The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 92: what you’re looking at

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

ANOTHER PLOT 73 answered Madame Angelique, not choosing to notice that half-covert irony which pervaded Sagoonah’s speech. ‘I tell you that you will find the opportunity if you have the courage to avail yourself of it. Those who may enter the reptile house afterward will believe that the glass has been broken by accident, and that the reptile has glided forth of its own accord. There will be consternation; of that no matter. You will know the secret, but you need not pro- claim it. The cobra—if it did really thus escape, as it will be supposed — must go somewhere, and why not find its way to the villa of your mistress? And if to the villa, why not to her own bed? Who, then, shall dare tax you with the deed? Not even Christina Ashton would for an instant entertain the suspicion that the deed was your own.”’ Sagoonah gazed for a few moments in a sort of astonish- ment, not altogether unblended with admiration, upon the woman who despite the failure of her former artifices had a devilish ingenuity sufficient for the concoction of such a scheme as this. Then the ayah mused for a few instants more, and at length she said, “‘ Yes, if the opportunity serve, I will do it. And now begone.’’ Madame Angelique sped away, her heart fiercely yet shudderingly elate with the horrible triumph which she had just achieved in respect to again bending Sagoonah to her purpose. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon, when the Princess Indora and Christina Ashton, attended by Sagoo- nah, alighted from the carriage at the entrance of the Zoological Gardens in the Regent’s Park. We have already said that her Highness, the King of Inderabad’s daughter, fre- quently — indeed, almost daily — rode out in her equipage, but this was the first time that she had visited any public institution or scene of recreation. She had, however, for some time longed to behold those animals which she had often seen wild in her native country, here in complete sub- jection to the power of man; and she now availed herself of an opportunity when, for the kindest reasons, she sought to cheer Christina’s spirits and treat her to a change from that monotony of existence which she feared that her young friend experienced at the villa at Bayswater. She knew nothing of Lord Octavian Meredith’s attachment to Christina, nor of the painful incidents connected therewith; CORnnICLOOOKS (CO)