"To-morrow," he said, as he turned to go. "Who knows what to-morrow may
bring forth! Fairest and dearest Leoline, goodnight!"
He rode away in the moonlight, with the stars shining peacefully down
upon him. His heart at the moment was a divided one--one half being
given to Leoline, and the other to the Midnight Queen and her mysterious
court. The farther he went away from Leoline, the dimmer her star became
in the horizon of his thoughts; and the nearer he came to Miranda, the
brighter and more eagerly she loomed up, until he spurred his horse to
a most furious gallop, lest he should find the castle and the queen lost
in the regions of space when he got there. Once the plague-stricken city
lay behind him, his journey was short; and soon, to his great delight,
he turned into the silent deserted by-path leading to the ruin.
Tying his horse to a stake in the crumbling wall, he paused for a moment
to look at it in the pale, wan light of the midnight moon. He had looked
at it many a time before, but never with the same interest as now;
and the ruined battlements, the fallen roof, the broken windows, and
mouldering sides, had all a new and weird interest for him. No one was
visible far or near; and feeling that his horse was secure in the shadow
of the wall, he entered, and walked lightly and rapidly along in
the direction of the spiral staircase. With more haste, but the same
precaution, he descended, and passed through the vaults to where he knew
the loose flag-stone was. It was well he did know; for there was neither
strain of music nor ray of light to guide him now; and his heart sank
to zero as he thought he might raise the stone and discover nothing.
His hand positively trembled with eagerness as he lifted it; and with
unbounded delight, not to be described, looked down on the same titled
assembly he had watched before. But there had been a change since--half
the lights were extinguished, and the great vaulted room was
comparatively in shadow--the music had entirely died away and all was
solemnly silent. But what puzzled Sir Norman most of all was, the fact
that there seemed to be a trial of acme sort going on.
A long table, covered with green velvet, and looking not unlike a modern
billiard table, stood at the right of the queen's crimson throne; and
behind it, perched in a high chair, and wearing a long, solemn, black
robe, sat a small, thick personage, whose skin Sir Norman would have
known on a bush. He glanced at the lower throne and found it as he
expected, empty; and he saw at once that his little highness was not
only prince consort, but also supreme judge in the kingdom. Two or three
similar black-robed gentry, among whom was recognizable the noble duke
who so narrowly escaped with his life under the swords of Sir Norman
and Count L'Estrange. Before this solemn conclave stood a man who was
evidently the prisoner under trial, and who wore the whitest and most
frightened face Sir Norman thought he had ever beheld. The queen was
lounging negligently back on her throne, paying very little attention
to the solemn rites, occasionally gossiping with some of the snow-white
sylphs beside her, and often yawning behind her pretty finger-tips, and
evidently very much bored by it all.