"Oh, that I were strong enough to wield a sword!" was her fierce
aspiration every instant; "if I could only mix in that battle for five
minutes, I could die with a happy heart!"
Had she been able to wield a sword for five minutes, according to her
wish, she would probably have wielded it from beginning to end of the
battle; for it did not last much longer than that. The robbers fought
with fury and ferocity; but they had been taken by surprise, and were
overpowered by numbers, and obliged to yield.
The crimson court was indeed crimson now; for the velvet carpeting was
dyed a more terrible red, and was slippery with a rain of blood! A score
of dead and dying lay groaning on the ground; and the rest, beaten and
bloody, gave up their swords and surrendered.
"You should have done this at first!" said the count, coolly wiping his
blood-stained weapon, end replacing it in its sheath; "and, by so doing,
saved some time and more bloodshed. Where are all the fair ladies,
Kingsley, I saw here when we entered first?"
"They fled like a flock of frightened deer," said Hubert, taking it upon
himself to answer, "through yonder archway when the fight commenced. I
will go in search of them if you like."
"I am rather at a loss what to do with them," said the count,
half-laughing. "It would be a pity to bring such a cavalcade of pretty
women into the city to die of the plague. Can you suggest nothing, Sir
Norman?"
"Nothing, but to leave then here to take care of themselves, or let them
go free."
"They would be a great addition to the court at Whitehall," suggested
Hubert, in his prettiest tone, "and a thousand times handsomer than
half the damsels therein. There, for instance, is one a dozen timer more
beautiful than Mistress Stuart herself!"
Leaning, in his nonchalant way, on the hilt of his sword, he pointed to
Miranda, whose fiercely-joyful eyes were fixed w with a glance that made
the three of them shudder, on the bloody floor and the heap of slain.
"Who is that?" asked the count, curiously. "Why is she perched up there,
and why does she bear such an extraordinary resemblance to Leoline? Do
you know anything about her, Kingsley?"
"I know she is the wife of that unlovely little man, whose howls in
yonder passage you can hear, if you listen, and that she was the queen
of this midnight court, and is wounded, if not dying, now!"
"I never saw such fierce eyes before in a female head! One would think
she fairly exulted in this wholesale slaughter of her subjects."
"So she does; and she hates both her husband and her subjects, with an
intensity you cannot conceive."