第50章

ESCAPED.

Probably not one of you; my dear friends, who glance graciously over this, was ever shut up in a dungeon under expectation of bearing the unpleasant operation of decapitation within half an hour.It never happened to myself, either, that I can recollect;so, of course, you or I personally can form no idea what the sensation may be like; but in this particular case, tradition saith Sir Norman Kingsley's state of mind was decidedly depressed.As the door shut violently, he leaned against it, and listened to his jailers place the great bars into their sockets, and felt he was shut in, in the dreariest, darkest, dismalest, disagreeablest place that it had ever been his misfortune to enter.He thought of Leoline, and reflected that in all probability she was sleeping the sleep of the just - perhaps dreaming of him, and little knowing that his head was to be cut off in half an hour.

In course of time morning would come - it was not likely the ordinary course of nature would be cut off because he was; and Leoline would get up and dress herself, and looking a thousand times prettier than ever, stand at the window and wait for him.

Ah! she might wait - much good would it do her; about that time he would probably be - where? It was a rather uncomfortable question, but easily answered, and depressed him to a very desponding degree indeed.

He thought of Ormiston and La Masque - no doubt they were billing and cooing in most approved fashion just then, and never thinking of him; though, but for La Masque and his own folly, he might have been half married by this time.He thought of Count L'Estrange and Master Hubert, and become firmly convinced, if one did not find Leoline the other would; and each being equally bad, it was about a toss up in agony which got her.

He thought of Queen Miranda, and of the adage, "put no trust in princes," and sighed deeply as he reflected what a bad sign of human nature it was - more particularly such handsome human nature - that she could, figuratively speaking, pat him on the back one moment, and kick him to the scaffold the next.He thought, dejectedly, what a fool he was ever to have come back;or even having come back, not to have taken greater pains to stay up aloft, instead of pitching abruptly head-foremost into such a select company without an invitation.He thought, too, what a cold, damp, unwholesome chamber they had lodged him in, and how apt he would be to have a bad attack of ague and miasmatic fever, if they would only let him live long enough to enjoy those blessings.And this having brought him to the end of his melancholy meditation, he began to reflect how he could best amuse himself in the interim, before quitting this vale of tears.

The candle was still blinking feebly on the floor, shedding tears of wax in its feeble prostration, and it suddenly reminded him of the dwarf's advice to examine his dark bower of repose.So be picked it up and snuffed it with his fingers, and held it aloof, much as Robinson Crusoe held the brand in the dark cavern with the dead goat.

In the velvet pall of blackness before alluded to, its small, wan ray pierced but a few inches, and only made the darkness visible.

But Sir Norman groped his way to the wall, which he found to be all over green and noisome slime, and broken out into a cold, clammy perspiration, as though it were at its last gasp.By the aid of his friendly light, for which he was really much obliged -a fact which, had his little friend known, he would not have left it - he managed to make the circuit of his prison, which he found rather spacious, and by no means uninhabited; for the walls and floor were covered with fat, black beetles, whole families of which interesting specimens of the insect-world he crunched remorselessly under foot, and massacred at every step; and great, depraved-looking rats, with flashing eyes and sinister-teeth, who made frantic dives and rushes at him, and bit at his jack-boots with fierce, fury.These small quadrupeds reminded him forcibly of the dwarf, especially in the region of the eyes and the general expression of countenance; and he began to reflect that if the dwarf's soul (supposing him to possess such an article as that, which seemed open to debate) passed after death into the body of any other animal, it would certainly be into that of a rat.

He had just come to this conclusion, and was applying the flame of the candle to the nose of an inquisitive beetle, when it struck him he heard voices in altercation outside his door.One, clear, ringing, and imperious, yet withal feminine, was certainly not heard for the first time; and the subdued and respectful voices that answered, were those of his guards.