"Ah, that story! How am I to tell it, I wonder, two words will comprise it all--sin and misery--misery and sin! For, buried alive here, as I am--buried alive, as I've always been--I know what both words mean; they have been branded on heart and brain in letters of fire. And that horrible monstrosity is the cause of all--that loathsome, misshapen, hideous abortion has banned and cursed my whole life! He is my first recollection. As far back as I can look through the dim eye of childhood's years, that horrible face, that gnarled and twisted trunk, those devilish eyes glare at me like the eyes and face of a wild beast.

As memory grows stronger and more vivid, I can see that same face still--the dwarf! the dwarf! the dwarf!--Satan's true representative on earth, darkening and blighting ever pa.s.sing year. I do not know where we lived, but I imagine it to have been one of the vilest and lowest dens in London, though the rooms I occupied were, for that matter, decent and orderly enough. Those rooms the daylight never entered, the windows were boarded up within, and fastened by shutters without, so that of the world beyond I was as ignorant as a child of two hours old. I saw but two human faces, his"--she seemed to hate him too much even to p.r.o.nounce his name--"and his housekeeper's, a creature almost as vile as himself, and who is now a servant here; and with this precious pair to guard me I grew up to be fifteen years old. My outer life consisted of eating, sleeping, reading--for the wretch taught me to read--playing with my dogs and birds, and listening to old Margery's stories. But there was an inward life, fierce and strong, as it was rank and morbid, lived and brooded over alone, when Margery and her master fancied me sleeping in idiotic content. How were they to know that the creature they had reared and made ever had a thought of her own--ever wondered who she was, where she came from, what she was destined to be, and what lay in the great world beyond? The crooked little monster made a great mistake in teaching me to read, he should have known that books sow seed that grow up and flourish tall and green, till they become giants in strength.

I knew enough to be certain there was a bright and glad world without, from which they shut me in and debarred me; and I knew enough to hate them both for it, with a strong and heartfelt hatred, only second to what I feel now."

She stopped for a moment, and fixed her dark, gloomy eyes on the swarming floor, and shook off, with out a shudder, the hideous things that crawled over her rich dress. She had scarcely looked at Sir Norman since she began to speak, but he had done enough looking for them both, never once taking his eyes from the handsome darkening face. He thought how strangely like her story was to Leoline's--both shut in and isolated from the outer world. Verily, destiny seemed to have woven the woof and warp of their fates wonderfully together, for their lives were as much the same as their faces. Miranda, having shook off her crawling acquaintances, watched them glancing along the foul floor in the darkness, and went moodily on.

"It was three years ago when I was fifteen years old, as I told you, that a change took place in my life. Up to that time, that miserable dwarf was what people would call my guardian, and did not trouble me much with his heavenly company. He was a great deal from our house, sometimes absent for weeks together; and I remember I used to envy the freedom with which he came and went, far more than I ever wondered where he spent his precious time. I did not know then that he belonged to the honorable profession of highwaymen, with variations of coining when travelers were few and money scarce. He was then, and is still, at the head of a formidable gang, over whom he wields most desperate authority--as perhaps you have noticed during the brief and pleasant period of your acquaintance."

"Really, madam, it struck me that your authority over them was much more despotic than his," said Sir Norman, in all sincerity, feeling called upon to give the--well, I'd rather not repeat the word, which is generally spelled with a d and a dash--his due.

"No thanks to him for that! He would make me a slave now, as he did then, if he dared, but he has found that, poor, trodden worm as I was, I had life enough left to turn and sting."

"Which you do with a vengeance! Oh! you're a Tartar!" remarked Sir Norman to himself. "The saints forefend that Leoline should be like you in temper, as she is in history and face; for if she is, my life promises to be a pleasant one."

"This rascally crew of cut-throats, whom his villainous highness headed," said Miranda, "were an almost immense number then, being divided in three bodies--London cut-purses, Hounslow Heath highwaymen, and a.s.sistant-coiners, but all owning him for their lord and master.

