners!”

Quick as thought the room was full of soldiers! but the rest of the order was easier said than obeyed. The robbers, knowing their doom was death, fought with the fury of desperation, and a short, wild, and terrible conflict ensued. Foremost in the melee was Sir Norman and the count; while Hubert, who had taken possession of the dwarf's sword, fought like a young lion. The shrieks of the women were heart-rending, as they all fled, precipitately, into the blue dining-room; and, crouching in corners, or flying distractedly about--true to their sex--made the air resound with the most lamentable cries. Some five or six, braver than the rest, alone remained; and more than one of these actually mixed in the affray, with a heroism worthy a better cause. Miranda, still sitting erect, and supported in the arms of a kneeling and trembling sylph in white, watched the conflict with terribly-exultant eyes, that blazed brighter and brighter with the lurid fire of vengeful joy at every robber that fell.

“Oh, that I were strong enough to wield a sword!” was her fierce aspiration every instant; “if I could only mix in that battle for five minutes, I could die with a happy heart!”

Had she been able to wield a sword for five minutes, according to her wish, she would probably have wielded it from beginning to end of the battle; for it did not last much longer than that. The robbers fought with fury and ferocity; but they had been taken by surprise, and were overpowered by numbers, and obliged to yield.

The crimson court was indeed crimson now; for the velvet carpeting was dyed a more terrible red, and was slippery with a rain of blood! A score of dead and dying lay groaning on the ground; and the rest, beaten and bloody, gave up their swords and surrendered.

“You should have done this at first!” said the count, coolly wiping his blood-stained weapon, and replacing it in its sheath; “and, by so doing, saved some time and more bloodshed. Where are all the fair ladies, Kingsley, I saw here when we entered first?”

“They fled like a flock of frightened deer,” said Hubert, taking it upon himself to answer, “through yonder archway when the fight commenced. I will go in search of them if you like.”

“I am rather at a loss what to do with them,” said the count, half-laughing. “It would be a pity to bring such a cavalcade of pretty women into the city to die of the plague. Can you suggest nothing, Sir Norman?”

“Nothing, but to leave then here to take care of themselves, or let them go free.”

“They would be a great addition to the court at Whitehall,” suggested Hubert, in his prettiest tone, “and a thousand times handsomer than half the damsels therein. There, for instance, is one a dozen timer more beautiful than Mistress Stuart herself!”

Leaning, in his nonchalant way, on the hilt of his sword, he pointed to Miranda, whose fiercely-joyful eyes were fixed with a glance that made the three of them shudder, on the bloody floor and the heap of slain.

“Who is that?” asked the count, curiously. “Why is she perched up there, and why does she bear such an extraordinary resemblance to Leoline? Do you know anything about her, Kingsley?”

“I know she is the wife of that unlovely little man, whose howls in yonder passage you can hear, if you listen, and that she was the queen of this midnight court, and is wounded, if not dying, now!”

“I never saw such fierce eyes before in a female head! One would think she fairly exulted in this wholesale slaughter of her subjects.”

“So she does; and she hates both her husband and her subjects, with an intensity you cannot conceive.”

“How very like royalty!” observed Hubert, in parenthesis. “If she were a real queen, she could not act more naturally.”

Sir Norman smiled, and the count glanced at the audacious page, suspiciously; but Hubert's face was touching to witness, in its innocent unconsciousness. Miranda, looking up at the same time, caught the young knight's eye, and made a motion for him to approach. She held out both her hands to him as he came near, with the same look of dreadful delight.

“Sir Norman Kingsley, I am dying, and my last words are in thanksgiving to you for having thus avenged me!”

“Let me hope you have many days to live yet, fair lady,” said Sir Norman, with the same feeling of repulsion he had experienced in the dungeon. “I am sorry you have been obliged to witness this terrible scene.”

