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Title: The Prisoner of Zenda

Author: Anthony Hope

Release Date: December, 1993 [eBook #95]
[Most recently updated: December 21, 2022]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

Produced by: Judith Boss

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRISONER OF ZENDA ***




THE PRISONER OF ZENDA

by Anthony Hope


CONTENTS

     1  The Rassendylls--With a Word on the Elphbergs
     2  Concerning the Colour of Men’s Hair
     3  A Merry Evening with a Distant Relative
     4  The King Keeps his Appointment
     5  The Adventures of an Understudy
     6  The Secret of a Cellar
     7  His Majesty Sleeps in Strelsau
     8  A Fair Cousin and a Dark Brother
     9  A New Use for a Tea-Table
     10  A Great Chance for a Villain
     11  Hunting a Very Big Boar
     12  I Receive a Visitor and Bait a Hook
     13  An Improvement on Jacob’s Ladder
     14  A Night Outside the Castle
     15  I Talk with a Tempter
     16  A Desperate Plan
     17  Young Rupert’s Midnight Diversions
     18  The Forcing of the Trap
     19  Face to Face in the Forest
     20  The Prisoner and the King
     21  If Love Were All!
     22  Present, Past--and Future?




CHAPTER 1

The Rassendylls--With a Word on the Elphbergs


“I wonder when in the world you’re going to do anything, Rudolf?” said
my brother’s wife.

“My dear Rose,” I answered, laying down my egg-spoon, “why in the world
should I do anything? My position is a comfortable one. I have an
income nearly sufficient for my wants (no one’s income is ever quite
sufficient, you know), I enjoy an enviable social position: I am
brother to Lord Burlesdon, and brother-in-law to that charming lady, his
countess. Behold, it is enough!”

“You are nine-and-twenty,” she observed, “and you’ve done nothing but--”

“Knock about? It is true. Our family doesn’t need to do things.”

This remark of mine rather annoyed Rose, for everybody knows (and
therefore there can be no harm in referring to the fact) that, pretty
and accomplished as she herself is, her family is hardly of the same
standing as the Rassendylls. Besides her attractions, she possessed a
large fortune, and my brother Robert was wise enough not to mind about
her ancestry. Ancestry is, in fact, a matter concerning which the next
observation of Rose’s has some truth.

“Good families are generally worse than any others,” she said.

Upon this I stroked my hair: I knew quite well what she meant.

“I’m so glad Robert’s is black!” she cried.

At this moment Robert (who rises at seven and works before breakfast)
came in. He glanced at his wife: her cheek was slightly flushed; he
patted it caressingly.

“What’s the matter, my dear?” he asked.

“She objects to my doing nothing and having red hair,” said I, in an
injured tone.

“Oh! of course he can’t help his hair,” admitted Rose.

“It generally crops out once in a generation,” said my brother. “So does
the nose. Rudolf has got them both.”

“I wish they didn’t crop out,” said Rose, still flushed.

“I rather like them myself,” said I, and, rising, I bowed to the
portrait of Countess Amelia.

My brother’s wife uttered an exclamation of impatience.

“I wish you’d take that picture away, Robert,” said she.

“My dear!” he cried.

“Good heavens!” I added.

“Then it might be forgotten,” she continued.

“Hardly--with Rudolf about,” said Robert, shaking his head.

“Why should it be forgotten?” I asked.

“Rudolf!” exclaimed my brother’s wife, blushing very prettily.

I laughed, and went on with my egg. At least I had shelved the question
of what (if anything) I ought to do. And, by way of closing the
discussion--and also, I must admit, of exasperating my strict little
sister-in-law a trifle more--I observed:

“I rather like being an Elphberg myself.”

When I read a story, I skip the explanations; yet the moment I begin to
write one, I find that I must have an explanation. For it is manifest
that I must explain why my sister-in-law was vexed with my nose and
hair, and why I ventured to call myself an Elphberg. For eminent as,
I must protest, the Rassendylls have been for many generations, yet
participation in their blood of course does not, at first sight, justify
the boast of a connection with the grander stock of the Elphbergs or
a claim to be one of that Royal House. For what relationship is there
between Ruritania and Burlesdon, between the Palace at Strelsau or the
Castle of Zenda and Number 305 Park Lane, W.?

Well then--and I must premise that I am going, perforce, to rake up the
very scandal which my dear Lady Burlesdon wishes forgotten--in the year
1733, George II. sitting then on the throne, peace reigning for
the moment, and the King and the Prince of Wales being not yet at
loggerheads, there came on a visit to the English Court a certain
prince, who was afterwards known to history as Rudolf the Third of
Ruritania. The prince was a tall, handsome young fellow, marked (maybe
marred, it is not for me to say) by a somewhat unusually long, sharp and
straight nose, and a mass of dark-red hair--in fact, the nose and the
hair which have stamped the Elphbergs time out of mind. He stayed some
months in England, where he was most courteously received; yet, in
the end, he left rather under a cloud. For he fought a duel (it was
considered highly well bred of him to waive all question of his rank)
with a nobleman, well known in the society of the day, not only for his
own merits, but as the husband of a very beautiful wife. In that duel
Prince Rudolf received a severe wound, and, recovering therefrom, was
adroitly smuggled off by the Ruritanian ambassador, who had found him
a pretty handful. The nobleman was not wounded in the duel; but the
morning being raw and damp on the occasion of the meeting, he contracted
a severe chill, and, failing to throw it off, he died some six months
after the departure of Prince Rudolf, without having found leisure to
adjust his relations with his wife--who, after another two months, bore
an heir to the title and estates of the family of Burlesdon. This lady
was the Countess Amelia, whose picture my sister-in-law wished to remove
from the drawing-room in Park Lane; and her husband was James, fifth
Earl of Burlesdon and twenty-second Baron Rassendyll, both in the
peerage of England, and a Knight of the Garter. As for Rudolf, he went
back to Ruritania, married a wife, and ascended the throne, whereon his
progeny in the direct line have sat from then till this very hour--with
one short interval. And, finally, if you walk through the picture
galleries at Burlesdon, among the fifty portraits or so of the last
century and a half, you will find five or six, including that of the
sixth earl, distinguished by long, sharp, straight noses and a quantity
of dark-red hair; these five or six have also blue eyes, whereas among
the Rassendylls dark eyes are the commoner.

That is the explanation, and I am glad to have finished it: the
blemishes on honourable lineage are a delicate subject, and certainly
this heredity we hear so much about is the finest scandalmonger in the
world; it laughs at discretion, and writes strange entries between the
lines of the “Peerages”.

It will be observed that my sister-in-law, with a want of logic that
must have been peculiar to herself (since we are no longer allowed to
lay it to the charge of her sex), treated my complexion almost as an
offence for which I was responsible, hastening to assume from that
external sign inward qualities of which I protest my entire innocence;
and this unjust inference she sought to buttress by pointing to the
uselessness of the life I had led. Well, be that as it may, I had picked
up a good deal of pleasure and a good deal of knowledge. I had been to
a German school and a German university, and spoke German as readily
and perfectly as English; I was thoroughly at home in French; I had a
smattering of Italian and enough Spanish to swear by. I was, I believe,
a strong, though hardly fine swordsman and a good shot. I could ride
anything that had a back to sit on; and my head was as cool a one as you
could find, for all its flaming cover. If you say that I ought to have
spent my time in useful labour, I am out of Court and have nothing
to say, save that my parents had no business to leave me two thousand
pounds a year and a roving disposition.

“The difference between you and Robert,” said my sister-in-law, who
often (bless her!) speaks on a platform, and oftener still as if she
were on one, “is that he recognizes the duties of his position, and you
see the opportunities of yours.”

“To a man of spirit, my dear Rose,” I answered, “opportunities are
duties.”

“Nonsense!” said she, tossing her head; and after a moment she went on:
“Now, here’s Sir Jacob Borrodaile offering you exactly what you might be
equal to.”

“A thousand thanks!” I murmured.

“He’s to have an Embassy in six months, and Robert says he is sure that
he’ll take you as an attaché. Do take it, Rudolf--to please me.”

Now, when my sister-in-law puts the matter in that way, wrinkling her
pretty brows, twisting her little hands, and growing wistful in the
eyes, all on account of an idle scamp like myself, for whom she has
no natural responsibility, I am visited with compunction. Moreover, I
thought it possible that I could pass the time in the position suggested
with some tolerable amusement. Therefore I said:

“My dear sister, if in six months’ time no unforeseen obstacle has
arisen, and Sir Jacob invites me, hang me if I don’t go with Sir Jacob!”

“Oh, Rudolf, how good of you! I am glad!”

“Where’s he going to?”

“He doesn’t know yet; but it’s sure to be a good Embassy.”

“Madame,” said I, “for your sake I’ll go, if it’s no more than a
beggarly Legation. When I do a thing, I don’t do it by halves.”

