"Let him come," he said, with his countenance still distorted by inward
merriment; "It will do him good to see how we punish offenders here, and
teach him what he is to expect himself. Is your majesty ready?"
"My majesty has been ready and waiting for the last five minutes,"
replied the lady, over-looking his proffered hand with grand disdain,
and stepping lightly down from her throne.
Her rising was the signal for the unseen band to strike up a grand
triumphant "Io paean," though, had the "Rogue's March" been a popular
melody in those times, it would have suited the procession much more
admirably. The queen and the dwarf went first, and a vivid contrast they
were--she so young, so beautiful, so proud, so disdainfully cold; he so
ugly, so stunted, so deformed, so fiendish. After them went the band of
sylphs in white, then the chancellor, archbishop, and embassadors; next
the whole court of ladies and gentlemen; and after them Sir Norman, in
the custody of two of the soldiers. The condemned earl came last, or
rather allowed himself to be dragged by his four guards; for he seemed
to have become perfectly palsied and dumb with fear. Keeping time to the
triumphant march, and preserving dismal silence, the procession wound
its way along the room and through a great archway heretofore hidden
by the tapestry now lifted lightly by the nymphs. A long stone passage,
carpeted with crimson and gold, and brilliantly illuminated like
the grand saloon they had left, was thus revealed, and three similar
archways appeared at the extremity, one to the right and left, and one
directly before them. The procession passed through the one to the left,
and Sir Norman started in dismay to find himself in the most gloomy
apartment he had ever beheld in his life. It was all covered with
black--walls, ceiling, and floor were draped in black, and reminded
him forcibly of La Masque's chamber of horrors, only this was more
repellant. It was lighted, or rather the gloom was troubled, by a
few spectral tapers of black wax in ebony candlesticks, that seemed
absolutely to turn black, and make the horrible place more horrible.
There was no furniture--neither couch, chair, nor table nothing but a
sort of stage at the upper end of the room, with something that looked
like a seat upon it, and both were shrouded with the same dismal
drapery. But it was no seat; for everybody stood, arranging themselves
silently and noiselessly around the walls, with the queen and the dwarf
at their head, and near this elevation stood a tall, black statue,
wearing a mask, and leaning on a bright, dreadful, glittering axe. The
music changed to an unearthly dirge, so weird and blood-curdling, that
Sir Norman could have put his hands over his ear-drums to shut out the
ghastly sound. The dismal room, the voiceless spectators, the black
spectre with the glittering axe, the fearful music, struck a chill to
his inmost heart.