“Sorry!” she cried, fiercely. “Why, since the first hour I remember at all, I remember nothing that has given me such joy as what has passed now; my only regret is that I did not see them all die before my eyes! Sorry! I tell you I would not have missed it for ten thousand worlds!”

“Madame, you must not talk like this!” said Sir Norman, almost sternly. “Heaven forbid there should exist a woman who could rejoice in bloodshed and death. You do not, I know. You wrong yourself and your own nature in saying so. Be calm, now; do not excite yourself. You shall come with us, and be properly cared for; and I feel certain you have a long and happy life before you yet.”

“Who are those men?” she said, not heeding him, “and who--ah, great Heaven! What is that?”

In looking round, she had met Hubert face to face. She knew that that face was her own; and, with a horror stamped on every feature that no words can depict, she fell back, with a terrible scream and was dead!

Sir Norman was so shocked by the suddenness of the last catastrophe, that, for some time, he could not realize that she had actually expired, until he bent over her, and placed his ear to her lips. No breath was there; no pulse stirred in that fierce heart--the Midnight Queen was indeed dead!

“Oh, this is fearful!” exclaimed Sir Norman, pale and horrified.

“The sight of Hubert, and his wonderful resemblance to her, has completed what her wound and this excitement began. Her last is breathed on earth!”

“Peace be with her!” said the count, removing his hat, which, up to the present, he had worn. “And now, Sir Norman, if we are to keep our engagement at sunrise, we had better be on the move; for, unless I am greatly mistaken, the sky is already grey with day-dawn.”

“What are your commands?” asked Sir Norman, turning away, with a sigh, from the beautiful form already stiffening in death.

“That you come with me to seek out those frightened fair ones, who are a great deal too lovely to share the fate of their male companions. I shall give them their liberty to go where they please, on condition that they do not enter the city. We have enough vile of their class there already.”

Sir Norman silently followed him into the azure and silver saloon, where the crowd of duchesses and countesses were “weeping and wringing their hands,” and as white as so many pretty ghosts. In a somewhat brief and forcible manner, considering his characteristic gallantry, the count made his proposal, which, with feelings of pleasure and relief, was at once acceded to; and the two gentlemen bowed themselves out, and left the startled ladies.

On returning to the crimson court, he commanded a number of his soldiers to remain and bury the dead, and assist the wounded; and then, followed by the remainder and the prisoners under their charge, passed out, and were soon from the heated atmosphere in the cool morning air. The moon was still serenely shining, but the stars that kept the earliest hours were setting, and the eastern sky was growing light with the hazy gray of coming morn.

“I told you day-dawn was at hand,” said the count, as he sprang into his saddle; “and, lo! in the sky it is gray already.”

“It is time for it!” said Sir Norman, as he, too, got into his seat; “this has been the longest night I have ever known, and the most eventful one of my life.”

“And the end is not yet! Leoline waits to decide between us!”

Sir Norman shrugged his shoulders.

“True! But I have little doubt what that decision will be! I presume you will have to deliver up your prisoners before you can visit her, and I will avail myself of the opportunity to snatch a few moments to fulfill a melancholy duty of my own.”

“As you please. I have no objection; but in that case you will need some one to guide you to the place of rendezvous; so I will order my private attendant, yonder, to keep you in sight, and guide you to me when your business is ended.”

The count had given the order to start, the moment they had left the ruin, and the conversation had been carried on while riding at a break-neck gallop. Sir Norman thanked him for his offer, and they rode in silence until they reached the city, and their paths diverged; Sir Norman's leading to the apothecary's shop where he had left Ormiston, and the count's leading--he best knew where. George--the attendant referred to--joined the knight, and leaving his horse in his care, Sir Norman entered the shop, and encountered the spectral proprietor at the door.

“What of my friend?” was his eager inquiry. “Has he yet shown signs of returning consciousness?”

“Alas, no!” replied the apothecary, with a groan, that came wailing up like a whistle; “he was so excessively dead, that there was no use keeping him; and as the room was wanted for other purposes, I--pray, my dear sir, don't look so violent--I put him in the pest-cart and had him buried.”

