The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 296: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THB MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. 285 “Yes, lady—I merit these reproaches,” replied Sagoonah ; “and I know that you are acquainted with all my guilt. .I am not ignorant that amidst the ravings of deliriam my crimes were revealed. But, Oh! suffer me to make the fullest confession now—to detail everything in connexion with the pest—to describe the workings of my morbid, maddened mind during the various stages of my iniquity,—suffer me to do all this, and my con- science will be eased! Zhen breathe from your lips a single word of pardon—and you will be con- ferring a mercy upon a fellow-creature who is truly penitent !'’ “What have you to confess that is not already known to me, vile woman P” demanded the Queen. “Oh! if you knew how your presence is loath- some to me-——” “It must be !—for my iniquity is immense,” re- sponded Sagoonah, with despair still in her accents and ineffable misery in her looks. ‘“ But is there to be no pardon on earth for the sinner, however great that sinner’s crime, and when the contrition is commensurate P” “Speak! What have you to confess?” asked Indora. “You know not, lady, the temptation which led me on,” proceeded the ayah. “I will not speak of the love which was potent even to mad- ness: but I will speak of the manner in which it prompted me to lend a too willing ear to the words of a fiend in female shape who was sent to tempt me. That woman was Madame Angelique!” nah then proceeded to relate everything which had at any time occurred between herself and the infamous Frenchwoman, bat which we need not recapitulate to the reader—though it may be as well to remind him how Madame Angelique had instigated the ayah to make attempts upon the life of her royal mistress, and how through Sagoonah’s intervention she had attained access to Indora on that ocoasion when she proposed to the eastern lady the visit to the Duke of Marchmont’s seat of Oaklands. The Queen was by no means astonished at what she now heard: for Sagoonah’s ravings had prepared her for intelligence of this kind: but to Christian and Christina everything was as novel as it was astounding and horrifying. They listened as if it were to some hideous tale of murder avowed in a condemned cell; and as they sat together, the sister clung to her twin brother as if to be by him shielded and protected from some danger that might befal her. As for Indora herself, she listened with a settled cold sternness of look,—a look such as that splendidly handsome countenance had never worn before. It was at first in the deepest mournfulness that Sagoonah had begun her confessions: but as she proceeded, she grew excited: she interrupted her- self with frequent appeals for pity; —she gave vent to passionate entreaties for pardon—her self. upbraidings and her declarations of penitence pro- duced an alternation between an almost frenzied exaltation and a profound pathos. “Ob! it is all true that I have told you, lady !” she cried at the conclusion; “and you see how that fiend of a Frenchwoman appealed to me through the medium of my weakest points to at- tempt all these enormitics. Perhaps you may understand her motives better than I: and, Oh! leave her not uppunished—for she ig one of those instruments of whom the Evil Spirit makes use to whisper dreadful temptations in the ears of indi- viduals reduced to despair. Ah! that story of the snake—I know that it is scarcely credible; and yet it is all as I have narrated it! I myself shudder as I at present retrospect over the fright- ful details. You must remember well the day on which you took Miss Ashton and myself to the beautiful Gardena containing the wild beasts, the strange birds, and the horrible reptiles? But I will show you how I brought the envenomed cobra to the villa. Oh! I am so anxious to prove that everything I am telling your ladyship is correct !”’ It was with the most profound excitement that Sagoonah thus spoke. In the distressed, the an- guished, and the morbid state of her mind she continued to cling to the idea that by her present conduct she was veritably making an atonement for her past misdeeds; and she therefore considered it above all things necessary that she could con- vince the Queen of her statements in every one of their minutest details. Inspired with this idea, she repeated with excited ejaculation, “ Yee—I will show your ladyship how I brought the hideous reptile hither !” Thus speaking, Sagoonah suddenly burst from the room. “Whither is she going?” cried Christine, af- frighted at the vehemence of her manner. “She is frenzied !” The Queen's first impulse was to command that the ayah should not be allowed to penetrate into any other part of the villa: but on a second thought she said, “ Let her have her own way: the more perfect she renders her history the better perhaps will it serve my own purposes. One reve- lation leads to another; and we will let Aer’s be complete.” “ What frightfal things have we been hearing!” exclaimed Christina with a shadder; “and though many of them were but the detailed repetition of much that we knew before——” “ Yet it ie horrible for you, my dear young friends,” added the Queen, compassionatingly, as she looked upon the twins, “to hear them in this elaborate and minute form.” Sagoonah at this moment re-entered the room, bringing with her that small leathern case, or bag, which had served her purpose for the transport of the cobra di capello from the Zoological Gardens to the villa. It was of Hindoo manufacture; and we have already described it as being large enough to contain a emali rabbit. It had a cover which lapped over the mouth and was fastened with a button. Sagoonah had been up to her own cham- ber to fetch it. ‘“ Here,” she exclaimed, as she re-entered the apartment where she had left the Queen and the twins,—“ here is the instrament which served my accursed purpose on that dread day |” Then, in the same vehement and impassioned strain, she went on to describe how she had cap- tured the cobra in the leathern case, and how she suffered it to escape thence into the couch of her mistress. The twins shuddered with a cold horror, as if the actual proceeding itself were being now realised in their presence ; and even the strong: minded Indora could not repel a similar sensation —though there was in her mind a deep feeling of cS) (CO CORNICE DOO