The Mysteries of the Court of London, Vol. 7 — page 367: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

[ane = > 7 a+ fw ee TAD SSE GERGANA a —T E = — ane a aa ta a -e- e Ope gee ny ae eo pre a ET oo ES SR i eR am a Ce rrene neem. apter, san ar haughtily spurning the barc idea, “ My interests in any way common with your own?’ « “J will soon make it apparent,” answered Madame Angelique, “ Listen attentively. The Lady Indora bas already bogun to wreak her ven- geance upon me—it matters not how—but [ have the positive proof that it is eo:”—and she shud- dered as she thought of Mr. Shadbolt. “This being the case, there can be no doubt that the Lady Indora ql! go on persecuting me; and even if she be desirous te remain in the background, she can induce Miss Ashton to take legal pro- reedings of a very serious character against me.” “ And in what does all this concorn mor" asked Baguonah, with scornful impatience. “ Because I have consented to listen to you on furmer occas sions—to aid your projects~and even to appear to become the instrument for carrying out your views, think you that I will any more miz myself up with the concerns of one whose artifices are so clumsily arranged that they invariably fail? Look at your poltroon Duke who feared to seize upon the golden opportunity—look at your own scheme of last night, which the merost accident—e col- lision ot vehicles—served to baffle! No—I will have naught more to do with you or your con- cerns, until you show yourself worthy of my com plicity by removing this girl Ashton from within the walls of the villa.” “I will speedily convince you, Sagoopah,” re- sumed Madame Angelique, who had listened with the utmost impatience to that long speech which was coldly but disdainfully uttered,—"“I will speedily convince you that your interesta are more intimately wrapped up in mine than you appear to imagine. What if the Lady Indora continues her persecutions against me—what if in the course of a fow days, when the legal machinery is set in motion, she banda me over to the grasp of justice ———~think you that in order to let myself down as lightly as possible, I would not tell all ?” “Ah! now TI understand you,” exclaimed Sa- goonah, her large luminous eyes flashing forth living fires. “You would betray me to my mina. tresaP And if you did so,” continued the Hindoo woman, bending a look of mingled scorn and hate upon Mfadame Angeliquo, “ think you that 1 would ‘not be avenged? Yes !—into the depthe of what- suevor ‘dungeon the arm of the jaw might consign you ta, would [ penstrate~—and my dagger chould drink your heart’s blood |” “For which deed you would hang upon a gibbet,” replied Madame Angelique. “ But it is unelesa—woree than useless—for you and me to etand here threatening each other. At all events = — no eee ee ee ee THE MYSTERINS OF THE COURT. “The Lady Indora must die!" answered Madame Angelique, in a low, deep, emphatic Foice. ° “ Rnd you mean to add thet she must die by my hand ?” said Sagoonah. “ But it cannot be! Enough has already transpired to the knowledge of Christina Ashton to make hor fix the deed upon me if it were accomplished.” “ What if I were to place in your hand a subtle poison ?” said Madame Angelique: and she looked up with a sinister aspect into the countonance of the ayah, who bent over the palings.. “No—nothing, nothing, so jong as the girl Ashton is beneath that roof,” replied Sagoonah firmly. “She sleeps lightly—she has already more than once detected me in wandering about the premises by night—she has seen me enter the chamber of my mistreas—and sho impressively told me that the silent hours of darkness are those which Murder chooses wherein to do ite dreadful work.” “Ah! abe has said that?’ muttered Madame Angelique, with a look of mingled terror and vexation. “ Yes—she has said that,” reaponded Sagoonah impressively : “and think you therefore that if a suspicious deed were done by night within those walls, the Christian girl would not at once lay her hand upon my shoulder, and say, ‘I¢ is you who did it!’ No, woman !” continued Sagoonah, “ my hand shall not wield the weapon, nor pour the drop of poison between the lips of my mistress, so long as Christina Ashton is there, and in a posi- tion to surrender me up to justice. [f we were in imine own country it would be different; and I should defy hor. For there the deed might be done under such circumstances as would cow- pletely avert suspicion from myself—aye, even though in my former conduct there bad been any- thing suspicious! Yesa—were we in mino own native Hindostan,” proceeded the ayah, now speak- ing as if musing with hereelf rather than actually addressing her observations t Madame Angelique, “ this band of mine would convey to the couch of my mistresa some reptile of deadly venum, whose fangs would instil the quick poison into her veins, and whose form would be found cosled up in the morning upon the bosom of its victim !” “And you would do this if you were in India P” enid Madame Angelique, whose imagination was horribly prolific in all vile expedients: “you would. . do this, Sagoonab ?" “ Aye, | would do it,” was the response: “ be- sause the presence of the reptile would tell its own tale—and no one would ask whether it had we hdw understand one another; and I have shown | been conveyed by a human hand to the couch to you that your own interests are more intimately) which it brought doath—or whether it had in- connected with mine than you had previously | sidiously glided in and nestled there of its own imagioud.” | accord. But in this country of yours you have no Segoonah reflected for a few momenta; and! such vonomous things that may be caught ia any then she said in a low voice Mall of concentrated ! patch of grass, found amidst the foliage of any rage~—but a rege which wae altogether subdued eo | tree, or snatched up from the midst of any par- far as the oxpression of her countenance was con- | terre of flowers.” cerned,--“ Yea! if you, to belp yourself, in the ease supposed, were td prove thus treacherous, it would go ill with me. Now, woman, what mean you?” asked ab sternly. “Yuu have ecught me with some fixed plan—you have some- thing eettiod in your mind. Speak quickiy—what ie it SE “But if I told you, Sagoonah,” seid Madame Angelique, a devilish idea, which had already taken inception iw her mind, expanding quickly there are kept the deadliest specimens of your own reptile races to gratify the curiosity of visitore tee if I told you where in this city of ours | —-would you have the courage———But, no! 6 is 4 Fad mn ia ee 2 eh ee ota i. = ws ww ws -_ eam, —_~-_ ~~ =~ - = ie Se ~—Ss =p oe —s— a ~ 2 @ - oe ey we ~— — = eo wwe ee ee ee) en eee Qe oe al —- —qeeiiehee ~eeieee ee eeee e e e oee — —e a —- —= NOG SS