My promise, then, was given; but six months are six months, and seem an
eternity, and, inasmuch as they stretched between me and my prospective
industry (I suppose attachés are industrious; but I know not, for I
never became attaché to Sir Jacob or anybody else), I cast about for
some desirable mode of spending them. And it occurred to me suddenly
that I would visit Ruritania. It may seem strange that I had never
visited that country yet; but my father (in spite of a sneaking fondness
for the Elphbergs, which led him to give me, his second son, the famous
Elphberg name of Rudolf) had always been averse from my going, and,
since his death, my brother, prompted by Rose, had accepted the family
tradition which taught that a wide berth was to be given to that
country. But the moment Ruritania had come into my head I was eaten up
with a curiosity to see it. After all, red hair and long noses are
not confined to the House of Elphberg, and the old story seemed
a preposterously insufficient reason for debarring myself from
acquaintance with a highly interesting and important kingdom, one which
had played no small part in European history, and might do the like
again under the sway of a young and vigorous ruler, such as the new
King was rumoured to be. My determination was clinched by reading in _The
Times_ that Rudolf the Fifth was to be crowned at Strelsau in the course
of the next three weeks, and that great magnificence was to mark
the occasion. At once I made up my mind to be present, and began my
preparations. But, inasmuch as it has never been my practice to furnish
my relatives with an itinerary of my journeys and in this case I
anticipated opposition to my wishes, I gave out that I was going for a
ramble in the Tyrol--an old haunt of mine--and propitiated Rose’s wrath
by declaring that I intended to study the political and social problems
of the interesting community which dwells in that neighbourhood.

“Perhaps,” I hinted darkly, “there may be an outcome of the expedition.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well,” said I carelessly, “there seems a gap that might be filled by an
exhaustive work on--”

“Oh! will you write a book?” she cried, clapping her hands. “That would
be splendid, wouldn’t it, Robert?”

“It’s the best of introductions to political life nowadays,” observed my
brother, who has, by the way, introduced himself in this manner several
times over. _Burlesdon on Ancient Theories and Modern Facts_ and _The
Ultimate Outcome, by a Political Student_, are both works of recognized
eminence.

“I believe you are right, Bob, my boy,” said I.

“Now promise you’ll do it,” said Rose earnestly.

“No, I won’t promise; but if I find enough material, I will.”

“That’s fair enough,” said Robert.

“Oh, material doesn’t matter!” she said, pouting.

But this time she could get no more than a qualified promise out of me.
To tell the truth, I would have wagered a handsome sum that the story
of my expedition that summer would stain no paper and spoil not a single
pen. And that shows how little we know what the future holds; for here I
am, fulfilling my qualified promise, and writing, as I never thought
to write, a book--though it will hardly serve as an introduction to
political life, and has not a jot to do with the Tyrol.

Neither would it, I fear, please Lady Burlesdon, if I were to submit it
to her critical eye--a step which I have no intention of taking.




CHAPTER 2

Concerning the Colour of Men’s Hair


It was a maxim of my Uncle William’s that no man should pass through
Paris without spending four-and-twenty hours there. My uncle spoke out
of a ripe experience of the world, and I honoured his advice by putting
up for a day and a night at “The Continental” on my way to--the Tyrol.
I called on George Featherly at the Embassy, and we had a bit of dinner
together at Durand’s, and afterwards dropped in to the Opera; and
after that we had a little supper, and after that we called on Bertram
Bertrand, a versifier of some repute and Paris correspondent to _The
Critic_. He had a very comfortable suite of rooms, and we found some
pleasant fellows smoking and talking. It struck me, however, that
Bertram himself was absent and in low spirits, and when everybody except
ourselves had gone, I rallied him on his moping preoccupation. He
fenced with me for a while, but at last, flinging himself on a sofa, he
exclaimed:

“Very well; have it your own way. I am in love--infernally in love!”

“Oh, you’ll write the better poetry,” said I, by way of consolation.

He ruffled his hair with his hand and smoked furiously. George
Featherly, standing with his back to the mantelpiece, smiled unkindly.

“If it’s the old affair,” said he, “you may as well throw it up, Bert.
She’s leaving Paris tomorrow.”

“I know that,” snapped Bertram.

“Not that it would make any difference if she stayed,” pursued the
relentless George. “She flies higher than the paper trade, my boy!”

“Hang her!” said Bertram.

“It would make it more interesting for me,” I ventured to observe, “if I
knew who you were talking about.”

“Antoinette Mauban,” said George.

“De Mauban,” growled Bertram.

“Oho!” said I, passing by the question of the `de’. “You don’t mean to
say, Bert--?”

“Can’t you let me alone?”

“Where’s she going to?” I asked, for the lady was something of a
celebrity.

George jingled his money, smiled cruelly at poor Bertram, and answered
pleasantly:

“Nobody knows. By the way, Bert, I met a great man at her house the
other night--at least, about a month ago. Did you ever meet him--the
Duke of Strelsau?”

“Yes, I did,” growled Bertram.

“An extremely accomplished man, I thought him.”

It was not hard to see that George’s references to the duke were
intended to aggravate poor Bertram’s sufferings, so that I drew the
inference that the duke had distinguished Madame de Mauban by his
attentions. She was a widow, rich, handsome, and, according to repute,
ambitious. It was quite possible that she, as George put it, was flying
as high as a personage who was everything he could be, short of enjoying
strictly royal rank: for the duke was the son of the late King of
Ruritania by a second and morganatic marriage, and half-brother to the
new King. He had been his father’s favourite, and it had occasioned
some unfavourable comment when he had been created a duke, with a title
derived from no less a city than the capital itself. His mother had been
of good, but not exalted, birth.

“He’s not in Paris now, is he?” I asked.

“Oh no! He’s gone back to be present at the King’s coronation; a
ceremony which, I should say, he’ll not enjoy much. But, Bert, old man,
don’t despair! He won’t marry the fair Antoinette--at least, not unless
another plan comes to nothing. Still perhaps she--” He paused and added,
with a laugh: “Royal attentions are hard to resist--you know that, don’t
you, Rudolf?”

“Confound you!” said I; and rising, I left the hapless Bertram in
George’s hands and went home to bed.

The next day George Featherly went with me to the station, where I took
a ticket for Dresden.

“Going to see the pictures?” asked George, with a grin.

George is an inveterate gossip, and had I told him that I was off to
Ruritania, the news would have been in London in three days and in Park
Lane in a week. I was, therefore, about to return an evasive answer,
when he saved my conscience by leaving me suddenly and darting across
the platform. Following him with my eyes, I saw him lift his hat and
accost a graceful, fashionably dressed woman who had just appeared from
the booking-office. She was, perhaps, a year or two over thirty, tall,
dark, and of rather full figure. As George talked, I saw her glance at
me, and my vanity was hurt by the thought that, muffled in a fur coat
and a neck-wrapper (for it was a chilly April day) and wearing a soft
travelling hat pulled down to my ears, I must be looking very far from
my best. A moment later, George rejoined me.

“You’ve got a charming travelling companion,” he said. “That’s poor Bert
Bertrand’s goddess, Antoinette de Mauban, and, like you, she’s going to
Dresden--also, no doubt, to see the pictures. It’s very queer, though,
that she doesn’t at present desire the honour of your acquaintance.”

“I didn’t ask to be introduced,” I observed, a little annoyed.

“Well, I offered to bring you to her; but she said, ‘Another time.’
Never mind, old fellow, perhaps there’ll be a smash, and you’ll have a
chance of rescuing her and cutting out the Duke of Strelsau!”

No smash, however, happened, either to me or to Madame de Mauban. I can
speak for her as confidently as for myself; for when, after a night’s
rest in Dresden, I continued my journey, she got into the same train.
Understanding that she wished to be let alone, I avoided her carefully,
but I saw that she went the same way as I did to the very end of my
journey, and I took opportunities of having a good look at her, when I
could do so unobserved.

As soon as we reached the Ruritanian frontier (where the old officer who
presided over the Custom House favoured me with such a stare that I felt
surer than before of my Elphberg physiognomy), I bought the papers, and
found in them news which affected my movements. For some reason, which
was not clearly explained, and seemed to be something of a mystery, the
date of the coronation had been suddenly advanced, and the ceremony was
to take place on the next day but one. The whole country seemed in a
stir about it, and it was evident that Strelsau was thronged. Rooms were
all let and hotels overflowing; there would be very little chance of my
obtaining a lodging, and I should certainly have to pay an exorbitant
charge for it. I made up my mind to stop at Zenda, a small town fifty
miles short of the capital, and about ten from the frontier. My train
reached there in the evening; I would spend the next day, Tuesday, in a
wander over the hills, which were said to be very fine, and in taking
a glance at the famous Castle, and go over by train to Strelsau on the
Wednesday morning, returning at night to sleep at Zenda.

Accordingly at Zenda I got out, and as the train passed where I stood on
the platform, I saw my friend Madame de Mauban in her place; clearly she
was going through to Strelsau, having, with more providence than I could
boast, secured apartments there. I smiled to think how surprised
George Featherly would have been to know that she and I had been fellow
travellers for so long.

I was very kindly received at the hotel--it was really no more than an
inn--kept by a fat old lady and her two daughters. They were good,
quiet people, and seemed very little interested in the great doings at
Strelsau. The old lady’s hero was the duke, for he was now, under the
late King’s will, master of the Zenda estates and of the Castle, which
rose grandly on its steep hill at the end of the valley a mile or so
from the inn. The old lady, indeed, did not hesitate to express regret
that the duke was not on the throne, instead of his brother.

