第57章

"Miranda - Miranda - you are crazed! Stop and tell me what you intend to do.""What you feared to attempt," she haughtily replied; "Sheathe this dagger in his demon heart!""Miranda, give me the dagger.You must not, you shall not, commit such a crime!""Shall not?" she uttered scornfully."And who are you that dares to speak to me like this? Stand aside, coward, and let me pass!""Pardon me, but I cannot, while you hold that dagger.Give it to me, and you shall go free; but while you hold it with this intention, for your own sake, I will detain you till some one comes."She uttered a low, fierce cry, and struck at him with it, but he caught her hand, and with sudden force snatched it from her.In doing so he was obliged to hold it with its point toward her, and struggling for it in a sort of frenzy, as he raised the hand that held it, she slipped forward and it was driven half-way to the hilt in her side.There was a low, grasping cry - a sudden clasping of both hands over her heart, a sway, a reel, and she fell headlong prostrate on the loathsome floor.

Sir Norman stood paralyzed.She half raised herself on her elbow, drew the dagger from the wound, and a great jet of blood shot up and crimsoned her hands.She did not faint - there seemed to be a deathless energy within her that chained life strongly in its place - she only pressed both hands hard over the wound, and looked mournfully and reproachfully up in his face.

Those beautiful, sad, solemn dyes, void of everything savage and fierce, were truly Leoline's eyes now.

Through all his first shock of horror, another thing dawned on his mind; he had looked on this scene before.It was the second view in La Masque's caldron, and but one remained to be verifiedThe next instant, he was down on his knees in a paroxysm of grief and despair.

"What have I done? what have I done?" was his cry.

"Listen!" she said, faintly raising one finger."Do you hear that?"Distant steps were echoing along the passage.Yes; he heard them, and knew what they were.

"They are coming to lead you to death!" she said, with some of her old fire; "but I will baffle them yet.Take that lamp - go to the wall yonder, and in that corner, near the floor, you will see a small iron ring.Pull it - it does not require much force - and you will find an opening leading through another vault; at the end there is a broken flight of stairs, mount them, and you will find yourself in the same place from which you fell.Fly, fly! There is not a second to lose!""How can I fly? how can I leave you dying here?""I am not dying!" she wildly cried, lifting both hands from the wound to push him away, while the blood flowed over the floor.

"But we will both die if you stay.Go-go-go!"The footsteps had paused st his door.The bolts were beginning to be withdrawn.He lifted the lamp, flew across his prison, found the ring, and took a pull at it with desperate strength.

Part of what appeared to be the solid wall drew out, disclosing an aperture through which he could just squeeze sideways.Quick as thought he was through, forgetting the lamp in his haste.The portion of the wall slid noiselessly back, just as the prison door was thrown open, and the dwarfs voice was heard, socially inviting him, like Mrs.Bond's ducks, to come and be killed.

Some people talk of darkness so palpable that it may be felt, and if ever any one was qualified to tell from experience what it felt like, Sir Norman was in that precise condition at that precise period.He groped his way through the blind blackness along what seemed an interminable distance, and stumbled, at last, over the broken stairs at the end.With some difficult, and at the serious risk of his jugular, he mounted them, and found himself, as Miranda had stated, in a place he knew very well.Once here he allowed no grass to grow under him feet; and, in five minutes after, to his great delight, he found himself where he had never hoped to be again - in the serene moonlight and the open air, fetterless and free.

His horse was still where he had left him, and in a twinkling he was on his back, and dashing away to the city, to love - to Leoline!