The Midnight Queen Read online

  CHAPTER XI. THE EXECUTION.

  In an instant all was confusion. Everybody sprang to their feet--ladiesshrieked in chorus, gentlemen swore and drew their swords, and lookedto see if they might not expect a whole army to drop from the sky uponthem, as they stood. No other battalion, however, followed this forlornhope; and seeing it, the gentlemen took heart of grace and closed aroundthe unceremonious intruder. The queen had sprung from her royal seat,and stood with her bright lips parted, and her brighter eyes dilating inspeechless wonder. The bench, with the judge at their head, had followedher example, and stood staring with all their might, looking, truth totell, as much startled by the sudden apparition as the fair sex. Thesaid fair sex were still firing off little volleys of screams in chorus,and clinging desperately to their cavaliers; and everything, in a word,was in most admired disorder.

  Tam O'Shanter's cry, "Weel done, Cutty sark!" could not have producedhalf such a commotion among his "hellish legion" as the emphatic debutof Sir Norman Kingsley among these human revelers. The only one whoseemed rather to enjoy it than otherwise was the prisoner, who wasquietly and quickly making off, when the malevolent and irrepressibledwarf espied him, and the one shock acting as a counter-irritant tothe other, he bounced fleetly over the table, and grabbed him in hiscrab-like claws.

  This brisk and laudable instance of self-command had a wonderful andinspiriting effect on the rest; and as he replaced the pale and palsiedprisoner in his former position, giving him a vindictive shake andvicious kick with his royal boots as he did so, everybody began to feelthemselves again. The ladies stopped screaming, the gentlemen ceasedswearing, and more than one exclamation of astonishment followed thecries of terror.

  "Sir Norman Kingsley! Sir Norman Kingsley!" rang from lip to lip ofthose who recognized him; and all drew closer, and looked at him as ifthey really could not make up their mind to believe their eyes. Asfor Sir Norman himself, that gentleman was destined literally, if notmetaphorically, to fall on his legs that night, and had alighted onthe crimson velvet-carpet, cat-like, on his feet. In reference to hisfeelings--his first was one of frantic disapproval of going down;his second, one of intense astonishment of finding himself there withunbroken bones; his third, a disagreeable conviction that he had aboutput his foot in it, and was in an excessively bad fix; and last, butnot least, a firm and rooted determination to make the beet of a badbargain, and never say die.

  His first act was to take off his plumed hat, and make a profoundobeisance to her majesty the queen, who was altogether too muchsurprised to make the return politeness demanded, and merely stared athim with her great, beautiful, brilliant eyes, as if she would neverhave done.

  "Ladies and gentlemen!" said Sir Norman, turning gracefully to thecompany; "I beg ten thousand pardons for this unwarrantable intrusion,and promise you, upon my honor, never to do it again. I beg to assureyou that my coming here was altogether involuntary on my part, andforced by circumstances over which I had no control; and I entreat youwill not mind me in the least, but go on with the proceeding, just asyou did before. Should you feel my presence here any restraint, I amquite ready and willing to take my departure at any moment; and asI before insinuated, will promise, on the honor of a gentleman and aknight, never again to take the liberty of tumbling through the ceilingdown on your heads."

  This reference to the ceiling seemed to explain the whole mystery; andeverybody looked up at the corner whence he came from, and saw the flagthat had been removed. As to his speech, everybody had listened to itwith the greatest of attention; and sundry of the ladies, convincedby this time that he was flesh and blood, and no ghost, favored thehandsome young knight with divers glances, not at all displeasedor unadmiring. The queen sank back into her seat, keeping him stilltransfixed with her darkly-splendid eyes; and whether she admired orotherwise, no one could tell from her still, calm face. The princeconsort's feelings--for such there could be no doubt he was--wereinvolved in no such mystery; and he broke out into a hyena-like screamof laughter, as he recognized, upon a second look, his young friend ofthe Golden Crown.

  "So you have come, have you?" he cried, thrusting his unlovely visageover the table, till it almost touched sir Norman's. "You have come,have you, after all I said?"

  "Yes, sir I have come!" said Sir Norman, with a polite bow.

  "Perhaps you don't know me, my dear young sir--your little friend, youknow, of the Golden Crown."

