'Twas midnight. Alone in the dismal cell to which her father's cruelty
had consigned her, the Lady AGATHA wept unceasingly. Sleep came not to
her weary eyes, she paced restlessly up and down, or gazed through the
narrow bars of the window over the moonlit landscape.
Suddenly she started! Was it fancy? Nay, 'twas a human voice, manly,
resonant, and strong, that sang beneath her window. She could catch some
of the words:
"O sweetest blossom of the lea,
O daintiest flower of the field!
For love, for hopeless love of thee
My reason must her kingdom yield" ...
Good heavens! It was ALGERNON FITZCLARENCE!
"Across the land, across the main,
A single steed shall bear us twain."
He was ascending by a ladder! His face appeared at the window!
"Ah, darling AGATHA," he said, "news was brought me of thy parlous
state! But dry thy tears, my sweet! See"--he snapped the massive bars
with the little finger of his left hand--"the cage is broken. Two of the
swiftest Singers are saddled for us at the castle gate. Let us fly
together!"
***
Noiselessly the gallant steeds flitted along the road.
"Were't not best to light our lamps?" whispered AGATHA. "Methinks that
the sage councillors of the parish----"
"Nay, I fear them not," said the intrepid FITZCLARENCE. "Enough for me
is the light of thine eyes."
Suddenly their steeds slackened pace simultaneously, and a faint hissing
sound was heard. They looked at one another, and groaned.
"We are punctured!" cried Agatha. It was too true. At the foot of a
steep hill they dismounted, their tyres flabby, shapeless, useless.
FITSCLARENCE passed his hand over the ground.
"As I thought!" he said bitterly, "'tis thy father that hath contrived
this! He hath scattered tin-tacks broadcast over the road to foil our
attempt to escape! But we will baffle him yet."
For some minutes he worked his air-pump in silence. Suddenly a sound was
heard at which AGATHA grew deathly pale. It was the clear resonant note
of a bicycle bell!
"We are pursued!" she cried. "Let us fly, ALGERNON."
"We cannot," said her practical lover; "the tyres are almost empty. We
can but meet our doom bravely!"
Louder and louder came the noise of whirring wheels. Then--a whirr, and
the Baron, breathless, pale with terror, went by them like a flash of
lightning! FITZCLARENCE understood in a moment what had happened. The
Baron was but an unskilful rider, and had allowed his machine to run
away with him down the hill!
[Illustration: "He vanished over the cliff."]
To stop him was impossible. He went along the highway for thirty-two and
a half miles, and then, with a last despairing yell, he vanished over
the cliff, still seated on his steed, and was buried beneath the waves
of the English Channel. So FITZCLARENCE and AGATHA returned to the
castle, and lived happily ever after.
* * * * *