第7章

"Are you quite sure it is the same, Kingsley?""Quite sure?" said Sir Norman, indignantly."Of course I am! Do you think I could be mistaken is such a case? I tell you I would know that face at Kamschatka or, the North Pole; for I don't believe there ever was such another created.""So be it, then! Your object, of course, in following that cart is, to take a last look at her?""Precisely so.Don't talk; I feel in no mood for it just at present."Ormiston smiled to himself, and did not talk, accordingly; and in silence the two friends followed the gloomy dead-cart.A faint young moon, pale and sickly, was struggling dimly through drifts of dark clouds, and lighted the lonesome, dreary streets with a wan, watery glimmer.For weeks, the weather had been brilliantly fine - the days all sunshine, the nights all moonlight; but now Ormiston, looking up at the troubled face of the sky, concluded mentally that the Lord Mayor had selected an unpropitious night for the grand illumination.Sir Norman, with his eyes on the pest-cart, and the long white figure therein, took no heed of anything in the heaven above or in the earth beneath, and strode along in dismal silence till they reached, at last, their journey's end.

As the cart stopped the two young men approached the edge of the plague-pit, and looked in with a shudder.Truly it was a horrible sight, that heaving, putrid sea of corruption; for the bodies of the miserable victims were thrown in in cartfuls, and only covered with a handful of earth and quicklime.Here and there, through the cracking and sinking surface, could be seen protruding a fair white arm, or a baby face, mingled with the long, dark tresses of maidens, the golden curls of children, and the white hairs of old age.The pestilential effluvia arising from the dreadful mass was so overpowering that both shrank back, faint and sick, after a moment's survey.It was indeed as Sir Norman had, said, a horrible grave wherein to lie.

Meantime the driver, with an eye to business, and no time for such nonsense as melancholy moralizing, had laid the body of the young girl on the ground, and briskly turned his cart and dumped the remainder of his load into the pit.Then, having flung a few handfuls of clay over it, he unwound the sheet, and kneeling beside the body, prepared to remove the jewels.The rays of the moon and his dark lantern fell on the lovely, snow-white face together, and Sir Norman groaned despairingly as he saw its death-cold rigidity.The man had stripped the rings off the fingers, the bracelets off the arms; but as he was about to perform the same operation toward the necklace, he was stopped by a startling interruption enough.In his haste, the clasp entered the beautiful neck, inflicting a deep scratch, from which the blood spouted; and at the same instant the dead girl opened her eyes with a shrill cry.Uttering a yell of terror, as well he might, the man sprang back and gazed at her with horror, believing that his sacrilegious robbery had brought the dead to life.Even the two young men-albeit, neither of them given to nervousness nor cowardice - recoiled for an instant, and stared aghast.Then, as the whole truth struck them, that the girl had been in a deep swoon and not dead, both simultaneously darted forward, and forgetting all fear of infection, knelt by her side.

A pair of great, lustrous black eyes were staring wildly around, and fixed themselves first on one face and then on the other.

"Where am I?" she exclaimed, with a terrified look, as she strove to raise herself on her elbow, and fell instantaneously back with a cry of agony, as she felt for the first time the throbbing anguish of the wound.

You are with friends, dear lady!" said Sir Norman, in a voice quite tremulous between astonishment and delight."Fear nothing, for you shall be saved."The great black eyes turned wildly upon him, while a fierce spasm convulsed the beautiful face.

"O, my God, I remember! I have the plague!" And, with a prolonged shriek of anguish, that thrilled even to the hardened heart of the dead-cart driver, the girl fell back senseless again.Sir Norman Kingsley sprang to his feet, and with more the air of a frantic lunatic than a responsible young English knight, caught the cold form in his arms, laid it in the dead-cart, and was about springing into the driver's seat, when that individual indignantly interposed.

"Come, now; none of that! If you were the king himself, you shouldn't run away with my cart in that fashion; so you just get out of my place as fast as you can!""My dear Kingsley, what are you about to do?" asked Ormiston, catching his excited friend by the arm.

"Do!" exclaimed Sir Norman, in a high key."Can't you see that for yourself! And I'm going to have that girl cured of the plague, if there is such a thing as a doctor to be had for love or money in London.""You had better have her taken to the pest house at once, then;there are chirurgeons and nurses enough there.""To the pest-house! Why man, I might as well have her thrown into the plague-pit there, at once! Not I! I shall have her taken to my own house, and there properly cared for, and this good fellow will drive her there instantly."Sir Norman backed this insinuation by putting a broad gold-piece into the driver's hand, which instantly produced a magical effect on his rather surly countenance.