  "Oh, I perfectly recognize you! My little friend," said Sir Norman, withbland suavity, and unconsciously quoting Leoline, "once seen in not easyto be-forgotten."

  Upon this, his highness net up such another screech of mirth that itquite woke an echo through the room; and all Sir Norman's friends lookedgrave; for when his highness laughed, it was a very bad sign.

  "My little friend will hurt himself," remarked Sir Norman, with an airof solicitude, "if he indulges in his exuberant and gleeful spirits tosuch an extent. Let me recommend you, as a well-wisher, to sit down andcompose yourself."

  Instead of complying, however, the prince, who seemed blessed with alively sense of the ludicrous, was so struck with the extreme funninessof the young man's speech, that he relaxed into another paroxysm oflevity, shriller and more unearthly, if possible, than any precedingone, and which left him so exhausted, that he was forced to sink intohis chair and into silence through sheer fatigue. Seizing this, thefirst opportunity, Miranda, with a glance of displeased dignity atCaliban, immediately struck in:

  "Who are you, sir, and by what right do you dare to come here?"

  Her tone was neither very sweet nor suave; but it was much pleasanterto be cross-examined by the owner of such a pretty face than by the uglylittle monster, for the moment gasping and extinguished; and Sir Normanturned to her with alacrity, and a bow.

  "Madame, I am Sir Norman Kingsley, very much at your service; and I begto assure you I did not come here, but fell here, through that hole, ifyou perceive, and very much against my will."

  "Equivocation will not serve you in this case, sir," said the queen,with an austere dignity. "And, allow me to observe, it is just probableyou would not have fallen through that hole in our royal ceiling if youhad kept away from it. You raised that flag yourself--did you not?"

  "Madam, I fear I must say yes!"

  "And why did you do so?" demanded her majesty, with far more sharpasperity than Sir Norman dreamed could ever come from such beautifullips.

  "The rumor of Queen Miranda's charms has gone forth; and I fear I mustown that rumor drew me hither," responded Sir Norman, inventing a politelittle work of fiction for the occasion; "and, let me add, that I cameto find that rumor had under-rated instead of exaggerated her majesty'ssaid charms."

  Here Sir Norman, whose spine seemed in danger of becoming the shape ofa rainbow, in excess of good breeding, made another genuflection beforethe queen, with his hand over the region of his heart. Miranda triedto look grave, and wear that expression of severe solemnity I am toldqueens and rich people always do; but, in spite of herself, a littlepleased smile rippled over her face; and, noticing it, and the bow andspeech, the prince suddenly and sharply set up such another screech oflaughter as no steamboat or locomotive, in the present age of steam,could begin to equal in ghastliness.

  "Will your highness have the goodness to hold your tongue?" inquired thequeen, with much the air and look of Mrs. Caudle, "and allow me to askthis stranger a few questions uninterrupted? Sir Norman Kingsley, howlong have you been above there, listening and looking on?"

  "Madame, I was not there five minutes when I suddenly, and to my greatsurprise, found myself here."

  "A lie!--a lie!" exclaimed the dwarf, furiously. "It is over two hourssince I met you at the bar of the Golden Crown."

  "My dear little friend," said Sir Norman, drawing his sword, andflourishing it within an inch of the royal nose, "just make that remarkagain, and my sword will cleave your pretty head, as the cimetar ofSaladin clove the cushion of down! I earnestly assure you, madame, thatI had but just knelt down to look, when I
discovered to my dismay, thatI was no longer there, but in your charming presence."

  "In that case, my lords and gentlemen," said the queen, glancing blandlyround the apartment, "he has witnessed nothing, and, therefore, meritsbut slight punishment."

  "Permit me, your majesty," said the duke, who had read the roll ofdeath, and who had been eyeing Sir Norman sharply for some time, "permitme one moment! This is the very individual who slew the Earl of Ashley,while his companion was doing for my Lord Craven. Sir Norman Kingsley,"said his grace, turning, with awful impressiveness to that young person,"do you know me?"

  "Quite as well as I wish to," answered Sir Norman, with a cool andrather contemptuous glance in his direction. "You look extremely like acertain highwayman, with a most villainous countenance, I encountered afew hours back, and whom I would have made mince most of if he had notbeen coward enough to fly. Probably you may be the name; you look fitfor that, or anything else."

