with his life under the swords of Sir Norman
and Count L'Estrange. Before this solemn conclave stood a man who was
evidently the prisoner under trial, and who wore the whitest and most
frightened face Sir Norman thought he had ever beheld. The queen was
lounging negligently back on her throne, paying very little attention
to the solemn rites, occasionally gossiping with some of the snow-white
sylphs beside her, and often yawning behind her pretty finger-tips, and
evidently very much bored by it all.

The rest of the company were decorously seated in the crimson and gilded
arm-chairs, some listening with interest to what was going on, others
holding whispered tete-a-tetes, and all very still and respectful.

Sir Norman's interest was aroused to the highest pitch; he imprudently
leaned forward too far, in order to hear and see, and lost his balance.
He felt he was going, and tried to stop himself, but in vain; and seeing
there was no help for it, he made a sudden spring, and landed right in
the midst of the assembly.

CHAPTER XI. THE EXECUTION.

In an instant all was confusion. Everybody sprang to their feet--ladies
shrieked in chorus, gentlemen swore and drew their swords, and looked
to see if they might not expect a whole army to drop from the sky upon
them, as they stood. No other battalion, however, followed this forlorn
hope; and seeing it, the gentlemen took heart of grace and closed around
the unceremonious intruder. The queen had sprung from her royal seat,
and stood with her bright lips parted, and her brighter eyes dilating in
speechless wonder. The bench, with the judge at their head, had followed
her example, and stood staring with all their might, looking, truth to
tell, as much startled by the sudden apparition as the fair sex. The
said fair sex were still firing off little volleys of screams in chorus,
and clinging desperately to their cavaliers; and everything, in a word,
was in most admired disorder.

Tam O'Shanter's cry, "Weel done, Cutty sark!" could not have produced
half such a commotion among his "hellish legion" as the emphatic debut
of Sir Norman Kingsley among these human revelers. The only one who
seemed rather to enjoy it than otherwise was the prisoner, who was
quietly and quickly making off, when the malevolent and irrepressible
dwarf espied him, and the one shock acting as a counter-irritant to
the other, he bounced fleetly over the table, and grabbed him in his
crab-like claws.