He told me all this himself, one day when, in an after-dinner and most gracious mood, he made a boasting display of his wealth and greatness; told me I was growing up very pretty indeed, and that I was shortly to be raised to the honor and dignity, and bliss of being his wife.

"I fancy I must have had a very vague idea of what that one small word meant, and was besides in an unusually contented and peaceful state of mind, or I should, undoubtedly, have raised one of his cut-gla.s.s decanters and smashed in his head with it. I know how I should receive such an a.s.sertion from him now, but I think I took it then with a resignation, he must have found mighty edifying; and when he went on to tell me that all this richness and greatness were to be shared by me when that celestial time came, I think I rather liked the idea than otherwise. The horrible creature seemed to have woke up that day, for the first time, and all of a sudden, to a conviction that I was in a fair way to become a woman, and rather a handsome one, and that he had better make sure of me before any accident interfered to take me from him. Full of this laudable notion, he became a daily visitor of mine from thenceforth, and made the discovery, simultaneously with myself, that the oftener he came the less favor he found in my sight. I had, before, tacitly disliked him, and shrank with a natural repulsion from his dreadful ugliness; but now, from negative dislike, I grew to positive hate. The utter loathing and abhorrence I have had for him ever since, began then--I grew dimly and intuitively conscious of what he would make me, and shrank from my fate with a vague horror not to be told in words. I became strong in my fearful dread of it. I told him I detested, abhorred, loathed, hated him; that he might keep his riches, greatness, and ungainly self for those who wanted him; they were temptations too weak to move me.

"Of course, there was raving, and storming, threatening, terrible looks and denunciations, and I quailed and shrank like a coward, but was obstinate still. Then as a dernier resort, he tried another bribe--the glorious one of liberty, the one he knew would conquer me, and it did.

He promised me freedom--if I married him, I might go out into the great unknown world, fetterless and free; and I, O! fool that I was!

consented. Not that my object was to stay with him one instant longer her my prison doors were opened; no, I was not quite so besotted as that--once out, and the little demon might look for me with last year's partridges. Of course, those demoniac eyes read my heart like an open book; and when I p.r.o.nounced the fatal 'yes,' he laughed in that delightful way of his own, which will probably be the last thing you will hear when you lay your head under the axe.

"I don't know who the clergyman who married us was; but he was a clergyman: there can be no doubt about that. It was three days after, and for the first time in my fifteen years of life, I stood in sunshine, and daylight, and open air. We drove to the cathedral--for it was in St.

Paul's the sacrilege was committed. I never could have walked there, I was so stunned, and giddy, and bewildered. I never thought of the marriage--I could think of nothing but the bright, crashing, sun-shiny world without, till I was led up before the clergyman, with much the air, I suppose, of one walking in her sleep. He was a very young man, I remember, and looked from the dwarf to me, and from me to the dwarf, in a great state of fear and uncertainty, but evidently not daring to refuse. Margery and one of his gang were our only attendants, and there, in G.o.d's temple, the deed was done, and I was made the miserable thing I am to-day."

The suppressed pa.s.sion, rising and throbbing like a white flame in her face and eyes, made her stop for a moment, breathing hard. Looking up she met Sir Norman's gaze, and as if there was something in its quiet, pitying tenderness that mesmerized her into calm, she steadily and rapidly went on.

"I awoke to a new life, after that; but not to one of freedom and happiness. I was as closely, even more closely, guarded than ever; and I found, when too late, that I had bartered myself, soul and body, for an empty promise. The only difference was, that I saw more new faces; for the dwarf began to bring his confederates and subordinates to the house, and would have me dressed up and displayed to them, with a demoniac pride that revolted me beyond everything else, if I were a painted puppet or an overgrown wax doll. Most of the precious crew of scoundrels had wives of their own and these began to be brought with them of an evening; and then, what with dancing, and music, and cards, and feasting, we had quite a carnival of it till morning.