  "Cut him down!" "Dash his brains out!" "Run him through!" "Shoot him!"were a few of the mild and pleasant insinuations that went off on everyside of him, like a fierce volley of pop-guns; and a score of brightblades flashed blue and threatening on every side; while the princebroke out into another shriek of laughter, that rang high over all.

  Sir Norman drew his own sword, and stood on the defence, breathed onethought to Leoline, gave himself up for lost; but before quitedoing so--to use a phrase not altogether as original as it mightbe--"determined to sell his life as dearly as possible." Angry eyes andfierce faces were on every hand, and his dreams of matrimony and Leolineseemed about to terminate then and there, when luck came to his side, inthe shape of her most gracious majesty the queen. Springing to her feet,she waved her sceptre, while her black eyes flashed as fiercely as thebest of them, and her voice rang out like a trumpet-tone.

  "Sheathe your swords, my lords, and back every man of you! Not one hairof his head shall fall without my permission; and the first who layshands on him until that consent is given, shall die, if I have to shoothim myself! Sir Norman Kingsley, stand near, and fear not. At his peril,let one of them touch you!"

  Sir Norman bent on one knee, and raised the gracious hand to his lips.At the fierce, ringing, imperious tone, all involuntarily fell back, asif they were accustomed to obey it; and the prince, who seemed to-nightin an uncommonly facetious mood, laughed again, long and shrill.

  "What are your majesty's commands?" asked the discomfited duke, rathersulkily. "Is this insulting interloper to go free?"

  "That is no affair of yours, my lord duke!" answered the spirited voiceof the queen. "Be good enough to finish Lord Gloucester's trial; anduntil then I will be responsible for the safekeeping of Sir NormanKingsley."

  "And after that, he is to go free eh, your majesty?" said the dwarf,laughing to that extent that he ran the risk of rupturing an artery.

  "After that, it shall be precisely as I please!" replied the ringingvoice; while the black eyes flashed anything but loving glances uponhim. "While I am queen here, I shall be obeyed; when I am queen nolonger, you may do as you please! My lords" (turning her passionate,beautiful face to the hushed audience), "am I or am I not sovereignhere!"

  "Madame, you alone are our sovereign lady and queen!"

  "Then, when I condescend to command, you shall obey! Do you, yourhighness, and you, lord duke, go on with the Earl of Gloucester's trial,and I will be the stranger's jailer."

  "She is right," said the dwarf, his fierce little eyes gleaming with amalignant light; "let us do one thing before another; and after we havesettled Gloucester here, we will attend to this man's case. Guards keepa sharp eye on your new prisoner. Ladies and gentlemen, be good enoughto resume your seats. Now, your grace, continue the trial."

  "Where did we leave off?" inquired his grace, looking rather at a loss,and scowling vengeance dire at the handsome queen and her handsomeprotege, as he sank back in his chair of state.

  "The earl was confessing his guilt, or about to do so. Pray, my lord,"said the dwarf, glaring upon the pallid prisoner, "were you not sayingyou had betrayed us to the king?"

  A breathless silence followed the question--everybody seemed to holdhis very breath to listen. Even the queen leaned forward and awaited theanswer eagerly, and the many eyes that had been riveted on Sir Normansince his entrance, left him now for the first time and settled on theprisoner. A piteous spectacle that prisoner was--his face whiter thanthe snowy nymphs behind the throne, and so distorted with fear, fury,and guilt, that it looked scarcely human. Twice he opened his eyes toreply, and twice all sounds died away in a choking gasp.

  "Do you hear his highness?" sharply inquired the lord high chancellor,reaching over the great seal, and giving the unhappy Earl of Gloucestera rap on the head with it, "Why do you not answer?"

  "Pardon! Pardon!" exclaimed the earl, in a husky whisper. "Do notbelieve the tales they tell you of me. For Heaven's sake, spare mylife!"

  "Confess!" thundered the dwarf, striking the table with his clinchedfist, until all the papers thereon jumped spasmodically into theair-"confess at once, or I shall run you through where you stand!"

  The earl, with a perfect screech of terror, flung himself flat uponhis face and hands before the queen, with such force, that Sir Normanexpected to see his countenance make a hole in the floor.

  "O madame! spare me! spare me! spare me! Have mercy on me as you hopefor mercy yourself!"