“In the plague-pit!” shouted Sir Norman, making a spring at him; but the man darted off like a ghostly flash into the inner room, and closed and bolted the door in a twinkling.

Sir Norman kicked at it spitefully, but it resisted his every effort; and, overcoming a strong temptation to smash every bottle in the shop, he sprang once more into the saddle, and rode off to the plague-pit. It was the second time within the last twelve hours he had stood there; and, on the previous occasion, he who now lay in it, had stood by his side. He looked down, sickened and horror-struck. Perhaps, before another morning, he, too, might be there; and, feeling his blood run cold at the thought, he was turning away, when some one came rapidly up, and sank down with a moaning gasping cry on its very edge. That shape--tall and slender, and graceful--he well knew; and, leaning over her, he laid his hand on her shoulder, and exclaimed:

“La Masque!”

CHAPTER, XXI. WHAT WAS BEHIND THE MASK.

The cowering form rose up; but, seeing who it was, sank down again, with its face groveling in the dust, and with another prolonged, moaning cry.

“Madame Masque!” he said, wonderingly; “what is this?”

He bent to raise her; but, with a sort of scream she held out her arms to keep him back.

“No, no, no! Touch me not! Hate me--kill me! I have murdered your friend!”

Sir Norman recoiled as if from a deadly serpent.

“Murdered him! Madame, in Heaven's name, what have you said?”

“Oh, I have not stabbed him, or poisoned him, or shot him; but I am his murderer, nevertheless!” she wailed, writhing in a sort of gnawing inward torture.

“Madame, I do not understand you at all! Surely you are raving when you talk like this.”

Still moaning on the edge of the plague-pit, she half rose up, with both hands clasped tightly over her heart, as if she would have held back from all human ken the anguish that was destroying her,

“NO--no! I am not mad--pray Heaven I were! Oh, that they had strangled me in the first hour of my birth, as they would a viper, rather than I should have lived through all this life of misery and guilt, to end it by this last, worst crime of all!”

Sir Norman stood and looked at her still with a dazed expression. He knew well enough whose murderer she called herself; but why she did so, or how she could possibly bring about his death, was a mystery altogether too deep for him to solve.

“Madame, compose yourself, I beseech you, and tell me what you mean. It is to my friend, Ormiston, you allude--is it not?”

“Yes--yes! surely you need not ask.”

“I know that he is dead, and buried in this horrible place; but why you should accuse yourself of murdering him, I confess I do not know.”

“Then you shall!” she cried, passionately. “And you will wonder at it no longer! You are the last one to whom the revelation can ever be made on earth; and, now that my hours are numbered, it matters little whether it is told or not! Was it not you who first found him dead?”

“It was I--yes. And how he came to his end, I have been puzzling myself in vain to discover ever since.”

She rose up, drew herself to her full majestic height, and looked at him with a terrible glance,

“Shall I tell you?”

“You have had no hand in it,” he answered, with a cold chill at the tone and look, “for he loved you!”

“I have had a hand in it--I alone have been the cause of it. But for me he would be living still!”

“Madame,” exclaimed Sir Norman, in horror.

“You need not look as if you thought me mad, for I tell you it is Heaven's truth! You say right--he loved me; but for that love he would be living now!”

“You speak in riddles which I cannot read. How could that love have caused his death, since his dearest wishes were to be granted to-night?”

“He told you that, did he?”

“He did. He told me you were to remove your mask; and if, on seeing you, he still loved you, you were to be his wife.”

“Then woe to him for ever having extorted such a promise from me! Oh, I warned him again, and again, and again. I told him how it would be--I begged him to desist; but no, he was blind, he was mad; he would rush on his own doom! I fulfilled my promise, and behold the result!”

She pointed with a frantic gesture to the plague-pit, and wrung her beautiful hands with the same moaning of anguish.