“We know Duke Michael,” said she. “He has always lived among us; every
Ruritanian knows Duke Michael. But the King is almost a stranger; he has
been so much abroad, not one in ten knows him even by sight.”

“And now,” chimed in one of the young women, “they say he has shaved off
his beard, so that no one at all knows him.”

“Shaved his beard!” exclaimed her mother. “Who says so?”

“Johann, the duke’s keeper. He has seen the King.”

“Ah, yes. The King, sir, is now at the duke’s hunting-lodge in the
forest here; from here he goes to Strelsau to be crowned on Wednesday
morning.”

I was interested to hear this, and made up my mind to walk next day in
the direction of the lodge, on the chance of coming across the King. The
old lady ran on garrulously:

“Ah, and I wish he would stay at his hunting--that and wine (and one
thing more) are all he loves, they say--and suffer our duke to be
crowned on Wednesday. That I wish, and I don’t care who knows it.”

“Hush, mother!” urged the daughters.

“Oh, there’s many to think as I do!” cried the old woman stubbornly.

I threw myself back in my deep armchair, and laughed at her zeal.

“For my part,” said the younger and prettier of the two daughters, a
fair, buxom, smiling wench, “I hate Black Michael! A red Elphberg for
me, mother! The King, they say, is as red as a fox or as--”

And she laughed mischievously as she cast a glance at me, and tossed her
head at her sister’s reproving face.

“Many a man has cursed their red hair before now,” muttered the old
lady--and I remembered James, fifth Earl of Burlesdon.

“But never a woman!” cried the girl.

“Ay, and women, when it was too late,” was the stern answer, reducing
the girl to silence and blushes.

“How comes the King here?” I asked, to break an embarrassed silence. “It
is the duke’s land here, you say.”

“The duke invited him, sir, to rest here till Wednesday. The duke is at
Strelsau, preparing the King’s reception.”

“Then they’re friends?”

“None better,” said the old lady.

But my rosy damsel tossed her head again; she was not to be repressed
for long, and she broke out again:

“Ay, they love one another as men do who want the same place and the
same wife!”

The old woman glowered; but the last words pricked my curiosity, and I
interposed before she could begin scolding:

“What, the same wife, too! How’s that, young lady?”

“All the world knows that Black Michael--well then, mother, the
duke--would give his soul to marry his cousin, the Princess Flavia, and
that she is to be the queen.”

“Upon my word,” said I, “I begin to be sorry for your duke. But if a man
will be a younger son, why he must take what the elder leaves, and be
as thankful to God as he can;” and, thinking of myself, I shrugged my
shoulders and laughed. And then I thought also of Antoinette de Mauban
and her journey to Strelsau.

“It’s little dealing Black Michael has with--” began the girl, braving
her mother’s anger; but as she spoke a heavy step sounded on the floor,
and a gruff voice asked in a threatening tone:

“Who talks of ‘Black Michael’ in his Highness’s own burgh?”

The girl gave a little shriek, half of fright--half, I think, of
amusement.

“You’ll not tell of me, Johann?” she said.

“See where your chatter leads,” said the old lady.

The man who had spoken came forward.

“We have company, Johann,” said my hostess, and the fellow plucked off
his cap. A moment later he saw me, and, to my amazement, he started back
a step, as though he had seen something wonderful.

“What ails you, Johann?” asked the elder girl. “This is a gentleman on
his travels, come to see the coronation.”

The man had recovered himself, but he was staring at me with an intense,
searching, almost fierce glance.

“Good evening to you,” said I.

“Good evening, sir,” he muttered, still scrutinizing me, and the merry
girl began to laugh as she called--

“See, Johann, it is the colour you love! He started to see your hair,
sir. It’s not the colour we see most of here in Zenda.”

“I crave your pardon, sir,” stammered the fellow, with puzzled eyes. “I
expected to see no one.”

“Give him a glass to drink my health in; and I’ll bid you good night,
and thanks to you, ladies, for your courtesy and pleasant conversation.”

So speaking, I rose to my feet, and with a slight bow turned to the
door. The young girl ran to light me on the way, and the man fell back
to let me pass, his eyes still fixed on me. The moment I was by, he
started a step forward, asking:

“Pray, sir, do you know our King?”

“I never saw him,” said I. “I hope to do so on Wednesday.”

He said no more, but I felt his eyes following me till the door closed
behind me. My saucy conductor, looking over her shoulder at me as she
preceded me upstairs, said:

“There’s no pleasing Master Johann for one of your colour, sir.”

“He prefers yours, maybe?” I suggested.

“I meant, sir, in a man,” she answered, with a coquettish glance.

“What,” asked I, taking hold of the other side of the candlestick, “does
colour matter in a man?”

“Nay, but I love yours--it’s the Elphberg red.”

“Colour in a man,” said I, “is a matter of no more moment than
that!”--and I gave her something of no value.

“God send the kitchen door be shut!” said she.

“Amen!” said I, and left her.

In fact, however, as I now know, colour is sometimes of considerable
moment to a man.




CHAPTER 3

A Merry Evening with a Distant Relative


I was not so unreasonable as to be prejudiced against the duke’s keeper
because he disliked my complexion; and if I had been, his most civil
and obliging conduct (as it seemed to me to be) next morning would have
disarmed me. Hearing that I was bound for Strelsau, he came to see
me while I was breakfasting, and told me that a sister of his who had
married a well-to-do tradesman and lived in the capital, had invited
him to occupy a room in her house. He had gladly accepted, but now found
that his duties would not permit of his absence. He begged therefore
that, if such humble (though, as he added, clean and comfortable)
lodgings would satisfy me, I would take his place. He pledged his
sister’s acquiescence, and urged the inconvenience and crowding to which
I should be subject in my journeys to and from Strelsau the next day.
I accepted his offer without a moment’s hesitation, and he went off to
telegraph to his sister, while I packed up and prepared to take the next
train. But I still hankered after the forest and the hunting-lodge, and
when my little maid told me that I could, by walking ten miles or so
through the forest, hit the railway at a roadside station, I decided to
send my luggage direct to the address which Johann had given, take my
walk, and follow to Strelsau myself. Johann had gone off and was not
aware of the change in my plans; but, as its only effect was to delay
my arrival at his sister’s for a few hours, there was no reason for
troubling to inform him of it. Doubtless the good lady would waste no
anxiety on my account.

I took an early luncheon, and, having bidden my kind entertainers
farewell, promising to return to them on my way home, I set out to climb
the hill that led to the Castle, and thence to the forest of Zenda.
Half an hour’s leisurely walking brought me to the Castle. It had been
a fortress in old days, and the ancient keep was still in good
preservation and very imposing. Behind it stood another portion of the
original castle, and behind that again, and separated from it by a deep
and broad moat, which ran all round the old buildings, was a handsome
modern chateau, erected by the last king, and now forming the country
residence of the Duke of Strelsau. The old and the new portions were
connected by a drawbridge, and this indirect mode of access formed the
only passage between the old building and the outer world; but leading
to the modern chateau there was a broad and handsome avenue. It was an
ideal residence: when “Black Michael” desired company, he could dwell in
his chateau; if a fit of misanthropy seized him, he had merely to cross
the bridge and draw it up after him (it ran on rollers), and nothing
short of a regiment and a train of artillery could fetch him out. I went
on my way, glad that poor Black Michael, though he could not have the
throne or the princess, had, at least, as fine a residence as any prince
in Europe.

Soon I entered the forest, and walked on for an hour or more in its cool
sombre shade. The great trees enlaced with one another over my head, and
the sunshine stole through in patches as bright as diamonds, and
hardly bigger. I was enchanted with the place, and, finding a felled
tree-trunk, propped my back against it, and stretching my legs out gave
myself up to undisturbed contemplation of the solemn beauty of the woods
and to the comfort of a good cigar. And when the cigar was finished and
I had (I suppose) inhaled as much beauty as I could, I went off into
the most delightful sleep, regardless of my train to Strelsau and of
the fast-waning afternoon. To remember a train in such a spot would
have been rank sacrilege. Instead of that, I fell to dreaming that I
was married to the Princess Flavia and dwelt in the Castle of Zenda, and
beguiled whole days with my love in the glades of the forest--which made
a very pleasant dream. In fact, I was just impressing a fervent kiss on
the charming lips of the princess, when I heard (and the voice seemed at
first a part of the dream) someone exclaim, in rough strident tones.

“Why, the devil’s in it! Shave him, and he’d be the King!”

The idea seemed whimsical enough for a dream: by the sacrifice of my
heavy moustache and carefully pointed imperial, I was to be transformed
into a monarch! I was about to kiss the princess again, when I arrived
(very reluctantly) at the conclusion that I was awake.

I opened my eyes, and found two men regarding me with much curiosity.
Both wore shooting costumes and carried guns. One was rather short
and very stoutly built, with a big bullet-shaped head, a bristly grey
moustache, and small pale-blue eyes, a trifle bloodshot. The other was a
slender young fellow, of middle height, dark in complexion, and bearing
himself with grace and distinction. I set the one down as an old
soldier: the other for a gentleman accustomed to move in good society,
but not unused to military life either. It turned out afterwards that my
guess was a good one.

The elder man approached me, beckoning the younger to follow. He did so,
courteously raising his hat. I rose slowly to my feet.

