The Midnight Queen [75]
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to be withdrawn.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!
CHAPTER XV.
LEOLINE'S VISITORS.
If things were done right - but they are not and, never will be,
while this whirligig world of mistakes spins round, and all
Adam's children, to the end of the chapter, will continue sinning
to-day and repenting tomorrow, falling the next and bewailing it
the day after. If Leoline had gone to bed directly, like a good,
dutiful little girl, as Sir Norman ordered her, she would have
saved herself a good deal of trouble and tears; but Leoline and
sleep were destined to shake hands and turn their backs on each
other that night. It was time for all honest folks to be in bed,
and the dark-eyed beauty knew it too, but she had no notion of
going, nevertheless. She stood in the centre of the room, where
he had left her, with a spot like a scarlet roseberry on either
cheek; a soft half-smile on the perfect mouth, and a light
unexpressibly tender and dreamy, in those artesian wells of
beauty - her eyes. Most young girls of green and tender years,
suffering from "Love's young dream," and that sort of thing, have
just that soft, shy, brooding look, whenever their thoughts
happen to turn to their particular beloved; and there are few
eyes so ugly that it does not beautify, even should they be as
cross as two sticks. You should have seen Leoline standing in
the centre of her pretty room, with her bright rose-satin
glancing and glittering, and flowing over rug and mat; with her
black waving hair clustering and curling like shining floss silk;
with a rich white shimmer of pearls on the pale smooth forehead
and large beautiful arms. She did look irresistibly bewitching
beyond doubt; and it was just as well for Sir Norman's peace of
mind that he did not see her, for he was bad enough without that.
So she stood thinking tenderly of him for a half-hour or so,
quite undisturbed by the storm; and how strange it was that she
had risen up that very morning expecting to be one man's bride,
and that she should rise up the next, expecting to be another's.
She could
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!
CHAPTER XV.
LEOLINE'S VISITORS.
If things were done right - but they are not and, never will be,
while this whirligig world of mistakes spins round, and all
Adam's children, to the end of the chapter, will continue sinning
to-day and repenting tomorrow, falling the next and bewailing it
the day after. If Leoline had gone to bed directly, like a good,
dutiful little girl, as Sir Norman ordered her, she would have
saved herself a good deal of trouble and tears; but Leoline and
sleep were destined to shake hands and turn their backs on each
other that night. It was time for all honest folks to be in bed,
and the dark-eyed beauty knew it too, but she had no notion of
going, nevertheless. She stood in the centre of the room, where
he had left her, with a spot like a scarlet roseberry on either
cheek; a soft half-smile on the perfect mouth, and a light
unexpressibly tender and dreamy, in those artesian wells of
beauty - her eyes. Most young girls of green and tender years,
suffering from "Love's young dream," and that sort of thing, have
just that soft, shy, brooding look, whenever their thoughts
happen to turn to their particular beloved; and there are few
eyes so ugly that it does not beautify, even should they be as
cross as two sticks. You should have seen Leoline standing in
the centre of her pretty room, with her bright rose-satin
glancing and glittering, and flowing over rug and mat; with her
black waving hair clustering and curling like shining floss silk;
with a rich white shimmer of pearls on the pale smooth forehead
and large beautiful arms. She did look irresistibly bewitching
beyond doubt; and it was just as well for Sir Norman's peace of
mind that he did not see her, for he was bad enough without that.
So she stood thinking tenderly of him for a half-hour or so,
quite undisturbed by the storm; and how strange it was that she
had risen up that very morning expecting to be one man's bride,
and that she should rise up the next, expecting to be another's.
She could