"To-morrow," he said, as he turned to go. "Who knows what to-morrow may

bring forth! Fairest and dearest Leoline, goodnight!"

He rode away in the moonlight, with the stars shining peacefully down

upon him. His heart at the moment was a divided one--one half being

given to Leoline, and the other to the Midnight Queen and her mysterious

court. The farther he went away from Leoline, the dimmer her star became

in the horizon of his thoughts; and the nearer he came to Miranda, the

brighter and more eagerly she loomed up, until he spurred his horse to

a most furious gallop, lest he should find the castle and the queen lost

in the regions of space when he got there. Once the plague-stricken city

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lay behind him, his journey was short; and soon, to his great delight,

he turned into the silent deserted by-path leading to the ruin.

Tying his horse to a stake in the crumbling wall, he paused for a moment

to look at it in the pale, wan light of the midnight moon. He had looked

at it many a time before, but never with the same interest as now;

and the ruined battlements, the fallen roof, the broken windows, and

mouldering sides, had all a new and weird interest for him. No one was

visible far or near; and feeling that his horse was secure in the shadow

of the wall, he entered, and walked lightly and rapidly along in

the direction of the spiral staircase. With more haste, but the same

precaution, he descended, and passed through the vaults to where he knew

the loose flag-stone was. It was well he did know; for there was neither

strain of music nor ray of light to guide him now; and his heart sank

to zero as he thought he might raise the stone and discover nothing.

His hand positively trembled with eagerness as he lifted it; and with

unbounded delight, not to be described, looked down on the same titled

assembly he had watched before. But there had been a change since--half

the lights were extinguished, and the great vaulted room was

comparatively in shadow--the music had entirely died away and all was

solemnly silent. But what puzzled Sir Norman most of all was, the fact

that there seemed to be a trial of acme sort going on.

A long table, covered with green velvet, and looking not unlike a modern

billiard table, stood at the right of the queen's crimson throne; and

behind it, perched in a high chair, and wearing a long, solemn, black

robe, sat a small, thick personage, whose skin Sir Norman would have

known on a bush. He glanced at the lower throne and found it as he

expected, empty; and he saw at once that his little highness was not

only prince consort, but also supreme judge in the kingdom. Two or three

similar black-robed gentry, among whom was recognizable the noble duke

who so narrowly escaped with his life under the swords of Sir Norman

and Count L'Estrange. Before this solemn conclave stood a man who was

evidently the prisoner under trial, and who wore the whitest and most

frightened face Sir Norman thought he had ever beheld. The queen was

lounging negligently back on her throne, paying very little attention

to the solemn rites, occasionally gossiping with some of the snow-white

sylphs beside her, and often yawning behind her pretty finger-tips, and

evidently very much bored by it all.




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