“Do I hear aright?” said Sir Norman, looking at her, and really doubting if his ears had not deceived him. “Do you mean to say that, in keeping your word and showing him your face, you have caused his death?”

“I do. I had warned him of it before. I told him there were sights too horrible to look on and live, but nothing would convince him! Oh, why was the curse of life ever bestowed upon such a hideous thing as I!”

Sir Norman gazed at her in a state of hopeless bewilderment. He had thought, from the moment he saw her first, that there was something wrong with her brain, to make her act in such a mysterious, eccentric sort of way; but he had never positively thought her so far gone as this. In his own mind, he set her down, now, as being mad as a March hare, and accordingly answered in that soothing tone people use to imbeciles,

“My dear Madame Masque, pray do not excite yourself, or say such dreadful things. I am sure you would not willfully cause the death of any one, much less that of one who loved you as he did.”

La Masque broke into a wild laugh, almost worse to hear than her former despairing moans.

“The man thinks me mad! He will not believe, unless he sees and knows for himself! Perhaps you, too, Sir Norman Kingsley,” she cried, changing into sudden fierceness, “would like to see the face behind this mask?--would like to see what has slain your friend, and share his fate?”

“Certainly,” said Sir Norman. “I should like to see it; and I think I may safely promise not to die from the effects. But surely, madame, you deceive yourself; no face, however ugly--even supposing you to possess such a one--could produce such dismay as to cause death.”

“You shall see.”

She was looking down into the plague-pit, standing so close to its cracking edge, that Sir Norman's blood ran cold, in the momentary expectation to see her slip and fall headlong in. Her voice was less fierce and less wild, but her hands were still clasped tightly over her heart, as if to ease the unutterable pain there. Suddenly, she looked up, and said, in an altered tone:

“You have lost Leoline?”

“And found her again. She is in the power of one Count L'Estrange.”

“And if in his power, pray, how have you found her?”

“Because we are both to meet in her presence within this very hour, and she is to decide between us.”

“Has Count L'Estrange promised you this?”

“He has.”

“And you have no doubt what her decision will be?”

“Not the slightest.”

“How came you to know she was carried off by this count?”

“He confessed it himself.”

“Voluntarily?”

“No; I taxed him with it, and he owned to the deed; but he voluntarily promised to take me to her and abide by her decision.”

“Extraordinary!” said La Masque, as if to herself. “Whimsical as he is, I scarcely expected he would give her up so easily as this.”

“Then you know him, madame?” said Sir Norman, pointedly.

“There are few things I do not know, and rare are the disguises I cannot penetrate. So you have discovered it, too?”

“No, madame, my eyes were not sharp enough, nor had I sufficient cleverness, even, for that. It was Hubert, the Earl of Rochester's page, who told me who he was.”

“Ah, the page!” said La Masque, quickly. “You have then been speaking to him? What do you think of his resemblance to Leoline?”

“I think it is the most astonishing resemblance I ever saw. But he is not the only one who bears Leoline's face.”

“And the other is?”

“The other is she whom you sent me to see in the old ruins. Madame, I wish you would tell me the secret of this wonderful likeness; for I am certain you know, and I am equally certain it is not accidental.”

“You are right. Leoline knows already; for, with the presentiment that my end was near, I visited her when you left, and gave her her whole history, in writing. The explanation is simple enough. Leoline, Miranda, and Hubert, are sisters and brother.”

Some misty idea that such was the case had been struggling through Sir Norman's slow mind, unformed and without shape, ever since he had seen the trio, therefore he was not the least astonished when he heard the fact announced. Only in one thing he was a little disappointed.

“Then Hubert is really a boy?” he said, half dejectedly.

“Certainly he is. What did you take him to be?”

“Why, I thought--that is, I do not know,” said Sir Norman, quite blushing at being guilty of so much romance, “but that he was a woman in disguise. You see he is so handsome, and looks so much like Leoline, that I could not help thinking so.”