  She recoiled, and drew back her very garments from his touch, as ifthat touch was pollution, eyeing him the while with a glance frigid andpitiless as death.

  "There is no mercy for traitors!" she coldly said. "Confess your guilt,and expect no pardon from me!"

  "Lift him up!" shouted the dwarf, clawing the air with his hands, as ifhe could have clawed the heart out of his victim's body; "back with himto his place, guards, and see that he does not leave it again!"

  Squirming, and writhing, and twisting himself in their grasp, in veryuncomfortable and eel-like fashion, the earl was dragged back to hisplace, and forcibly held there by two of the guards, while his face grewso ghastly and convulsed that Sir Norman turned away his head, and couldnot bear to look at it.

  "Confess!" once more yelled the dwarf in a terrible voice, while hisstill more terrible eyes flashed sparks of fire--"confess, or by allthat's sacred it shall be tortured out of you. Guards, bring me thethumb-screws, and let us see if they will not exercise the dumb devil bywhich our ghastly friend is possessed!"

  "No, no, no!" shrieked the earl, while the foam flew from his lips. "Iconfess! I confess! I confess!"

  "Good! And what do you confess?" said the duke blandly, leaning forward,while the dwarf fell back with a yell of laughter at the success of hisruse.

  "I confess all--everything--anything! only spare my life!"

  "Do you confess to having told Charles, King of England, the secretsof our kingdom and this place?" said the duke, sternly rapping down thepetition with a roll of parchment.

  The earl grew, if possible, a more ghastly white. "I do--I must! but oh!for the love of--"

  "Never mind love," cut in the inexorable duke, "it is a subject thathas nothing whatever to do with the present case. Did you or did you notreceive for the aforesaid information a large sum of money?"

  "I did; but my lord, my lord, spare--"

  "Which sum of money you have concealed," continued the duke, withanother frown and a sharp rap. "Now the question is, where have youconcealed it?"

  "I will tell you, with all my heart, only spare my life!"

  "Tell us first, and we will think about your life afterward. Let meadvise you as a friend, my lord, to tell at once, and truthfully," saidthe duke, toying negligently with the thumb-screws.

  "It is buried at the north corner of the old wall at the head ofBradshaw's grave. You shall have that and a thousandfold more if you'llonly pardon--"

  "Enough!" broke in the dwarf, with the look and tone of an exultantdemon. "That is all we want! My lord duke, give me the death-warrant,and while her majesty signs it, I
will pronounce his doom!"

  The duke handed him a roll of parchment, which he glanced criticallyover, and handed to the queen for her autograph. That royal lady spreadthe vellum on her knee, took the pen and affixed her signature as coollyas if she were inditing a sonnet in an album. Then his highness, with aface that fairly scintillated with demoniac delight, stood up and fixedhis eyes on the ghastly prisoner, and spoke in a voice that reverberatedlike the tolling of a death-bell through the room.

  "My Lord of Gloucester, you have been tried by a council of yourfellow-peers, presided over by her royal self, and found guilty of hightreason. Your sentence is that you be taken hence, immediately, to theblock, and there be beheaded, in punishment of your crime."

  His highness wound up this somewhat solemn speech, ratherinconsistently, bursting out into one of his shrillest peals oflaughter; and the miserable Earl of Gloucester, with a gasping,unearthly cry, fell back in the arms of the attendants. Dead andoppressive silence reigned; and Sir Norman, who half believed all alongthe whole thing was a farce, began to feel an uncomfortable sense ofchill creeping over him, and to think that, though practical jokes wereexcellent things in their way, there was yet a possibility of carryingthem a little too far. The disagreeable silence was first broken by thedwarf, who, after gloating for a moment over his victim's convulsivespasms, sprang nimbly from his chair of dignity and held out his arm forthe queen. The queen arose, which seemed to be a sign for everybody elseto do the same, and all began forming themselves in a sort of line ofmarch.

  "What is to be done with this other prisoner, your highness?" inquiredthe duke, making a poke with his forefinger at Sir Norman. "Is he tostay here, or is he to accompany us?"

  His highness turned round, and putting his face close up to Sir Norman'sfavored him with a malignant grin.

  "You'd like to come, wouldn't you, my dear young friend?"

