.

THE MIDNIGHT QUEEN.
When Sir Norman Kingsley entered the ancient ruin, his head was full of Leoline--when he knelt down to look through the aperture in the flagged floor, head and heart were full of her still.

But the moment his eyes fell on the scene beneath, everything fled far from his thoughts, Leoline among the rest; and nothing remained but a profound and absorbing feeling of intensest amaze.
Right below him he beheld an immense room, of which the flag he had raised seemed to form part of the ceiling, in a remote corner.

Evidently it was one of a range of lower vaults, and as he was at least fourteen feet above it, and his corner somewhat in shadow, there was little danger of his being seen.

So, leaning far down to look at his leisure, he took the goods the gods provided him, and stared to his heart's content.
Sir Norman had seen some queer sights during the four-and-twenty years he had spent in this queer world, but never anything quite equal to this.