"I liked this part of the business excessively well at first, and I was flattered and fooled to the top of my bent, and made from the first, the reigning belle and queen. There was more policy in that than admiration, I fancy; for the dwarf was all-powerful among them and dreaded accordingly, and I was the dwarf's pet and plaything, and all-powerful with him. The hideous creature had a most hideous pa.s.sion for me then, and I could wind him round my finger as easily as Delilah and Samson; and by his command and their universal consent, the mimicry of royalty was begun, and I was made mistress and sovereign head, even over the dwarf himself. It was a queer whim; but that crooked slug was always taking such odd notions into his head, which n.o.body there dared laugh at. The band were bound together by a terrible oath, women and all; but they had to take another oath then, that of allegiance to me.

"It quite turned my brain at first; and my eyes were so dazzled by the pitiful glistening of the pageant, the sham splendor of the sham court, and the half-mocking, half-serious homage paid me, that I could see nothing beyond the shining surface, and the blackness, and corruption, and horror within, were altogether lost upon me. This feeling increased when, as months and months went by, they were added to the mock peers of the Midnight Court, real n.o.bles from that of St. Charles. I did not know then that they were ruined gamesters, vicious profligates, and desperate broken-down roues, who would have gone to pandemonium itself, nightly, for the mad license and lawless excesses they could indulge in here to their heart's content. But I got tired of it all, after a time: my eyes began slowly to open, and my heart--at least, what little of that article I ever had--turned sick with horror within me at what I had done. The awful things I saw, the fearful deeds that were perpetrated, would curdle your very blood with horror, were I to relate them. You have seen a specimen yourself, in the cold-blooded murder of that wretch half an hour ago; and his is not the only life crying for vengeance on these men. The slightest violation of their oath was punished, and the doom of traitors and informers was instant death, whether male or female. The sham trials and executions always took place in presence of the whole court, to strike a salutary terror into them, and never occurred but once a week, when the whole band regularly met. My power continued undiminished; for they knew either the dwarf or I must be supreme; and though the queen was bad, the prince was worse. The said prince would willingly have pulled me down from my eminence, and have mounted it himself; but that he was probably restrained by a feeling that law-makers should not be law-breakers, and that, if he set the example, there would be no end to the insubordination and rebellion that would follow."

"Were you living here or in London then?" inquired Sir Norman, taking an advantage of a pause, employed by Miranda in shaking off the crawling beetles.

"Oh, in London! We did not come here until the outbreak of the plague--that frightened them, especially the female portion, and they held a scared meeting, and resolved that we should take up our quarters somewhere else. This place being old and ruined, and deserted and with all sorts of evil rumors hanging about it, was. .h.i.t upon; and secretly, by night, these mouldering old vaults were fitted up, and the goods and chattels of the royal court removed. And here I, too, was brought by night under the dwarf's own eye; for he well knew I would have risked a thousand plagues to escape from him. And here I have been ever since, and here the weekly revels are still held, and may for years to come, unless something is done to-night to prevent it.

"The night before these weekly anniversaries they all gather; but during the rest of the time I am alone with Margery and the dwarf, and have learned more secrets about this place than they dream of. For the rest, there is little need of explanation--the dwarf and his crew have industriously circulated the rumor that it is haunted; and some of those white figures you saw with me, and who, by the way, are the daughters of these robbers, have been shown on the broken battlements, as if to put the fact beyond doubt.

"Now, Sir Norman, that is all--you have heard my whole history as far as I know it; and nothing remains but to tell you what you must see yourself, that I am mad for revenge, and must have it, and you must help me!"

Her eyes were shining with the fierce red fire he had seen in them before, and the white face wore a look so deadly and diabolical that, with all its beauty, it was absolutely repulsive. He took a step from her-for in each of those gleaming eyes sat a devil.

"You must help me!" she persisted. "You--you, Sir Norman! For many a day I have been waiting for a chance like this, and until now I have waited in vain. Alone, I want physical strength to kill him, and I dare not trust any one else. No one was ever cast among us before as you have been; and now, condemned to die, you must be desperate, and desperate men will do desperate things. Fate, Destiny, Providence--whatever you like--has thrown you in my way, and help me you must and shall!"

"Madame, madame I what are you saying? How can I help you?"

"There is but one way--this!"

She held up in the pale ray of the lamp, something she drew from the folds of her dress, that glistened blue, and bright, and steelly in the gloom.

