THE MIDNIGHT QUEEN,




CHAPTER I.

THE SORCERESS.


The plague raged in the city of London. The destroying angel had
gone forth, and kindled with its fiery breath the awful
pestilence, until all London became one mighty lazar-house.
Thousands were swept away daily; grass grew in the streets, and
the living were scarce able to bury the dead. Business of all
kinds was at an end, except that of the coffin-makers and drivers
of the pest-carte. Whole streets were shut up, and almost every
other house in the city bore the fatal red cross, and the ominous
inscription. "Lord have mercy on us." Few people, save the
watchmen, armed with halberts, keeping guard over the stricken
houses, appeared in the streets; and those who ventured there,
shrank from each other, and passed rapidly on with averted faces.
Many even fell dead on the sidewalk, and lay with their ghastly,
discolored faces, upturned to the mocking sunlight, until the
dead-cart came rattling along, and the drivers hoisted the body
with their pitchforks on the top of their dreadful load. Few
other vehicles besides those same dead-carts appeared in the city
now; and they plied their trade busily, day and night; and the
cry of the drivers echoed dismally through the deserted streets:
"Bring out your dead! bring out your dead!" All who could do so