The Midnight Queen [99]
The starved apothecary looked at him out of a pair of hollow,
melancholy eyes.
"Gold can do anything," was his plaintive reply.
"I understand. You shall have it. Are you sure you can do
nothing more for him?"
"Nothing whatever, sir; and excuse me, but there are customers in
the shop, and I must leave, sir."
Which he did, accordingly; and Sir Norman was left alone with all
that remained of him who, two hours before, was his warm friend.
He could scarcely believe that it was the calm majesty of death
that so changed the expression of that white face, and yet, the
longer he looked, the more deeply an inward conviction assured
him that it was so. He chafed the chilling hands and face, he
applied hartshorn and burnt feathers to the nostrils, but all
these applications, though excellent in their way, could not
exactly raise the dead to life, and, in this case, proved a
signal, failure. He gave up his doctoring, at last, in despair,
and folding his arms, looked down at what lay on the table, and
tried to convince himself that it was Ormiston. So absorbed was
he in the endeavor, that he heeded not the passing moments, until
it struck him with a shock that Hubert might even now be waiting
for him at the trysting-place, with news of Leoline. Love is
stronger than friendship, stronger than grief, stronger than
death, stronger than every other feeling in the world; so he
suddenly seized his bat, turned his back on Ormiston and the
apothecary's shop, and strode oft to the place he had quitted.
No Hubert was there, but two figures were passing slowly along in
the moonlight, and one of them he recognized, with an impulse to
spring at him like a tiger and strangle him. But he had been so
shocked and subdued by his recent discovery, that the impulse
which, half an hour before, would have been unhesitatingly
obeyed, went for nothing, now; and there was more of reproach,
even, than anger in his voice, as he went over and laid his hand
on the shoulder of one of them.
"Stay!" he said. "One word with you, Count L'Estrange. What
have you done with Leoline!"
"Ah! Sir Norman, as I live!" cried the count wheeling round and
lifting his hat. "Give me good even - or rather, good morning -
Kingsley, for St. Paul's has long gone the midnight hour."
Sir Norman, with his hand still on his shoulder, returned not the
courtesy, and regarding the gallant count with a stern eye.
"Where is Leoline?" he frigidly repeated.
"Really," said the count, with some embarrassment,"you attack me
so unexpectedly, and so like a ghost or a highwayman - by the way
I have a word to say to you about highwaymen, and was seeking you
to say it."
"Where is Leoline?" shouted the exasperated young knight,
releasing his shoulder, and clutching him by the throat. "Tell
me or, by Heaven! I'll pitch you neck and heels into the Thames!"
Instantly the sword of the count's companion flashed in the
moonlight, and, in two seconds more, its blue blade would have
ended the earthly career of Sir Norman Kingsley, had not the
count quickly sprang back, and made a motion for his companion to
hold.
"Wait!" he cried, commandingly, with his arm outstretched to
each. "Keep off! George, sheathe your sword and stand aside.
Sir Norman Kingsley, one word with you, and be it in peace."
"There can be no peace between us," replied that aggravated young
gentleman, fiercely "until you tell me what has become of
Leoline."
"All in good time. We have a listener, and does it mot strike
you our conference should be private!"
"Public or private, it matters not a jot, so that you tell me
what you've done with Leoline," replied Sir Norman, with whom it
was evident getting beyond this question was a moral and physical
impossibility. "And if you do not give an account of yourself,
I'll run you through as sure as your name is Count L'Estrange!"