The Midnight Queen - Page 19/177

"There is the house," cried Ormiston, and both paused to take breath;

"and I am about at the last gasp. I wonder if your pretty mistress would

feel grateful if she knew what I have come through to-night for her

sweet sake?"

"There are no lights," mad Sir Norman, glancing anxiously up at the

darkened front of the house; "even the link before the door is unlit.

Surely she cannot be there."

"That remains to be seen, though I'm very doubtful about it myself. Ah I

who have we here?"

The door of the house in question opened, as he spoke, and a figure--a

man's figure, wearing a slouched hat and long, dark cloak, came slowly

out. He stopped before the house and looked at it long and earnestly;

and, by the twinkling light of the lamps, the friends saw enough of him

to know he was young and distinguished looking.

"I should not wonder in the least it that were the bridegroom,"

whispered Ormiston, maliciously.

Sir Norman turned pale with jealousy, and laid his hand on his sword,

with a quick and natural impulse to make the bride a widow forthwith.

But he checked the desire for an instant as the brigandish-looking

gentleman, after a prolonged stare at the premises, stepped up to the

watchman, who had given them their information an hour or two before,

and who was still at his post. The friends could not be seen, but they

could hear, and they did so very earnestly indeed.

"Can you tell me, my friend," began the cloaked unknown, "what has

become of the people residing in yonder house?"

The watchman, held his lamp up to the face of the interlocutor--a

handsome face by the way, what could be seen of it--and indulged himself

in a prolonged survey.

"Well!" said the gentleman, impatiently, "have you no tongue, fellow?

Where are they, I say?"

"Blessed if I know," said the watchman. "I, wasn't set here to keep

guard over them was I? It looks like it, though," said the man in

parenthesis; "for this makes twice to-night I've been asked questions

about it."

"Ah!" said the gentleman, with a slight start. "Who asked you before,

pray?"

"Two young gentlemen; lords, I expect, by their dress. Somebody ran

screaming out of the house, and they wanted to know what was wrong."

"Well?" said the stranger, breathlessly, "and then?"

"And then, as I couldn't tell them they went in to see for themselves,

and shortly after came out with a body wrapped in a sheet, which they

put in a pest-cart going by, and had it buried, I suppose, with the rest

in the plague-pit."

The stranger fairly staggered back, and caught at a pillar near for

support. For nearly ten minutes, he stood perfectly motionless, and

then, without a word, started up and walked rapidly away. The friends

looked after him curiously till he was out of eight.