“He’s the height, too!” I heard the elder murmur, as he surveyed my six
feet two inches of stature. Then, with a cavalier touch of the cap, he
addressed me:

“May I ask your name?”

“As you have taken the first step in the acquaintance, gentlemen,” said
I, with a smile, “suppose you give me a lead in the matter of names.”

The young man stepped forward with a pleasant smile.

“This,” said he, “is Colonel Sapt, and I am called Fritz von Tarlenheim:
we are both in the service of the King of Ruritania.”

I bowed and, baring my head, answered:

“I am Rudolf Rassendyll. I am a traveller from England; and once for a
year or two I held a commission from her Majesty the Queen.”

“Then we are all brethren of the sword,” answered Tarlenheim, holding
out his hand, which I took readily.

“Rassendyll, Rassendyll!” muttered Colonel Sapt; then a gleam of
intelligence flitted across his face.

“By Heaven!” he cried, “you’re of the Burlesdons?”

“My brother is now Lord Burlesdon,” said I.

“Thy head betrayeth thee,” he chuckled, pointing to my uncovered poll.
“Why, Fritz, you know the story?”

The young man glanced apologetically at me. He felt a delicacy which
my sister-in-law would have admired. To put him at his ease, I remarked
with a smile:

“Ah! the story is known here as well as among us, it seems.”

“Known!” cried Sapt. “If you stay here, the deuce a man in all Ruritania
will doubt of it--or a woman either.”

I began to feel uncomfortable. Had I realized what a very plainly
written pedigree I carried about with me, I should have thought long
before I visited Ruritania. However, I was in for it now.

At this moment a ringing voice sounded from the wood behind us:

“Fritz, Fritz! where are you, man?”

Tarlenheim started, and said hastily:

“It’s the King!”

Old Sapt chuckled again.

Then a young man jumped out from behind the trunk of a tree and stood
beside us. As I looked at him, I uttered an astonished cry; and he,
seeing me, drew back in sudden wonder. Saving the hair on my face and
a manner of conscious dignity which his position gave him, saving also
that he lacked perhaps half an inch--nay, less than that, but still
something--of my height, the King of Ruritania might have been Rudolf
Rassendyll, and I, Rudolf, the King.

For an instant we stood motionless, looking at one another. Then I bared
my head again and bowed respectfully. The King found his voice, and
asked in bewilderment:

“Colonel--Fritz--who is this gentleman?”

I was about to answer, when Colonel Sapt stepped between the King and
me, and began to talk to his Majesty in a low growl. The King towered
over Sapt, and, as he listened, his eyes now and again sought mine.
I looked at him long and carefully. The likeness was certainly
astonishing, though I saw the points of difference also. The King’s face
was slightly more fleshy than mine, the oval of its contour the least
trifle more pronounced, and, as I fancied, his mouth lacking something
of the firmness (or obstinacy) which was to be gathered from
my close-shutting lips. But, for all that, and above all minor
distinctions, the likeness rose striking, salient, wonderful.

Sapt ceased speaking, and the King still frowned. Then, gradually, the
corners of his mouth began to twitch, his nose came down (as mine
does when I laugh), his eyes twinkled, and, behold! he burst into the
merriest fit of irrepressible laughter, which rang through the woods and
proclaimed him a jovial soul.

“Well met, cousin!” he cried, stepping up to me, clapping me on the
back, and laughing still. “You must forgive me if I was taken aback. A
man doesn’t expect to see double at this time of day, eh, Fritz?”

“I must pray pardon, sire, for my presumption,” said I. “I trust it will
not forfeit your Majesty’s favour.”

“By Heaven! you’ll always enjoy the King’s countenance,” he laughed,
“whether I like it or not; and, sir, I shall very gladly add to it what
services I can. Where are you travelling to?”

“To Strelsau, sire--to the coronation.”

The King looked at his friends: he still smiled, though his expression
hinted some uneasiness. But the humorous side of the matter caught him
again.

“Fritz, Fritz!” he cried, “a thousand crowns for a sight of brother
Michael’s face when he sees a pair of us!” and the merry laugh rang out
again.

“Seriously,” observed Fritz von Tarlenheim, “I question Mr. Rassendyll’s
wisdom in visiting Strelsau just now.”

The King lit a cigarette.

“Well, Sapt?” said he, questioningly.

“He mustn’t go,” growled the old fellow.

“Come, colonel, you mean that I should be in Mr. Rassendyll’s debt,
if--”

“Oh, ay! wrap it up in the right way,” said Sapt, hauling a great pipe
out of his pocket.

“Enough, sire,” said I. “I’ll leave Ruritania today.”

“No, by thunder, you shan’t--and that’s sans phrase, as Sapt likes it.
For you shall dine with me tonight, happen what will afterwards. Come,
man, you don’t meet a new relation every day!”

“We dine sparingly tonight,” said Fritz von Tarlenheim.

“Not we--with our new cousin for a guest!” cried the King; and, as Fritz
shrugged his shoulders, he added: “Oh! I’ll remember our early start,
Fritz.”

“So will I--tomorrow morning,” said old Sapt, pulling at his pipe.

“O wise old Sapt!” cried the King. “Come, Mr. Rassendyll--by the way,
what name did they give you?”

“Your Majesty’s,” I answered, bowing.

“Well, that shows they weren’t ashamed of us,” he laughed. “Come, then,
cousin Rudolf; I’ve got no house of my own here, but my dear brother
Michael lends us a place of his, and we’ll make shift to entertain you
there;” and he put his arm through mine and, signing to the others to
accompany us, walked me off, westerly, through the forest.

We walked for more than half an hour, and the King smoked cigarettes
and chattered incessantly. He was full of interest in my family, laughed
heartily when I told him of the portraits with Elphberg hair in our
galleries, and yet more heartily when he heard that my expedition to
Ruritania was a secret one.

“You have to visit your disreputable cousin on the sly, have you?” said
he.

Suddenly emerging from the wood, we came on a small and rude
hunting-lodge. It was a one-storey building, a sort of bungalow, built
entirely of wood. As we approached it, a little man in a plain livery
came out to meet us. The only other person I saw about the place was
a fat elderly woman, whom I afterwards discovered to be the mother of
Johann, the duke’s keeper.

“Well, is dinner ready, Josef?” asked the King.

The little servant informed us that it was, and we soon sat down to a
plentiful meal. The fare was plain enough: the King ate heartily, Fritz
von Tarlenheim delicately, old Sapt voraciously. I played a good
knife and fork, as my custom is; the King noticed my performance with
approval.

“We’re all good trenchermen, we Elphbergs,” said he. “But what?--we’re
eating dry! Wine, Josef! wine, man! Are we beasts, to eat without
drinking? Are we cattle, Josef?”

At this reproof Josef hastened to load the table with bottles.

“Remember tomorrow!” said Fritz.

“Ay--tomorrow!” said old Sapt.

The King drained a bumper to his “Cousin Rudolf,” as he was gracious--or
merry--enough to call me; and I drank its fellow to the “Elphberg Red,”
 whereat he laughed loudly.

Now, be the meat what it might, the wine we drank was beyond all price
or praise, and we did it justice. Fritz ventured once to stay the King’s
hand.

“What?” cried the King. “Remember you start before I do, Master
Fritz--you must be more sparing by two hours than I.”

Fritz saw that I did not understand.

“The colonel and I,” he explained, “leave here at six: we ride down to
Zenda and return with the guard of honour to fetch the King at eight,
and then we all ride together to the station.”

“Hang that same guard!” growled Sapt.

“Oh! it’s very civil of my brother to ask the honour for his regiment,”
 said the King. “Come, cousin, you need not start early. Another bottle,
man!”

I had another bottle--or, rather, a part of one, for the larger half
travelled quickly down his Majesty’s throat. Fritz gave up his attempts
at persuasion: from persuading, he fell to being persuaded, and soon we
were all of us as full of wine as we had any right to be. The King began
talking of what he would do in the future, old Sapt of what he had
done in the past, Fritz of some beautiful girl or other, and I of the
wonderful merits of the Elphberg dynasty. We all talked at once, and
followed to the letter Sapt’s exhortation to let the morrow take care of
itself.

At last the King set down his glass and leant back in his chair.

“I have drunk enough,” said he.

“Far be it from me to contradict the King,” said I.

Indeed, his remark was most absolutely true--so far as it went.

While I yet spoke, Josef came and set before the King a marvellous old
wicker-covered flagon. It had lain so long in some darkened cellar that
it seemed to blink in the candlelight.

“His Highness the Duke of Strelsau bade me set this wine before the
King, when the King was weary of all other wines, and pray the King to
drink, for the love that he bears his brother.”

“Well done, Black Michael!” said the King. “Out with the cork, Josef.
Hang him! Did he think I’d flinch from his bottle?”

The bottle was opened, and Josef filled the King’s glass. The King
tasted it. Then, with a solemnity born of the hour and his own
condition, he looked round on us:

“Gentlemen, my friends--Rudolf, my cousin [‘tis a scandalous story,
Rudolf, on my honour!), everything is yours to the half of Ruritania.
But ask me not for a single drop of this divine bottle, which I will
drink to the health of that--that sly knave, my brother, Black Michael.”

And the King seized the bottle and turned it over his mouth, and drained
it and flung it from him, and laid his head on his arms on the table.