“He is Leoline's twin brother--that accounts for it. When does she become your wife?”

“This very morning, God willing!” said Sir Norman, fervently.

“Amen! And may her life and yours be long and happy. What becomes of the rest?”

“Since Hubert is her brother, he shall come with us, if he will. As for the other, she, alas! is dead.”

“Dead!” cried La Masque. “How? When? She was living, tonight!”

“True! She died of a wound.”

“A wound? Surely not given by the dwarfs hand?”

“No, no; it was quite accidental. But since you know so much of the dwarf, perhaps you also know he is now the king's prisoner?”

“I did not know it; but I surmised as much when I discovered that you and Count L'Estrange, followed by such a body of men, visited the ruin. Well, his career has been long and dark enough, and even the plague seemed to spare him for the executioner. And so the poor mock-queen is dead? Well, her sister will not long survive her.”

“Good Heavens, madame!” cried Sir Norman, aghast. “You do not mean to say that Leoline is going to die?”

“Oh, no! I hope Leoline has a long and happy life before her. But the wretched, guilty sister I mean is, myself; for I, too, Sir Norman, am her sister.”

At this new disclosure, Sir Norman stood perfectly petrified; and La Masque, looking down at the dreadful place at her feet, went rapidly on:

“Alas and alas! that it should be so; but it is the direful truth. We bear the same name, we had the same father; and yet I have been the curse and bane of their lives.”

“And Leoline knows this?”

“She never knew it until this night, or any one else alive; and no one should know it now, were not my ghastly life ending. I prayed her to forgive me for the wrong I have done her; and she may, for she is gentle and good--but when, when shall I be able to forgive myself?”

The sharp pain in her voice jarred on Sir Norman's ear and heart; and, to get rid of its dreary echo, he hurriedly asked:

“You say you bear the same name. May I ask what name that is?”

“It is one, Sir Norman Kingsley, before which your own ancient title pales. We are Montmorencis, and in our veins runs the proudest blood in France.”

“Then Leoline is French and of noble birth?” said Sir Norman, with a thrill of pleasure. “I loved her for herself alone, and would have wedded her had she been the child of a beggar; but I rejoice to hear this nevertheless. Her father, then, bore a title?”

“Her father was the Marquis de Montmorenci, but Leoline's mother and mine were not the same--had they been, the lives of all four might have been very different; but it is too late to lament that now. My mother had no gentle blood in her veins, as Leoline's had, for she was but a fisherman's daughter, torn from her home, and married by force. Neither did she love my father notwithstanding his youth, rank, and passionate love for her, for she was betrothed to another bourgeois, like herself. For his sake she refused even the title of marchioness, offered her in the moment of youthful and ardent passion, and clung, with deathless truth, to her fisher-lover. The blood of the Montmorencis is fierce and hot, and brooks no opposition” (Sir Norman thought of Miranda, and inwardly owned that that was a fact); “and the marquis, in his jealous wrath, both hated and loved her at the same time, and vowed deadly vengeance against her bourgeois lover. That vow he kept. The young fisherman was found one morning at his lady-love's door without a head, and the bleeding trunk told no tales.

“Of course, for a while, she was distracted and so on; but when the first shock of her grief was over, my father carried her off, and forcibly made her his wife. Fierce hatred, I told you, was mingled with his fierce love, and before the honeymoon was over it began to break out. One night, in a fit of jealous passion, to which he was addicted, he led her into a room she had never before been permitted to enter; showed her a grinning human skull, and told her it was her lover's! In his cruel exultation, he confessed all; how he had caused him to be murdered; his head severed from the body; and brought here to punish her, some day, for her obstinate refusal to love him.