  "Really," said Sir Norman, drawing back and returning the dwarf's starewith compound interest, "that depends altogether on the nature ofthe entertainment; but, at the same time, I'm much obliged to you forconsulting my inclinations."

  This reply nearly overset his highness's gravity once more, but hechecked his mirth after the first irresistible squeal; and findingthe company were all arranged in the order of going, and awaiting hissovereign pleasure, he turned.

  "Let him come," he said, with his countenance still distorted by inwardmerriment; "It will do him good to see how we punish offenders here, andteach him what he is to expect himself. Is your majesty ready?"

  "My majesty has been ready and waiting for the last five minutes,"replied the lady, over-looking his proffered hand with grand disdain,and stepping lightly down from her throne.

  Her rising was the signal for the unseen band to strike up a grandtriumphant "Io paean," though, had the "Rogue's March" been a popularmelody in those times, it would have suited the procession much moreadmirably. The queen and the dwarf went first, and a vivid contrast theywere--she so young, so beautiful, so proud, so disdainfully cold; he sougly, so stunted, so deformed, so fiendish. After them went the band ofsylphs in white, then the chancellor, archbishop, and embassadors; nextthe whole court of ladies and gentlemen; and after them Sir Norman, inthe custody of two of the soldiers. The condemned earl came last, orrather allowed himself to be dragged by his four guards; for he seemedto have become perfectly palsied and dumb with fear. Keeping time to thetriumphant march, and preserving dismal silence, the procession woundits way along the room and through a great archway heretofore hiddenby the tapestry now lifted lightly by the nymphs. A long stone passage,carpeted with crimson and gold, and brilliantly illuminated likethe grand saloon they had left, was thus revealed, and three similararchways appeared at the extremity, one to the right and left, and onedirectly before them. The procession passed through the one to the left,and Sir Norman started in dismay to find himself in the most gloomyapartment he had ever beheld in his life. It was all covered withblack--walls, ceiling, and floor were draped in black, and remindedhim forcibly of La Masque's chamber of horrors, only this was morerepellant. It was lighted, or rather the gloom was troubled, by afew spectral tapers of black wax in ebony candlesticks, that seemedabsolutely to turn black, and make the horrible place more horrible.There was no furniture--neither couch, chair, nor table nothing but asort of stage at the upper end of the room, with something that lookedlike a seat upon it, and both were shrouded with the same dismaldrapery. But it was no seat; for everybody stood, arranging themselvessilently and noiselessly around the walls, with the queen and the dwarfat their head, and near this elevation stood a tall, black statue,wearing a mask, and leaning on a bright, dreadful, glittering axe. Themusic changed to an unearthly dirge, so weird and blood-curdling, thatSir Norman could have put his hands over his ear-drums to shut out theghastly sound. The dismal room, the voiceless spectators, the blackspectre with the glittering axe, the fearful music, struck a chill tohis inmost heart.

  Could it be possible they were really going to murder the unhappywretch? and could all those beautiful ladies--could that surpassinglybeautiful queen, stand there serenely unmoved, to witness such a crime?While he yet looked round in horror, the doomed man, already apparentlyalmost dead with fear, was dragged forward by his guards. Paralyzedas he was, at sight of the stage which he knew to be the scaffold, heuttered shriek after shriek of frenzied despair, and struggled likea madman to get free. But as well might Laocoon have struggled in thefolds of the serpent; they pulled him on, bound him hand and foot, andheld his head forcibly down on the block.

  The black spectre moved--the dwarf made a signal--the glittering axe wasraised--fell--a scream was cut in two--a bright jet of blood spouted upin the soldiers faces, blinding them; the axe fell again, and the Earlof Gloucester was minus that useful and ornamental appendage, a head.

  It was all over so quickly, that Sir Norman could scarcely believe hishorrified senses, until the deed was done. The executioner threw a blackcloth over the bleeding trunk, and held up the grizzly head by the hair;and Sir Norman could have sworn the features moved, and the dead eyesrolled round the room.

  "Behold!" cried the executioner, striking the convulsed face with thepalm of his open hand, "the fate of all traitors!"

  "And of all spies!" exclaimed the dwarf, glaring with his fiendisheyes upon the appalled Sir Norman. "Keep your axe sharp and bright, Mr.Executioner, for before morning dawns there is another gentleman here tobe made shorter by a head."