The dwarf's face grew black as a thunder-cloud, and he jumped to his feet and confronted the queen with a look so intensely ugly that no other earthly face could have assumed it. But that lady merely met it with one of cold disdain and aversion, and, keeping her dark bright eyes fixed chillingly upon him, waved her white hand, in her imperious way, to the guards. Those warlike gentlemen knew better than to disobey her most gracious majesty when she happened to be, like Mrs. Joe Gargary, on the “rampage,” which, if her flashing eye and a certain expression about her handsome mouth spoke the truth, must have been twenty hours out of the twenty-four. As the soldiers approached to lead him away, Sir Norman tried to catch her eye; but in vain, for she kept those brilliant optics most unwinkingly fixed on the dwarf's face. “Call Lady Castlemaine,” commanded the duke, as Sir Norman with his guards passed through the doorway leading to the Black Chamber. “Your highness, I presume, is ready to attend to her case.” “Before I attend to hers or any one else's case,” said the dwarf, hopping over the table like an overgrown toad, “I will first see that this guest of ours is properly taken care, of, and does not leave us without the ceremony of saying good-bye.” With which, he seized one of the wax candles, and trotted, with rather unprincely haste, after Sir Norman and his conductors. The young knight had been led down the same long passage he had walked through before; but instead of entering the chamber of horrors, they passed through the centre arch, and found themselves in another long, vaulted corridor, dimly lit by the glow of the outer one. It was as cold and dismal a place, Sir Norman thought, as he had ever seen; and it had an odor damp and earthy, and of the grave. It had two or three great, ponderous doors on either side, fastened with huge iron bolts; and before one of these his conductors paused. Just as they did so, the glimmer of the dwarf's taper pierced the gloom, and the next moment, smiling from ear to ear, he was by their side. “Down with the bars!” he cried. “This is the one for him--the strongest and safest of them all. Now, my dashing courtier, you will see how tenderly your little friend provides for his favorites!” If Sir Norman made any reply, it was drowned in the rattle and clank of the massive bars, and is hopelessly lost to posterity. The huge door swung back; but nothing was visible but a sort of black velvet pall, and effluvia much stronger than sweet. Involuntarily he recoiled as one of the guards made a motion for him to enter. “I Shove him in! shove him in!” shrieked the dwarf, who was getting so excited with glee that he was dancing about in a sort of jig of delight. “In with him--in with him! If he won't go peaceably, kick him in head-foremost!”