“Up to this time she had been quiet and passive, bearing her fate with a sort of dumb resignation; but now a spirit of vengeance, fiercer and more terrible than his own, began to kindle within her; and, kneeling down before the ghastly thing, she breathed a wish--a prayer--to the avenging Jehovah, so unutterably horrible, that even her husband had to fly with curdling blood from the room. That dreadful prayer was heard--that wish fulfilled in me; but long before I looked on the light of day that frantic woman had repented of the awful deed she had done. Repentance came too late the sin of the father was visited on the child, and on the mother, too, for the moment her eyes fell upon me, she became a raving maniac, and died before the first day of my life had ended.

“Nurse and physician fled at the sight of me; but my father, though thrilling with horror, bore the shock, and bowed to the retributive justice of the angry Deity she had invoked. His whole life, his whole nature, changed from that hour; and, kneeling beside my dead mother, as he afterward told me, he vowed before high Heaven to cherish and love me, even as though I had not been the ghastly creature I was. The physician he bound by a terrible oath to silence; the nurse he forced back, and, in spite of her disgust and abhorrence, compelled her to nurse and care for me. The dead was buried out of sight; and we had rooms in a distant part of the house, which no one ever entered but my father and the nurse. Though set apart from my birth as something accursed, I had the intellect and capacity of--yes, far greater intellect and capacity than, most children; and, as years passed by, my father, true to his vow, became himself my tutor and companion. He did not love me--that was an utter impossibility; but time so blunts the edge of all things, that even the nurse became reconciled to me, and my father could scarcely do less than a stranger. So I was cared for, and instructed, and educated; and, knowing not what a monstrosity I was, I loved them both ardently, and lived on happily enough, in my splendid prison, for my first ten years in this world.

“Then came a change. My nurse died; and it became clear that I must quit my solitary life, and see the sort of world I lived in. So my father, seeing all this, sat down in the twilight one night beside me, and told me the story of my own hideousness. I was but a child then, and it is many and many years ago; but this gray summer morning, I feel what I felt then, as vividly as I did at the time. I had not learned the great lesson of life then--endurance, I have scarcely learned it yet, or I should bear life's burden longer; but that first night's despair has darkened my whole after-life. For weeks I would not listen to my father's proposal, to hide what would send all the world from me in loathing behind a mask; but I came to my senses at last, and from that day to the present--more days than either you or I would care to count--it has not been one hour altogether off my face.”

“I was the wonder and talk of Paris, when I did appear; and most of the surmises were wild and wide of the mark--some even going so far as to say it was all owing to my wonderful unheard-of beauty that I was thus mysteriously concealed from view. I had a soft voice, and a tolerable shape; and upon this, I presume, they founded the affirmation. But my father and I kept our own council, and let them say what they listed. I had never been named, as other children are; but they called me La Masque now. I had masters and professors without end, and studied astronomy and astrology, and the mystic lore of the old Egyptians, and became noted as a prodigy and a wonder, and a miracle of learning, far and near.

“The arts used to discover the mystery and make me unmask were innumerable and almost incredible; but I baffled them all, and began, after a time, rather to enjoy the sensation I created than otherwise.

“There was one, in particular, possessed of even more devouring curiosity than the rest, a certain young countess of miraculous beauty, whom I need not describe, since you have her very image in Leoline. The Marquis de Montmorenci, of a somewhat inflammable nature, loved her almost as much as he had done my mother, and she accepted him, and they were married. She may have loved him (I see no reason why she should not), but still to this day I think it was more to discover the secret of La Masque than from any other cause. I loved my beautiful new mother too well to let her find it out; although from the day she entered our house as a bride, until that on which she lay on her deathbed, her whole aim, day and night, was its discovery. There seemed to be a fatality about my father's wives; for the beautiful Honorine lived scarcely longer than her predecessor, and she died, leaving three children--all born at one time--you know them well, and one of them you love. To my care she intrusted them on her deathbed, and she could have scarcely intrusted them to worse; for, though I liked her, I most decidedly disliked them. They were lovely children--their lovely mother's image; and they were named Hubert, Leoline, and Honorine, or, as you knew her, Miranda. Even my father did not seem to care for them much, not even as much as he cared for me; and when he lay on his deathbed, one year later, I was left, young as I was, their sole guardian, and trustee of all his wealth. That wealth was not fairly divided--one-half being left to me and the other half to be shared equally between them; but, in my wicked ambition, I was not satisfied even with that. Some of my father's fierce and cruel nature I inherited; and I resolved to be clear of these three stumbling-blocks, and recompense myself for my other misfortunes by every indulgence boundless riches could bestow. So, secretly, and in the night, I left my home, with an old and trusty servant, known to you as Prudence, and my unfortunate, little brother and sisters. Strange to say, Prudence was attached to one of them, and to neither of the rest--that one was Leoline, whom she resolved to keep and care for, and neither she nor I minded what became of the other two.”

