Chuckling softly at their success in having thus far eluded the palace watch, the thieves now pressed open a little window and crawled into the tower of jewels. Hurrying as fast as ever she could, Miranda ran to wake the yeomen of the guard.
Suddenly there was a great outcry, a light appeared in a window, there were shouts and a clash of arms, and the thieves came tumbling out of the window with the moonstone and vanished, all three, into the starry dark. A moment later flaming torches moved amid the trees, a throng of men-at-arms poured into the gardens, and Miranda found herself a prisoner.
Accused of having harbored the thieves and of having had a hand in the robbery, the maiden of the inn was the next morning brought to trial. Shaken to the heart, yet protesting her innocence to the last, the poor maiden made but a confused defense, and presently was condemned to suffer the sternest judgment of the law.
When this was pronounced, however, the friends and neighbors who loved Miranda made such a tumult in the court that the judgment was altered, and Miranda was sentenced to be carried in the gaoler’s cart into the very depths of the great wildwood, and there abandoned to live or perish as she might.
And now it was twilight, a golden harvest twilight; and Miranda, standing with her hands tied behind her by the wrists and her head bowed low, was drawn in a two-wheeled cart through the darkening streets of the glass city, and carried far out into the pathless regions of the wildwood. Once there, the gaoler—who pitied her—loosed her from her bonds, gave her a crust of prison bread, and drove away. Fainter and fainter grew the noise of the homeward-faring cart.
The night was moonless, the stars were bright, and a wild wind from some far waste of the world was roaring through the trees, now dying away to a faint and vagrant murmur, now rising to a great wailing rustling cry that arose and broke and ebbed like a wave of the sea. And the swaying branches tossed their clots of darkness against the stars, whilst underfoot so dark it lay that naught was to be seen.
For some moments the unhappy maiden, trembling with dread, stood motionless in the dark of the wildwood. Strange sounds drifted to her ears—the moan of rival branches, the laughter of running water, and the far cry of some hunter of the night. Suddenly she felt herself grow icy cold, and her eyes closing, she sank to the earth and knew no more.
Meanwhile, that very eve, in the distant city, the squire’s son was riding joyously to the inn. Presently he reached his long-awaited goal, and to his great surprise found the windows darkened and the doorway sealed and barred. Seeing him thus wandering about, a neighboring goodwife came forth from her dwelling, and told him, with tears in her eyes, the cruel fate of the good Miranda.
“Oh, wicked judgment!” cried the youth. “Quick—tell me whither in the wildwood have they taken her; for I must find her, come what may!”