"Is he to stay here, or is he to accompany us ?" His highness turned round, and putting his face close up to Sir Norman's favored him with a malignant grin.
"You'd like to come, wouldn't you, my dear young friend ?" "Really," said Sir Norman, drawing back and returning the dwarf's stare with compound interest, "that depends altogether on the nature of the entertainment; but, at the same time, I'm much obliged to you for consulting my inclinations." This reply nearly overset his highness's gravity once more, but he checked his mirth after the first irresistible squeal; and finding the company were all arranged in the order of going, and awaiting his sovereign pleasure, he turned.
"Let him come," he said, with his countenance still distorted by inward merriment; "It will do him good to see how we punish offenders here, and teach him what he is to expect himself.

Is your majesty ready ?" "My majesty has been ready and waiting for the last five minutes," replied the lady, over-looking his proffered hand with grand disdain, and stepping lightly down from her throne.
Her rising was the signal for the unseen band to strike up a grand triumphant "Io paean," though, had the "Rogue's March" been a popular melody in those times, it would have suited the procession much more admirably.

The queen and the dwarf went first, and a vivid contrast they were--she so young, so beautiful, so proud, so disdainfully cold; he so ugly, so stunted, so deformed, so fiendish.

After them went the band of sylphs in white, then the chancellor, archbishop, and embassadors; next the whole court of ladies and gentlemen; and after them Sir Norman, in the custody of two of the soldiers.

The condemned earl came last, or rather allowed himself to be dragged by his four guards; for he seemed to have become perfectly palsied and dumb with fear.