“From Paris we went to Dijon, where we dropped Hubert into the turn at the convent door, with his name attached, and left him where he would be well taken care of, and no questions asked. With the other two we started for Calais, en route for England; and there Prudence got rid of Honorine in a singular manner. A packet was about starting for the island of our destination, and she saw a strange-looking little man carrying his luggage from the wharf into a boat. She had the infant in her arms, having carried it out for the identical purpose of getting rid of it; and, without more ado, she laid it down, unseen, among boxes and bundles, and, like Hagar, stood afar off to see what became of it. That ugly little man was the dwarf; and his amazement on finding it among his goods and chattels you may imagine; but he kept it, notwithstanding, though why, is best known to himself. A few weeks after that we, too, came over, and Prudence took up her residence in a quiet village a long way from London. Thus you see, Sir Norman, how it comes about that we are so related, and the wrong I have done them all.”

“You have, indeed!” said Sir Norman, gravely, having listened, much shocked and displeased, at this open confession; “and to one of them it is beyond our power to atone. Do you know the life of misery to which she has been assigned?”

“I know it all, and have repented for it in my own heart, in dust and ashes! Even I--unlike all other earthly creatures as I am--have a conscience, and it has given me no rest night or day since. From that hour I have never lost sight of them; every sorrow they have undergone has been known to me, and added to my own; and yet I could not, or would not, undo what I had done. Leoline knows all now; and she will tell Hubert, since destiny has brought them together; and whether they will forgive me I know not. But yet they might; for they have long and happy lives before them, and we can forgive everything to the dead.”

“But you are not dead,” said Sir Norman; “and there is repentance and pardon for all. Much as you have wronged them, they will forgive you; and Heaven is not less merciful than they!”

“They may; for I have striven to atone. In my house there are proofs and papers that will put them in possession of all, and more than all, they have lost. But life is a burden of torture I will bear no longer. The death of him who died for me this night is the crowning tragedy of my miserable life; and if my hour were not at hand, I should not have told you this.”

“But you have not told me the fearful cause of so much guilt and suffering. What is behind that mask?”

“Would you, too, see?” she asked, in a terrible voice, “and die?”

“I have told you it is not in my nature to die easily, and it is something far stronger than mere curiosity makes me ask.”

“Be it so! The sky is growing red with day-dawn, and I shall never see the sun rise more, for I am already plague-struck!”

That sweetest of all voices ceased. The white hands removed the mask, and the floating coils of hair, and revealed, to Sir Norman's horror-struck gaze, the grisly face and head, and the hollow eye-sockets, the grinning mouth, and fleshless cheeks of a skeleton!

He saw it but for one fearful instant--the next, she had thrown up both arms, and leaped headlong into the loathly plague-pit. He saw her for a second or two, heaving and writhing in the putrid heap; and then the strong man reeled and fell with his face on the ground, not feigning, but sick unto death. Of all the dreadful things he had witnessed that night, there was nothing so dreadful as this; of all the horror he had felt before, there was none to equal what he felt now. In his momentary delirium, it seemed to him she was reaching her arms of bone up to drag him in, and that the skeleton-face was grinning at him on the edge of the awful pit. And, covering his eyes with his hands, he sprang up, and fled away.