“Bah!” she said, scornfully. “Do not mock me here. My majesty, forsooth! you have but fifteen minutes to live in this world, Sir Norman; and if you have no better way of spending them, I will tell you a strange story—my own, and all about this place.”
“Madame, there is nothing in the world I would like so much to hear.”
“You shall hear it, then, and it may beguile the last slow moments of time before you go out into eternity.”
She set her lamp down on the floor among the rats and beetles, and stood watching the small, red flame a moment with a gloomy, downcast eye; and Sir Norman, gazing on the beautiful darkening face, so like and yet so unlike Leoline, stood eagerly awaiting what was to come.
Meantime, the half-hour sped. In the crimson court the last trial was over, and Lady Castlemaine, a slender little beauty of eighteen stood condemned to die.
“Now for our other prisoner!” exclaimed the dwarf with sprightly animation; “and while I go to the cell, you, fair ladies, and you my lord, will seek the black chamber and await our coming there.”
Ordering one of his attendants to precede him with a light, the dwarf skipped jauntily away, to gloat over his victim. He reached the dungeon door, which the guards, with some trepidation in their countenance, as they thought of what his highness would say when he found her majesty locked in with the prisoner, threw open.
“Come forth, Sir Norman Kingsley!” shouted the dwarf, rushing in. “Come forth and meet your doom!”
But no Sir Norman Kingsley obeyed the pleasant invitation, and a dull echo from the darkness alone answered him. There was a lamp burning on the floor, and near it lay a form, shining and specked with white in the gloom. He made for it between fear and fury, but there was something red and slippery on the ground, in which his foot slipped, and he fell. Simultaneously there was a wild cry from the two guards and the attendant, that was echoed by a perfect screech of rage from the dwarf, as on looking down he beheld Queen Miranda lying on the floor in the pool of blood, and apparently quite dead, and Sir Norman Kingsley gone.