And we drank pleasant dreams to his Majesty--and that is all I remember
of the evening. Perhaps it is enough.





CHAPTER 4

The King Keeps His Appointment


Whether I had slept a minute or a year I knew not. I awoke with a start
and a shiver; my face, hair and clothes dripped water, and opposite me
stood old Sapt, a sneering smile on his face and an empty bucket in his
hand. On the table by him sat Fritz von Tarlenheim, pale as a ghost and
black as a crow under the eyes.

I leapt to my feet in anger.

“Your joke goes too far, sir!” I cried.

“Tut, man, we’ve no time for quarrelling. Nothing else would rouse you.
It’s five o’clock.”

“I’ll thank you, Colonel Sapt--” I began again, hot in spirit, though I
was uncommonly cold in body.

“Rassendyll,” interrupted Fritz, getting down from the table and taking
my arm, “look here.”

The King lay full length on the floor. His face was red as his hair,
and he breathed heavily. Sapt, the disrespectful old dog, kicked him
sharply. He did not stir, nor was there any break in his breathing. I
saw that his face and head were wet with water, as were mine.

“We’ve spent half an hour on him,” said Fritz.

“He drank three times what either of you did,” growled Sapt.

I knelt down and felt his pulse. It was alarmingly languid and slow. We
three looked at one another.

“Was it drugged--that last bottle?” I asked in a whisper.

“I don’t know,” said Sapt.

“We must get a doctor.”

“There’s none within ten miles, and a thousand doctors wouldn’t take
him to Strelsau today. I know the look of it. He’ll not move for six or
seven hours yet.”

“But the coronation!” I cried in horror.

Fritz shrugged his shoulders, as I began to see was his habit on most
occasions.

“We must send word that he’s ill,” he said.

“I suppose so,” said I.

Old Sapt, who seemed as fresh as a daisy, had lit his pipe and was
puffing hard at it.

“If he’s not crowned today,” said he, “I’ll lay a crown he’s never
crowned.”

“But heavens, why?”

“The whole nation’s there to meet him; half the army--ay, and Black
Michael at the head. Shall we send word that the King’s drunk?”

“That he’s ill,” said I, in correction.

“Ill!” echoed Sapt, with a scornful laugh. “They know his illnesses too
well. He’s been ‘ill’ before!”

“Well, we must chance what they think,” said Fritz helplessly. “I’ll
carry the news and make the best of it.”

Sapt raised his hand.

“Tell me,” said he. “Do you think the King was drugged?”

“I do,” said I.

“And who drugged him?”

“That damned hound, Black Michael,” said Fritz between his teeth.

“Ay,” said Sapt, “that he might not come to be crowned. Rassendyll here
doesn’t know our pretty Michael. What think you, Fritz, has Michael no
king ready? Has half Strelsau no other candidate? As God’s alive, man,
the throne’s lost if the King show himself not in Strelsau today. I know
Black Michael.”

“We could carry him there,” said I.

“And a very pretty picture he makes,” sneered Sapt.

Fritz von Tarlenheim buried his face in his hands. The King breathed
loudly and heavily. Sapt stirred him again with his foot.

“The drunken dog!” he said; “but he’s an Elphberg and the son of his
father, and may I rot in hell before Black Michael sits in his place!”

For a moment or two we were all silent; then Sapt, knitting his bushy
grey brows, took his pipe from his mouth and said to me:

“As a man grows old he believes in Fate. Fate sent you here. Fate sends
you now to Strelsau.”

I staggered back, murmuring “Good God!”

Fritz looked up with an eager, bewildered gaze.

“Impossible!” I muttered. “I should be known.”

“It’s a risk--against a certainty,” said Sapt. “If you shave, I’ll wager
you’ll not be known. Are you afraid?”

“Sir!”

“Come, lad, there, there; but it’s your life, you know, if you’re
known--and mine--and Fritz’s here. But, if you don’t go, I swear to you
Black Michael will sit tonight on the throne, and the King lie in prison
or his grave.”

“The King would never forgive it,” I stammered.

“Are we women? Who cares for his forgiveness?”

The clock ticked fifty times, and sixty and seventy times, as I stood in
thought. Then I suppose a look came over my face, for old Sapt caught me
by the hand, crying:

“You’ll go?”

“Yes, I’ll go,” said I, and I turned my eyes on the prostrate figure of
the King on the floor.

“Tonight,” Sapt went on in a hasty whisper, “we are to lodge in the
Palace. The moment they leave us you and I will mount our horses--Fritz
must stay there and guard the King’s room--and ride here at a gallop.
The King will be ready--Josef will tell him--and he must ride back with
me to Strelsau, and you ride as if the devil were behind you to the
frontier.”

I took it all in in a second, and nodded my head.

“There’s a chance,” said Fritz, with his first sign of hopefulness.

“If I escape detection,” said I.

“If we’re detected,” said Sapt. “I’ll send Black Michael down below
before I go myself, so help me heaven! Sit in that chair, man.”

I obeyed him.

He darted from the room, calling “Josef! Josef!” In three minutes he was
back, and Josef with him. The latter carried a jug of hot water, soap
and razors. He was trembling as Sapt told him how the land lay, and bade
him shave me.

Suddenly Fritz smote on his thigh:

“But the guard! They’ll know! they’ll know!”

“Pooh! We shan’t wait for the guard. We’ll ride to Hofbau and catch a
train there. When they come, the bird’ll be flown.”

“But the King?”

“The King will be in the wine-cellar. I’m going to carry him there now.”

“If they find him?”

“They won’t. How should they? Josef will put them off.”

“But--”

Sapt stamped his foot.

“We’re not playing,” he roared. “My God! don’t I know the risk? If
they do find him, he’s no worse off than if he isn’t crowned today in
Strelsau.”

So speaking, he flung the door open and, stooping, put forth a strength
I did not dream he had, and lifted the King in his hands. And as he did
so, the old woman, Johann the keeper’s mother, stood in the doorway.
For a moment she stood, then she turned on her heel, without a sign of
surprise, and clattered down the passage.

“Has she heard?” cried Fritz.

“I’ll shut her mouth!” said Sapt grimly, and he bore off the King in his
arms.

For me, I sat down in an armchair, and as I sat there, half-dazed, Josef
clipped and scraped me till my moustache and imperial were things of the
past and my face was as bare as the King’s. And when Fritz saw me thus
he drew a long breath and exclaimed:--

“By Jove, we shall do it!”

It was six o’clock now, and we had no time to lose. Sapt hurried me into
the King’s room, and I dressed myself in the uniform of a colonel of the
Guard, finding time as I slipped on the King’s boots to ask Sapt what he
had done with the old woman.

“She swore she’d heard nothing,” said he; “but to make sure I tied her
legs together and put a handkerchief in her mouth and bound her hands,
and locked her up in the coal-cellar, next door to the King. Josef will
look after them both later on.”

Then I burst out laughing, and even old Sapt grimly smiled.

“I fancy,” said he, “that when Josef tells them the King is gone they’ll
think it is because we smelt a rat. For you may swear Black Michael
doesn’t expect to see him in Strelsau today.”

I put the King’s helmet on my head. Old Sapt handed me the King’s sword,
looking at me long and carefully.

“Thank God, he shaved his beard!” he exclaimed.

“Why did he?” I asked.

“Because Princess Flavia said he grazed her cheek when he was graciously
pleased to give her a cousinly kiss. Come though, we must ride.”

“Is all safe here?”

“Nothing’s safe anywhere,” said Sapt, “but we can make it no safer.”

Fritz now rejoined us in the uniform of a captain in the same regiment
as that to which my dress belonged. In four minutes Sapt had arrayed
himself in his uniform. Josef called that the horses were ready. We
jumped on their backs and started at a rapid trot. The game had begun.
What would the issue of it be?

The cool morning air cleared my head, and I was able to take in all
Sapt said to me. He was wonderful. Fritz hardly spoke, riding like a man
asleep, but Sapt, without another word for the King, began at once to
instruct me most minutely in the history of my past life, of my family,
of my tastes, pursuits, weaknesses, friends, companions, and servants.
He told me the etiquette of the Ruritanian Court, promising to be
constantly at my elbow to point out everybody whom I ought to know, and
give me hints with what degree of favour to greet them.

“By the way,” he said, “you’re a Catholic, I suppose?”

“Not I,” I answered.

“Lord, he’s a heretic!” groaned Sapt, and forthwith he fell to a
rudimentary lesson in the practices and observances of the Romish faith.

“Luckily,” said he, “you won’t be expected to know much, for the King’s
notoriously lax and careless about such matters. But you must be as
civil as butter to the Cardinal. We hope to win him over, because he and
Michael have a standing quarrel about their precedence.”

We were by now at the station. Fritz had recovered nerve enough to
explain to the astonished station master that the King had changed his
plans. The train steamed up. We got into a first-class carriage, and
Sapt, leaning back on the cushions, went on with his lesson. I looked at
my watch--the King’s watch it was, of course. It was just eight.

“I wonder if they’ve gone to look for us,” I said.

“I hope they won’t find the King,” said Fritz nervously, and this time
it was Sapt who shrugged his shoulders.

The train travelled well, and at half-past nine, looking out of the
window, I saw the towers and spires of a great city.

