The Midnight Queen

"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, ho laid his hand on her shoulder, and exclaimed: "La Masque!"