第6章

A profusion of shining dark hair fell in elaborate curls over her neck and shoulders.Her dress was that of a bride; a robe of white satin brocaded with silver, fairly dazzling in its shining radiance, and as brief in the article of sleeves and neck as that of any modern belle.A circlet of pearls were clasped round her snow-white throat, and bracelets of the same jewels encircled the snowy taper arms.On her head she wore a bridal wreath and veil - the former of jewels, the latter falling round her like a cloud of mist.Everything was perfect, from the wreath and veil to the tiny sandaled feet and lying there in her mute repose she looked more like some exquisite piece of sculpture than anything that had ever lived and moved in this groveling world of ours.But from one shoulder the dress had been pulled down, and there lay a great livid purple plague-spot!

"Come away!" said Ormiston, catching his companion by the arm.

"It is death to remain here!"

Sir Norman had been standing like one in a trance, from which this address roused him, and he grasped Ormiston's shoulder almost frantically.

"Look there, Ormiston! There lies the very face that sorceress showed me, fifteen minutes ago, in her infernal caldron! I would know it at the other end of the world!";"Are you sure?" said Ormiston, glancing again with new curiosity at the marble face."I never saw anything half so beautiful in all my life; but you see she is dead of the plague.""Dead?she cannot be! Nothing so perfect could die!""Look there," said Ormiston pointing to the plague-spot."There is the fatal token! For Heaven's sake let us get out of this, or we will share the same fate before morning!"But Sir Norman did not move - could not move; he stood there rooted to the spot by the spell of that lovely, lifeless face.

Usually the plague left its victims hideous, ghastly, discolored, and covered with blotches; but in this case then was nothing to mar the perfect beauty of the satin-smooth skin, but that one dreadful mark.

There Sir Norman stood in his trance, as motionless as if some genii out of the "Arabian Nights" had suddenly turned him into stone (a trick they were much addicted to), and destined him to remain there an ornamental fixture for ever.Ormiston looked at him distractedly, uncertain whether to try moral suasion or to take him by the collar and drag him headlong down the stairs, when a providential but rather dismal circumstance came to his relief.A cart came rattling along the street, a bell was loudly rang, and a hoarse voice arose with it: "Bring out your dead!

Bring out your dead!"

Ormiston rushed down stair to intercept the dead-cart, already almost full on it way to the plague-pit.The driver stopped at his call, and instantly followed him up stairs, and into the room.Glancing at the body with the utmost sang-froid, he touched the dress, and indifferently remarked:

"A bride, I should say; and an uncommonly handsome one too.

We'll just take her along as she is, and strip these nice things off the body when we get it to the plague-pit."So saying, he wrapped her in the sheet, and directing Ormiston to take hold of the two lower ends, took the upper corners himself, with the air of a man quite used to that sort of thing.Ormiston recoiled from touching it; and Sir Norman seeing what they were about to do, and knowing there was no help for it, made up his mind, like a sensible young man as he was, to conceal his feelings, and caught hold of the sheet himself.In this fashion the dead bride was carried down stairs, and laid upon a shutter on the top of a pile of bodies in the dead-cart.

It was now almost dark, and as the cart started, the great clock of St.Paul's struck eight.St.Michael's, St Alban's, and the others took up the sound; and the two young men paused to listen.

For many weeks the sky had been clear, brilliant, and blue; but on this night dark clouds were scudding in wild unrest across it, and the air was oppressingly close and sultry.

Where are you going now?" said Ormiston."Are you for Whitehall's to night?""No!" said Sir Norman, rather dejectedly, turning to follow the pest-cart."I am for the plague-pit in Finsbury fields!""Nonsense, man!" exclaimed Ormiston, energetically, "what will take you there? You surely are not mad enough to follow the body of that dead girl?""I shall follow it! You can come or not, just as you please.""Oh! if you are determined, I will go with you, of course; but it is the craziest freak I ever heard of.After this, you need never laugh at me.""I never will," said Sir Norman, moodily; "for if you love a face you have never seen, I love one I have only looked on when dead.

Does it not seem sacrilege to throw any one so like an angel into that horrible plague-pit?""I never saw an angel," said Ormiston, as he and his friend started to go after the dead-cart."And I dare say there have been scores as beautiful as that poor girl thrown into the plague-pit before now.I wonder why the house has been deserted, and if she was really a bride.The bridegroom could not have loved her much, I fancy, or not even the pestilence could have scared him away.""But, Ormiston, what an extraordinary thing it is that it should be precisely the same face that the fortune-teller showed me.

There she was alive, and here she is dead; so I've lost all faith in La Masque for ever."Ormiston looked doubtful.