“Your capital, my liege,” grinned old Sapt, with a wave of his hand,
and, leaning forward, he laid his finger on my pulse. “A little too
quick,” said he, in his grumbling tone.

“I’m not made of stone!” I exclaimed.

“You’ll do,” said he, with a nod. “We must say Fritz here has caught the
ague. Drain your flask, Fritz, for heaven’s sake, boy!”

Fritz did as he was bid.

“We’re an hour early,” said Sapt. “We’ll send word forward for your
Majesty’s arrival, for there’ll be no one here to meet us yet. And
meanwhile--”

“Meanwhile,” said I, “the King’ll be hanged if he doesn’t have some
breakfast.”

Old Sapt chuckled, and held out his hand.

“You’re an Elphberg, every inch of you,” said he. Then he paused, and
looking at us, said quietly, “God send we may be alive tonight!”

“Amen!” said Fritz von Tarlenheim.

The train stopped. Fritz and Sapt leapt out, uncovered, and held the
door for me. I choked down a lump that rose in my throat, settled my
helmet firmly on my head, and (I’m not ashamed to say it) breathed a
short prayer to God. Then I stepped on the platform of the station at
Strelsau.

A moment later, all was bustle and confusion: men hurrying up, hats
in hand, and hurrying off again; men conducting me to the buffet; men
mounting and riding in hot haste to the quarters of the troops, to the
Cathedral, to the residence of Duke Michael. Even as I swallowed the
last drop of my cup of coffee, the bells throughout all the city broke
out into a joyful peal, and the sound of a military band and of men
cheering smote upon my ear.

King Rudolf the Fifth was in his good city of Strelsau! And they shouted
outside--

“God save the King!”

Old Sapt’s mouth wrinkled into a smile.

“God save ’em both!” he whispered. “Courage, lad!” and I felt his hand
press my knee.




CHAPTER 5

The Adventures of an Understudy


With Fritz von Tarlenheim and Colonel Sapt close behind me, I stepped
out of the buffet on to the platform. The last thing I did was to feel
if my revolver were handy and my sword loose in the scabbard. A gay
group of officers and high dignitaries stood awaiting me, at their head
a tall old man, covered with medals, and of military bearing. He wore
the yellow and red ribbon of the Red Rose of Ruritania--which, by the
way, decorated my unworthy breast also.

“Marshal Strakencz,” whispered Sapt, and I knew that I was in the
presence of the most famous veteran of the Ruritanian army.

Just behind the Marshal stood a short spare man, in flowing robes of
black and crimson.

“The Chancellor of the Kingdom,” whispered Sapt.

The Marshal greeted me in a few loyal words, and proceeded to deliver
an apology from the Duke of Strelsau. The duke, it seemed, had been
afflicted with a sudden indisposition which made it impossible for him
to come to the station, but he craved leave to await his Majesty at the
Cathedral. I expressed my concern, accepted the Marshal’s excuses very
suavely, and received the compliments of a large number of distinguished
personages. No one betrayed the least suspicion, and I felt my nerve
returning and the agitated beating of my heart subsiding. But Fritz
was still pale, and his hand shook like a leaf as he extended it to the
Marshal.

Presently we formed procession and took our way to the door of the
station. Here I mounted my horse, the Marshal holding my stirrup. The
civil dignitaries went off to their carriages, and I started to ride
through the streets with the Marshal on my right and Sapt (who, as my
chief aide-de-camp, was entitled to the place) on my left. The city of
Strelsau is partly old and partly new. Spacious modern boulevards and
residential quarters surround and embrace the narrow, tortuous, and
picturesque streets of the original town. In the outer circles the upper
classes live; in the inner the shops are situated; and, behind their
prosperous fronts, lie hidden populous but wretched lanes and alleys,
filled with a poverty-stricken, turbulent, and (in large measure)
criminal class. These social and local divisions corresponded, as I knew
from Sapt’s information, to another division more important to me. The
New Town was for the King; but to the Old Town Michael of Strelsau was a
hope, a hero, and a darling.

The scene was very brilliant as we passed along the Grand Boulevard and
on to the great square where the Royal Palace stood. Here I was in
the midst of my devoted adherents. Every house was hung with red and
bedecked with flags and mottoes. The streets were lined with raised
seats on each side, and I passed along, bowing this way and that, under
a shower of cheers, blessings, and waving handkerchiefs. The balconies
were full of gaily dressed ladies, who clapped their hands and curtsied
and threw their brightest glances at me. A torrent of red roses fell on
me; one bloom lodged in my horse’s mane, and I took it and stuck it in
my coat. The Marshal smiled grimly. I had stolen some glances at his
face, but he was too impassive to show me whether his sympathies were
with me or not.

“The red rose for the Elphbergs, Marshal,” said I gaily, and he nodded.

I have written “gaily,” and a strange word it must seem. But the truth
is, that I was drunk with excitement. At that moment I believed--I
almost believed--that I was in very truth the King; and, with a look of
laughing triumph, I raised my eyes to the beauty-laden balconies again
. . . and then I started. For, looking down on me, with her handsome
face and proud smile, was the lady who had been my fellow
traveller--Antoinette de Mauban; and I saw her also start, and her lips
moved, and she leant forward and gazed at me. And I, collecting myself,
met her eyes full and square, while again I felt my revolver. Suppose
she had cried aloud, “That’s not the King!”

Well, we went by; and then the Marshal, turning round in his saddle,
waved his hand, and the Cuirassiers closed round us, so that the crowd
could not come near me. We were leaving my quarter and entering Duke
Michael’s, and this action of the Marshal’s showed me more clearly than
words what the state of feeling in the town must be. But if Fate made me
a King, the least I could do was to play the part handsomely.

“Why this change in our order, Marshal?” said I.

The Marshal bit his white moustache.

“It is more prudent, sire,” he murmured.

I drew rein.

“Let those in front ride on,” said I, “till they are fifty yards ahead.
But do you, Marshal, and Colonel Sapt and my friends, wait here till
I have ridden fifty yards. And see that no one is nearer to me. I will
have my people see that their King trusts them.”

Sapt laid his hand on my arm. I shook him off. The Marshal hesitated.

“Am I not understood?” said I; and, biting his moustache again, he gave
the orders. I saw old Sapt smiling into his beard, but he shook his
head at me. If I had been killed in open day in the streets of Strelsau,
Sapt’s position would have been a difficult one.

Perhaps I ought to say that I was dressed all in white, except my boots.
I wore a silver helmet with gilt ornaments, and the broad ribbon of the
Rose looked well across my chest. I should be paying a poor compliment
to the King if I did not set modesty aside and admit that I made a very
fine figure. So the people thought; for when I, riding alone, entered
the dingy, sparsely decorated, sombre streets of the Old Town, there
was first a murmur, then a cheer, and a woman, from a window above a
cookshop, cried the old local saying:

“If he’s red, he’s right!” whereat I laughed and took off my helmet that
she might see that I was of the right colour and they cheered me again
at that.

It was more interesting riding thus alone, for I heard the comments of
the crowd.

“He looks paler than his wont,” said one.

“You’d look pale if you lived as he does,” was the highly disrespectful
retort.

“He’s a bigger man than I thought,” said another.

“So he had a good jaw under that beard after all,” commented a third.

“The pictures of him aren’t handsome enough,” declared a pretty girl,
taking great care that I should hear. No doubt it was mere flattery.

But, in spite of these signs of approval and interest, the mass of
the people received me in silence and with sullen looks, and my dear
brother’s portrait ornamented most of the windows--which was an ironical
sort of greeting to the King. I was quite glad that he had been spared
the unpleasant sight. He was a man of quick temper, and perhaps he would
not have taken it so placidly as I did.

At last we were at the Cathedral. Its great grey front, embellished
with hundreds of statues and boasting a pair of the finest oak doors in
Europe, rose for the first time before me, and the sudden sense of my
audacity almost overcame me. Everything was in a mist as I dismounted. I
saw the Marshal and Sapt dimly, and dimly the throng of gorgeously robed
priests who awaited me. And my eyes were still dim as I walked up the
great nave, with the pealing of the organ in my ears. I saw nothing of
the brilliant throng that filled it, I hardly distinguished the stately
figure of the Cardinal as he rose from the archiepiscopal throne to
greet me. Two faces only stood out side by side clearly before my
eyes--the face of a girl, pale and lovely, surmounted by a crown of the
glorious Elphberg hair (for in a woman it is glorious), and the face
of a man, whose full-blooded red cheeks, black hair, and dark deep eyes
told me that at last I was in the presence of my brother, Black Michael. And
when he saw me his red cheeks went pale all in a moment, and his helmet
fell with a clatter on the floor. Till that moment I believe that he had
not realized that the King was in very truth come to Strelsau.

Of what followed next I remember nothing. I knelt before the altar and
the Cardinal anointed my head. Then I rose to my feet, and stretched out
my hand and took from him the crown of Ruritania and set it on my head,
and I swore the old oath of the King; and (if it were a sin, may it be
forgiven me) I received the Holy Sacrament there before them all. Then
the great organ pealed out again, the Marshal bade the heralds proclaim
me, and Rudolf the Fifth was crowned King; of which imposing ceremony an
excellent picture hangs now in my dining-room. The portrait of the King
is very good.

