第46章

DOOM.

"Let us go," said the queen, glancing at the revolting sight, and turning away with a shudder of repulsion."Faugh! The sight of blood has made me sick.""And taken away my appetite for supper," added a youthful and elegant beauty beside her."My Lord Gloucester was hideous enough when living, but, mon Dieu,! he is ten times more so when dead!""Your ladyship will not have the same story to tell of yonder stranger, when he shares the same fate in are hour or two!" said the dwarf, with a malicious grin; "for I heard you remarking upon his extreme beauty when he first appeared."The lady laughed and bowed, and turned her bright eyes upon Sir Norman.

"True! It is almost a pity to cut such a handsome head off - is it not? I wish I had a voice in your highness's council, and Iknow what I should do."

"What, Lady Mountjoy?"

"Entreat him to swear fealty, and become one of as; and - ""And a bridegroom for your ladyship?" suggested the queen, with a curling lip."I think if Sir Norman Kingsley knew Lady Mountjoy as well as I do, he would even prefer the block to such a fate!"Lady Mountjoy's brilliant eyes shone like two angry meteors; but she merely bowed and laughed; and the laugh was echoed by the dwarf in his shrillest falsetto.

"Does your highness intend remaining here all night?" demanded the queen, rather fiercely."If not, the sooner we leave this ghastly place the better.The play is over, and supper is waiting."With which the royal virago made an imperious motion for her attendant sprites in gossamer white to precede her, and turned with her accustomed stately step to follow.The music immediately changed from its doleful dirge to a spirited measure, and the whole company flocked after her, back to the great room of state.There they all paused, hovering in uncertainty around the room, while the queen, holding her purple train up lightly in one hand, stood at the foot of the throne, glancing at them with her cold, haughty and beautiful eyes.In their wandering, those same darkly-splendid eyes glanced and lighted on Sir Norman, who, in a state of seeming stupor at the horrible scene he had just witnessed, stood near the green table, and they sent a thrill through him with their wonderful resemblance to Leoline's.So vividly alike were they, that he half doubted for a moment whether she and Leoline were not really one; but no - Leoline never could have had the cold, cruel heart to stand and witness such a horrible eight.Miranda's dark, piercing glance fell as haughtily and disdainfully on him as it had on the rest; and his heart sank as he thought that whatever sympathy she had felt for him was entirely gone.It might have been a whim, a woman's caprice, a spirit of contradiction, that had induced her to defend him at first.Whatever it was, and it mattered not now, it had completely vanished.No face of marble could have been colder, of stonier, or harder, than hers, as she looked at him out of the depths of her great dark eyes; and with that look, his last lingering hope of life vanished.

"And now for the next trial!" exclaimed the dwarf, briskly breaking in upon his drab-colored meditations, and bustling past.

"We will get it over at once, and have done with it!""You will do no such thing!" said the imperious voice of the queenly shrew."We will have neither trials nor anything else until after supper, which has already been delayed four full minutes.My lord chamberlain, have the goodness to step in and see that all is in order."One of the gilded and decorated gentlemen whom sir Norman had mistaken for ambassadors stepped off, in obedience, through another opening in the tapestry - which seemed to be as extensively undermined with such apertures as a cabman's coat with capes - and, while he was gone, the queen stood drawn up to her full height, with her scornful face looking down on the dwarf.That small man knit up his very plain face into a bristle of the sourest kinks, and frowned sulky disapproval at an order which he either would not, or dared not, countermand.Probably the latter had most to do with it, as everybody looked hungry and mutinous, and a great deal more eager for their supper than the life of Sir Norman Kingsley.

"Your majesty, the royal banquet is waiting," insinuated the lord high chamberlain, returning, and bending over until his face and his shoe buckles almost touched.

"And what is to be done with this prisoner, while we are eating it?" growled the dwarf, looking drawn swords at his liege lady.

"He can remain here under care of the guards, can he not?" she retorted sharply."Or, if you are afraid they are not equal to taking care of him, you had better stay and watch him yourself."With which answer, her majesty sailed majestically away, leaving the gentleman addressed to follow or not, as he pleased.It pleased him to do so, on the whole; and he went after her, growling anathemas between his royal teeth, and evidently in the same state of mind that induces gentlemen in private life to take sticks to their aggravating spouses, under similar circumstances.

However, it might not be just the thing, perhaps, for kings and queens to take broom-sticks to settle their little differences of opinion, like common Christians; and so the prince peaceably followed her, and entered the salle a manger with the rest, and Sir Norman and his keepers were left in the hall of state, monarchs of all they surveyed.Notwithstanding he knew his hours were numbered, the young knight could not avoid feeling curious, and the tapestry having been drawn aside, he looked through the arch with a good deal of interest.