"A dagger!" he exclaimed, with a shudder, and a recoil. "Madame, are you talking of murder?"

"I told you!" she said, through her closed teeth, and with her eyes flaming like fire, "that ridding the earth of that fiend incarnate would be a good deed, and no murder! I would do it myself if I could take him off his guard; but he never is that with me; and then my arm is not strong enough to reach his black heart through all that ma.s.s of brawn, and blood, and muscle. No, Sir Norman, Doom has allotted it to you--obey, and I swear to you, you shall go free; refuse--and in ten minutes your head will roll under the executioner's axe!"

"Better that than the freedom you offer! Madame, I cannot murder!"

"Coward!" she pa.s.sionately cried; "you fear to do it, and yet you have but a life to lose, and that is lost to you now!"

Sir Norman raised his head; and even in the darkness she saw the haughty flush that crimsoned his face.

"I fear no man living; but, madame, I fear One who is higher than man!"

"But you will die if you refuse; and I repeat, again and again, there is no risk. These guards will not let you out; but there are more ways of leaving a room than through the door, and I can lead you up behind the tapestry to where he is standing, and you can stab him through the back, and escape with me! Quick, quick, there is no time to lose!"

"I cannot do it!" he said, resolutely, drawing back and folding his arms. "In short, I will not do it!"

There was such a terrible look in the beautiful eyes, that he half expected to see her spring at him like a wild cat, and bury the dagger in his own breast. But the rule of life works by contraries: expect a blow and you will get a kiss, look for an embrace, and you will be startled by a kick. When the virago spoke, her voice was calm, compared with what it had been before, even mild.

"You refuse! Well, a willful man must have him way; and since you are so qualmish about a little bloodletting, we must try another plan. If I release you--for short as the time is, I can do it--will you promise me to go direct to the king this very night, and inform him of all you've seen and heard here?"

She looked at him with an eagerness that was almost fierce; and in spite of her steady voice, there was something throbbing and quivering, deadly and terrible, in her upturned face. The form she looked at was erect and immovable, the eyes were quietly resolved, the mouth half-pityingly, half-sadly smiling.

"Are you aware, dear lady, what the result of such a step would be?"

"Death!" she said, coldly.

"Death, transportation, or life-long imprisonment to them all--misery and disgrace to many a n.o.ble house; for some I saw there were once friends of mine, with families I honor and respect. Could I bring the dwarf and his attendant imps to Tyburn, and treat them to a hempen cravat, I would do it without remorse--though the notion of being informer, even then, would not be very pleasant; but as it is, I cannot be the death of one without ruining all, and as I told you, some of those were once my friends. No, madame, I cannot do it. I have but once to die and I prefer death here, to purchasing life at such a price."

There was a short silence, during which they gazed into each other's eyes ominously, and one was about as colorless as the other.

"You refuse?" she coldly said.

"I must! But if you can save my life, as you say, why not do it, and fly with me? You will find me the truest and most grateful of friends, while life remains."

"You are very kind; but I want no friendship, Sir Norman--nothing but revenge! As to escaping, I could have done that any time since we came here, for I have found out a secret means of exit from each of these vaults, that they know nothing of. But I have staid to see him dead at my feet--if not by my hand, at least by my command; and since you will not do it, I will make the attempt myself. Farewell, Sir Norman Kingsley; before many minutes you will be a corpse, and your blood be upon yourself!"

She gave him a glance as coldly fierce as her dagger's glance, and turned to go, when he stepped hastily forward, and interposed:

"Miranda--Miranda--you are crazed! Stop and tell me what you intend to do."

"What you feared to attempt," she haughtily replied; "Sheathe this dagger in his demon heart!"

"Miranda, give me the dagger. You must not, you shall not, commit such a crime!"

"Shall not?" she uttered scornfully. "And who are you that dares to speak to me like this? Stand aside, coward, and let me pa.s.s!"

"Pardon me, but I cannot, while you hold that dagger. Give it to me, and you shall go free; but while you hold it with this intention, for your own sake, I will detain you till some one comes."