Then the lady with the pale face and the glorious hair, her train held
by two pages, stepped from her place and came to where I stood. And a
herald cried:

“Her Royal Highness the Princess Flavia!”

She curtsied low, and put her hand under mine and raised my hand and
kissed it. And for an instant I thought what I had best do. Then I
drew her to me and kissed her twice on the cheek, and she blushed red,
and--then his Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop slipped in front of Black
Michael, and kissed my hand and presented me with a letter from the
Pope--the first and last which I have received from that exalted
quarter!

And then came the Duke of Strelsau. His step trembled, I swear, and
he looked to the right and to the left, as a man looks who thinks on
flight; and his face was patched with red and white, and his hand shook
so that it jumped under mine, and I felt his lips dry and parched. And
I glanced at Sapt, who was smiling again into his beard, and, resolutely
doing my duty in that station of life to which I had been marvellously
called, I took my dear Michael by both hands and kissed him on the
cheek. I think we were both glad when that was over!

But neither in the face of the princess nor in that of any other did I
see the least doubt or questioning. Yet, had I and the King stood side
by side, she could have told us in an instant, or, at least, on a little
consideration. But neither she nor anyone else dreamed or imagined that
I could be other than the King. So the likeness served, and for an hour
I stood there, feeling as weary and blase as though I had been a king
all my life; and everybody kissed my hand, and the ambassadors paid me
their respects, among them old Lord Topham, at whose house in Grosvenor
Square I had danced a score of times. Thank heaven, the old man was as
blind as a bat, and did not claim my acquaintance.

Then back we went through the streets to the Palace, and I heard them
cheering Black Michael; but he, Fritz told me, sat biting his nails like
a man in a reverie, and even his own friends said that he should have
made a braver show. I was in a carriage now, side by side with the
Princess Flavia, and a rough fellow cried out:

“And when’s the wedding?” and as he spoke another struck him in the
face, crying “Long live Duke Michael!” and the princess coloured--it was
an admirable tint--and looked straight in front of her.

Now I felt in a difficulty, because I had forgotten to ask Sapt the
state of my affections, or how far matters had gone between the princess
and myself. Frankly, had I been the King, the further they had gone the
better should I have been pleased. For I am not a slow-blooded man, and
I had not kissed Princess Flavia’s cheek for nothing. These thoughts
passed through my head, but, not being sure of my ground, I said
nothing; and in a moment or two the princess, recovering her equanimity,
turned to me.

“Do you know, Rudolf,” said she, “you look somehow different today?”

The fact was not surprising, but the remark was disquieting.

“You look,” she went on, “more sober, more sedate; you’re almost
careworn, and I declare you’re thinner. Surely it’s not possible that
you’ve begun to take anything seriously?”

The princess seemed to hold of the King much the same opinion that Lady
Burlesdon held of me.

I braced myself up to the conversation.

“Would that please you?” I asked softly.

“Oh, you know my views,” said she, turning her eyes away.

“Whatever pleases you I try to do,” I said; and, as I saw her smile and
blush, I thought that I was playing the King’s hand very well for him.
So I continued and what I said was perfectly true:

“I assure you, my dear cousin, that nothing in my life has affected me
more than the reception I’ve been greeted with today.”

She smiled brightly, but in an instant grew grave again, and whispered:

“Did you notice Michael?”

“Yes,” said I, adding, “he wasn’t enjoying himself.”

“Do be careful!” she went on. “You don’t--indeed you don’t--keep enough
watch on him. You know--”

“I know,” said I, “that he wants what I’ve got.”

“Yes. Hush!”

Then--and I can’t justify it, for I committed the King far beyond what I
had a right to do--I suppose she carried me off my feet--I went on:

“And perhaps also something which I haven’t got yet, but hope to win
some day.”

This was my answer. Had I been the King, I should have thought it
encouraging:

“Haven’t you enough responsibilities on you for one day, cousin?”

Bang, bang! Blare, blare! We were at the Palace. Guns were firing
and trumpets blowing. Rows of lackeys stood waiting, and, handing the
princess up the broad marble staircase, I took formal possession, as
a crowned King, of the House of my ancestors, and sat down at my own
table, with my cousin on my right hand, on her other side Black Michael,
and on my left his Eminence the Cardinal. Behind my chair stood Sapt;
and at the end of the table, I saw Fritz von Tarlenheim drain to the
bottom his glass of champagne rather sooner than he decently should.

I wondered what the King of Ruritania was doing.




CHAPTER 6

The Secret of a Cellar


We were in the King’s dressing-room--Fritz von Tarlenheim, Sapt, and I.
I flung myself exhausted into an armchair. Sapt lit his pipe. He uttered
no congratulations on the marvellous success of our wild risk, but his
whole bearing was eloquent of satisfaction. The triumph, aided perhaps
by good wine, had made a new man of Fritz.

“What a day for you to remember!” he cried. “Gad, I’d like to be King
for twelve hours myself! But, Rassendyll, you mustn’t throw your heart
too much into the part. I don’t wonder Black Michael looked blacker than
ever--you and the princess had so much to say to one another.”

“How beautiful she is!” I exclaimed.

“Never mind the woman,” growled Sapt. “Are you ready to start?”

“Yes,” said I, with a sigh.

It was five o’clock, and at twelve I should be no more than Rudolf
Rassendyll. I remarked on it in a joking tone.

“You’ll be lucky,” observed Sapt grimly, “if you’re not the late Rudolf
Rassendyll. By Heaven! I feel my head wobbling on my shoulders every
minute you’re in the city. Do you know, friend, that Michael has had
news from Zenda? He went into a room alone to read it--and he came out
looking like a man dazed.”

“I’m ready,” said I, this news making me none the more eager to linger.

Sapt sat down.

“I must write us an order to leave the city. Michael’s Governor, you
know, and we must be prepared for hindrances. You must sign the order.”

“My dear colonel, I’ve not been bred a forger!”

Out of his pocket Sapt produced a piece of paper.

“There’s the King’s signature,” he said, “and here,” he went on, after
another search in his pocket, “is some tracing paper. If you can’t
manage a ‘Rudolf’ in ten minutes, why--I can.”

“Your education has been more comprehensive than mine,” said I. “You
write it.”

And a very tolerable forgery did this versatile hero produce.

“Now, Fritz,” said he, “the King goes to bed. He is upset. No one is to
see him till nine o’clock tomorrow. You understand--no one?”

“I understand,” answered Fritz.

“Michael may come, and claim immediate audience. You’ll answer that only
princes of the blood are entitled to it.”

“That’ll annoy Michael,” laughed Fritz.

“You quite understand?” asked Sapt again. “If the door of this room is
opened while we’re away, you’re not to be alive to tell us about it.”

“I need no schooling, colonel,” said Fritz, a trifle haughtily.

“Here, wrap yourself in this big cloak,” Sapt continued to me, “and
put on this flat cap. My orderly rides with me to the hunting-lodge
tonight.”

“There’s an obstacle,” I observed. “The horse doesn’t live that can
carry me forty miles.”

“Oh, yes, he does--two of him: one here--one at the lodge. Now, are you
ready?”

“I’m ready,” said I.

Fritz held out his hand.

“In case,” said he; and we shook hands heartily.

“Damn your sentiment!” growled Sapt. “Come along.”

He went, not to the door, but to a panel in the wall.

“In the old King’s time,” said he, “I knew this way well.”

I followed him, and we walked, as I should estimate, near two hundred
yards along a narrow passage. Then we came to a stout oak door. Sapt
unlocked it. We passed through, and found ourselves in a quiet street
that ran along the back of the Palace gardens. A man was waiting for us
with two horses. One was a magnificent bay, up to any weight; the other
a sturdy brown. Sapt signed to me to mount the bay. Without a word
to the man, we mounted and rode away. The town was full of noise and
merriment, but we took secluded ways. My cloak was wrapped over half
my face; the capacious flat cap hid every lock of my tell-tale hair. By
Sapt’s directions, I crouched on my saddle, and rode with such a round
back as I hope never to exhibit on a horse again. Down a long narrow
lane we went, meeting some wanderers and some roisterers; and, as we
rode, we heard the Cathedral bells still clanging out their welcome to
the King. It was half-past six, and still light. At last we came to the
city wall and to a gate.

“Have your weapon ready,” whispered Sapt. “We must stop his mouth, if he
talks.”

I put my hand on my revolver. Sapt hailed the doorkeeper. The stars
fought for us! A little girl of fourteen tripped out.

“Please, sir, father’s gone to see the King.”

“He’d better have stayed here,” said Sapt to me, grinning.

“But he said I wasn’t to open the gate, sir.”

“Did he, my dear?” said Sapt, dismounting. “Then give me the key.”

The key was in the child’s hand. Sapt gave her a crown.

“Here’s an order from the King. Show it to your father. Orderly, open
the gate!”

I leapt down. Between us we rolled back the great gate, led our horses
out, and closed it again.

“I shall be sorry for the doorkeeper if Michael finds out that he wasn’t
there. Now then, lad, for a canter. We mustn’t go too fast while we’re
near the town.”

Once, however, outside the city, we ran little danger, for everybody
else was inside, merry-making; and as the evening fell we quickened our
pace, my splendid horse bounding along under me as though I had been a
feather. It was a fine night, and presently the moon appeared. We talked
little on the way, and chiefly about the progress we were making.

