But what puzzled Sir Norman most of all was, the fact that there seemed to be a trial of acme sort going on.
A long table, covered with green velvet, and looking not unlike a modern billiard table, stood at the right of the queen's crimson throne; and behind it, perched in a high chair, and wearing a long, solemn, black robe, sat a small, thick personage, whose skin Sir Norman would have known on a bush.

He glanced at the lower throne and found it as he expected, empty; and he saw at once that his little highness was not only prince consort, but also supreme judge in the kingdom.

Two or three similar black-robed gentry, among whom was recognizable the noble duke who so narrowly escaped 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..