"Oh, God!—Oh, God!" cried Elvira in the bitterest agony: "what will become of me? where is Edmund! Let me fly to implore him to spare the prince!"
"It does not appear to me," said Cheops still more calmly, "that your endeavours to preserve him are at all likely to produce the effect you wish; for, as Lord Edmund already believes you love the prince, and as that belief is the reason of his hatred, your showing a violent anxiety for his welfare does not appear to me exactly the mode most calculated to destroy his suspicions."
"True! true!" cried Elvira, wringing her hands. "Alas! alas! what will become of me?" whilst, as she spoke, a piercing cry rang in her ears, and a sudden rush of all the persons in the gardens took place towards one particular spot. Scarcely knowing what she did, Elvira followed the crowd, and shrieked with indescribable terror as she heard the clashing of swords. Pale and trembling, she hurried forward, and arrived just as Prince Ferdinand, uttering a deep groan, fell beneath the sword of Lord Edmund. Elvira screamed, and throwing herself upon the body, endeavoured in vain to revive it, quite forgetting in the excess of her agitation the crowd that surrounded her, and the interpretation that might be put upon her behaviour. One sole idea occupied her mind, and chilled it with horror: it was, that her imprudence had most probably deprived a fellow-creature of existence.
Lord Edmund in the mean time stood in statue-like insensibility, gazing upon her with feelings of unutterable anguish. Her grief, her violent emotion, seemed to confirm the passion she had avowed; and if she loved, his exertions had only paved the way for the success of his rival. The thought was madness. Lord Edmund gnashed his teeth, his countenance changed, blood gushed in torrents from his side, for he too was wounded, and he leant fainting against a tree.
The confusion that now prevailed was indescribable. It was high treason to draw a sword in the precincts of the royal palace; and the guards, who were instantly assembled, took the offenders into custody. They were both incapable of offering any resistance, and they were hurried away to prison amidst the exclamations of the mob. Elvira had fainted, and she was carried back to the palace; whilst the whispered speculations of the crowd, upon the strangeness of the scene, arose in half-stifled murmurs like the distant roar of ocean. The attention of the spectators, however, was soon fixed upon the poor old Duke of Cornwall. He had stood bending forwards—his hands clasped, and his eyes riveted upon his daughter during the whole of her ineffectual attempts to revive the prince. The old man seemed turned to stone: he neither moved, nor spoke; his glassy eyes were set, and his livid lips slightly quivered; at last he uttered a faint groan, and fell senseless into the arms of his attendants in a fit of apoplexy. The spectators thought him dead, and fancied his heart had broken, on discovering this unexpected weakness on the part of his adored daughter.
Every one was powerfully affected, and every one seemed bursting to speak; though no one knew exactly what he might venture to say. Lord Gustavus looked stern, Lord Maysworth important, and Dr. Hardman sly; whilst the Lords Noodle and Doodle shook their little heads, till they seemed in imminent danger of becoming separated from their bodies. Rosabella's heart alone swelled with rapture, and her eyes beamed with ill-concealed triumph.
"The Mummy was right," thought she;—"Elvira must fall, and Edmund will be mine."
[CHAPTER XXVII.]
The evening of the day on which Prince Ferdinand and Lord Edmund were committed to prison, Sir Ambrose, as he was writing in his study, was startled by a loud scream; and flying to the spot from whence it proceeded, he found Clara lying upon the ground insensible, whilst Abelard was stooping over her, and endeavouring to render her some assistance.