The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 294: what you’re looking at

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

THY MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. 288 now enfeebled and exhausted: she felt the gnaw- | cherous game, and that she meditated some addi- ings of famine within her; and she had not a/ tional perfidy. It will be remembered that imme- penny to purchase a morsel of bread. Her situation | diately after the ayah had received her wound was in itself an almost adequate punishment for | from the Burker’s weapon, Lord Clandon and In- the foul vindictive treachery of which she had | dors, in a consultation together, had come to the been culpable. conclusion that the one tremendous secret relating And remorse on one subject brought its com- | to himself had been fathomed by Sagoonah ; and panion-compunctions upon other pointe. Her | hence those porings over the Times of which conscience told her that she had been a murderess | Christina Ashton had given them information. in inclination, although heaven had intervened to | Now, therefore, the Queen dreaded lest Sagoonah frustrate her plans. She hed sought the life of | in her jealous vindictiveness should betray Lord her mistress with the bright-pointed steel and like- | Clandon’s secret; and she had written a note to wise by means of the reptile of deadliest venom, | put him on his guard—that note which, as we -—that kind mistress who had ever been so affec- | have seen, Mari was unable to deliver ere the tionate towards her! Remorse on this account | crowning mischief was accomplished. Therefore it was now lacerating her heart and rending her | was with intense anxiety that the Queen awaited brain. Her imagination was fall of horrors: | Mark’s return; and the instant she beheld him vainly did she endeavour to dispel them. It | spproaching through the grounds, she hurried seemed as if her mental gaze perforce remained | forth to meet him. Though the faithful major- fixed upon the most hideous objects,—ghastly | domo had intended to break the dreadful intelli- spectres that hemmed her in around—circled | gence as delicately and gently as possible, yet he about her—stood in her way—and laid their | could not control the expression of his counte- death-cold hands upon her. And the evil spirits | nance; and the unspeakable sadness that it wore of her own creed likewise presented their phantom. | at once convinced Indora that the very worst had forms to her vision,—forms of the dreadfulest | happened. aspect! She was burnmmg in the fires of herown;| “Tell me instantaneously what haa occurred !” tortured conscience: she was seething in a lake | she said: “delay not !—think not that you do me of molten lava conjured up by her own fevered | a service by studying my feelings! Your features imagination. Though living, and upon earth, it | betray the tale! I understand it all!” appeared as if sho wore suffering the excruciations| “ Alas, my lady,” said the faithful dependant, of hell iteelf. “that I should be compelled to become the bearer And thus wandered on the wretched Sagoonah | of intelligence so frightful——-” through the streets of London—experiencing an| “Come in, Mark,” said the Queen; “ and give awful solitude in the midst of that crowded metro- | me all the details.” polis—feeling that she was a wretch to whom| She had not shricked—she had not swooned : death would be weloome. But that death— how | she gave no vent to passionate lamentations : bat could she meet it? by what means was she to en- | there was something unnatural in her calmness. counter it P The strength of her mind was sustained by a hope In the agony of her remorse she resolved to | which was the one barrier that separated her from return to the Villa. Yes—to this her mind was/ utter despair. That hope was the eventual demon- suddenly made up. She thought that it would | stration of Lord Clandon’s innocence. be an atonement if she were to fling herself at the| She conducted Mark into a room, where they feet of her mistress, and confess everything— | were alone together; and ho told her everything although whatsoever she had to confess she knew | that had occurred. She listened without inter- had been principally revealed during her ravings | rupting him ; and when he had finished his nar- on the bed of sickness. But all her thoughts were | rative of the proceedings, she rose from her seat, morbid: her mind had utterly lost its wholesome | saying, “I will now go and comfort him in his strength ; and it was now pre-ocoupied with the | prison.” idea that there would be atonement in the project; ‘ Pardon me, my lady,” said Mark ; “but this she had formed. Ob! if she could only obtain | evening it cannot be. The regulations of the the forgiveness of her mistress—it would be some | prison will prevent it. Lord Clandon desired me balm to her heart ; and she might at least dio leas | to implore your ladyship to postpone this visit miserably than she otherwise would. until to-morrow—and then to repair thither under And thus she proceeded towards the villa. But | circumstances of the strictest privacy, so that your it was no longer with the hurried step of excite- {ladyship’s name may not become inconveniently ment that Sagoonah bent her way: worn down by | involved.” fatigue and by mental suffering, she dragged her-; “I understand,” said the Queon: “it shall be self along painfully. Tho lithe bayadere form was | for to-morrow. And now Mark —my faithful not now drawn up to its full height; the’ well- | Mark—no time is to be lost in carrying out the shaped feet no longer pressed the ground with | plans which circumstances dictate. You must set elastic tread. It was as a miserable wretch—with | off immediately for Oaklands, the country seat of the cares of a universe upon her shoulders, prese- | the Duke of Marchmont: you must privately ob- ing like an intolerable weight—that the anguished | tain an interview with an old man named Purvis Sagoonah was now making her painful way. | wand you must give him a letter which I am Meanwhile the faithful Mark, having taken a about to write.” cab on leaving the police-office, had reached the; Mark promised to do the bidding of his royal villa. Queen Indora was anxiously awaiting his | mistress in all things; and furnished with a letter, return: for she had a presentiment—aye, even a | he lost no time in taking his departure. When certainty of evil. Indeed it was but too evident | he was gone the Queen sought Christina. that Sagoonah had been playing a darkly ‘trea: | Our youthful heroine was overwhelmed with er (CO G OOO SS} (CO