“I wonder what the duke’s despatches told him,” said I, once.

“Ay, I wonder!” responded Sapt.

We stopped for a draught of wine and to bait our horses, losing half an
hour thus. I dared not go into the inn, and stayed with the horses
in the stable. Then we went ahead again, and had covered some
five-and-twenty miles, when Sapt abruptly stopped.

“Hark!” he cried.

I listened. Away, far behind us, in the still of the evening--it was
just half-past nine--we heard the beat of horses’ hoofs. The wind
blowing strong behind us, carried the sound. I glanced at Sapt.

“Come on!” he cried, and spurred his horse into a gallop. When we next
paused to listen, the hoof-beats were not audible, and we relaxed our
pace. Then we heard them again. Sapt jumped down and laid his ear to the
ground.

“There are two,” he said. “They’re only a mile behind. Thank God the
road curves in and out, and the wind’s our way.”

We galloped on. We seemed to be holding our own. We had entered the
outskirts of the forest of Zenda, and the trees, closing in behind us as
the track zigged and zagged, prevented us seeing our pursuers, and them
from seeing us.

Another half-hour brought us to a divide of the road. Sapt drew rein.

“To the right is our road,” he said. “To the left, to the Castle. Each
about eight miles. Get down.”

“But they’ll be on us!” I cried.

“Get down!” he repeated brusquely; and I obeyed. The wood was dense up
to the very edge of the road. We led our horses into the covert, bound
handkerchiefs over their eyes, and stood beside them.

“You want to see who they are?” I whispered.

“Ay, and where they’re going,” he answered.

I saw that his revolver was in his hand.

Nearer and nearer came the hoofs. The moon shone out now clear and full,
so that the road was white with it. The ground was hard, and we had left
no traces.

“Here they come!” whispered Sapt.

“It’s the duke!”

“I thought so,” he answered.

It was the duke; and with him a burly fellow whom I knew well, and who
had cause to know me afterwards--Max Holf, brother to Johann the keeper,
and body-servant to his Highness. They were up to us: the duke reined
up. I saw Sapt’s finger curl lovingly towards the trigger. I believe
he would have given ten years of his life for a shot; and he could have
picked off Black Michael as easily as I could a barn-door fowl in a
farmyard. I laid my hand on his arm. He nodded reassuringly: he was
always ready to sacrifice inclination to duty.

“Which way?” asked Black Michael.

“To the Castle, your Highness,” urged his companion. “There we shall
learn the truth.”

For an instant the duke hesitated.

“I thought I heard hoofs,” said he.

“I think not, your Highness.”

“Why shouldn’t we go to the lodge?”

“I fear a trap. If all is well, why go to the lodge? If not, it’s a
snare to trap us.”

Suddenly the duke’s horse neighed. In an instant we folded our cloaks
close round our horses’ heads, and, holding them thus, covered the duke
and his attendant with our revolvers. If they had found us, they had
been dead men, or our prisoners.

Michael waited a moment longer. Then he cried:

“To Zenda, then!” and setting spurs to his horse, galloped on.

Sapt raised his weapon after him, and there was such an expression
of wistful regret on his face that I had much ado not to burst out
laughing.

For ten minutes we stayed where we were.

“You see,” said Sapt, “they’ve sent him news that all is well.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“God knows,” said Sapt, frowning heavily. “But it’s brought him from
Strelsau in a rare puzzle.”

Then we mounted, and rode as fast as our weary horses could lay their
feet to the ground. For those last eight miles we spoke no more. Our
minds were full of apprehension. “All is well.” What did it mean? Was
all well with the King?

At last the lodge came in sight. Spurring our horses to a last gallop,
we rode up to the gate. All was still and quiet. Not a soul came to meet
us. We dismounted in haste. Suddenly Sapt caught me by the arm.

“Look there!” he said, pointing to the ground.

I looked down. At my feet lay five or six silk handkerchiefs, torn and
slashed and rent. I turned to him questioningly.

“They’re what I tied the old woman up with,” said he. “Fasten the
horses, and come along.”

The handle of the door turned without resistance. We passed into the
room which had been the scene of last night’s bout. It was still strewn
with the remnants of our meal and with empty bottles.

“Come on,” cried Sapt, whose marvellous composure had at last almost
given way.

We rushed down the passage towards the cellars. The door of the
coal-cellar stood wide open.

“They found the old woman,” said I.

“You might have known that from the handkerchiefs,” he said.

Then we came opposite the door of the wine-cellar. It was shut. It
looked in all respects as it had looked when we left it that morning.

“Come, it’s all right,” said I.

A loud oath from Sapt rang out. His face turned pale, and he pointed
again at the floor. From under the door a red stain had spread over the
floor of the passage and dried there. Sapt sank against the opposite
wall. I tried the door. It was locked.

“Where’s Josef?” muttered Sapt.

“Where’s the King?” I responded.

Sapt took out a flask and put it to his lips. I ran back to the
dining-room, and seized a heavy poker from the fireplace. In my terror
and excitement I rained blows on the lock of the door, and I fired a
cartridge into it. It gave way, and the door swung open.

“Give me a light,” said I; but Sapt still leant against the wall.

He was, of course, more moved than I, for he loved his master. Afraid
for himself he was not--no man ever saw him that; but to think what
might lie in that dark cellar was enough to turn any man’s face pale.
I went myself, and took a silver candlestick from the dining-table and
struck a light, and, as I returned, I felt the hot wax drip on my naked
hand as the candle swayed to and fro; so that I cannot afford to despise
Colonel Sapt for his agitation.

I came to the door of the cellar. The red stain turning more and more to
a dull brown, stretched inside. I walked two yards into the cellar, and
held the candle high above my head. I saw the full bins of wine; I saw
spiders crawling on the walls; I saw, too, a couple of empty bottles
lying on the floor; and then, away in the corner, I saw the body of a
man, lying flat on his back, with his arms stretched wide, and a crimson
gash across his throat. I walked to him and knelt down beside him, and
commended to God the soul of a faithful man. For it was the body of
Josef, the little servant, slain in guarding the King.

I felt a hand on my shoulders, and, turning, saw Sapt, eyes glaring and
terror-struck, beside me.

“The King? My God! the King?” he whispered hoarsely.

I threw the candle’s gleam over every inch of the cellar.

“The King is not here,” said I.




CHAPTER 7

His Majesty Sleeps in Strelsau


I put my arm round Sapt’s waist and supported him out of the cellar,
drawing the battered door close after me. For ten minutes or more we sat
silent in the dining-room. Then old Sapt rubbed his knuckles into his
eyes, gave one great gasp, and was himself again. As the clock on the
mantelpiece struck one he stamped his foot on the floor, saying:

“They’ve got the King!”

“Yes,” said I, “‘all’s well!’ as Black Michael’s despatch said. What
a moment it must have been for him when the royal salutes fired at
Strelsau this morning! I wonder when he got the message?”

“It must have been sent in the morning,” said Sapt. “They must have sent
it before news of your arrival at Strelsau reached Zenda--I suppose it
came from Zenda.”

“And he’s carried it about all day!” I exclaimed. “Upon my honour, I’m
not the only man who’s had a trying day! What did he think, Sapt?”

“What does that matter? What does he think, lad, now?”

I rose to my feet.

“We must get back,” I said, “and rouse every soldier in Strelsau. We
ought to be in pursuit of Michael before midday.”

Old Sapt pulled out his pipe and carefully lit it from the candle which
guttered on the table.

“The King may be murdered while we sit here!” I urged.

Sapt smoked on for a moment in silence.

“That cursed old woman!” he broke out. “She must have attracted their
attention somehow. I see the game. They came up to kidnap the King,
and--as I say--somehow they found him. If you hadn’t gone to Strelsau,
you and I and Fritz had been in heaven by now!”

“And the King?”

“Who knows where the King is now?” he asked.

“Come, let’s be off!” said I; but he sat still. And suddenly he burst
into one of his grating chuckles:

“By Jove, we’ve shaken up Black Michael!”

“Come, come!” I repeated impatiently.

“And we’ll shake him up a bit more,” he added, a cunning smile
broadening on his wrinkled, weather-beaten face, and his teeth working
on an end of his grizzled moustache. “Ay, lad, we’ll go back to
Strelsau. The King shall be in his capital again tomorrow.”

“The King?”

“The crowned King!”

“You’re mad!” I cried.

“If we go back and tell the trick we played, what would you give for our
lives?”

“Just what they’re worth,” said I.

“And for the King’s throne? Do you think that the nobles and the people
will enjoy being fooled as you’ve fooled them? Do you think they’ll love
a King who was too drunk to be crowned, and sent a servant to personate
him?”

“He was drugged--and I’m no servant.”

“Mine will be Black Michael’s version.”

He rose, came to me, and laid his hand on my shoulder.

“Lad,” he said, “if you play the man, you may save the King yet. Go back
and keep his throne warm for him.”

“But the duke knows--the villains he has employed know--”

“Ay, but they can’t speak!” roared Sapt in grim triumph.

“We’ve got ’em! How can they denounce you without denouncing themselves?
This is not the King, because we kidnapped the King and murdered his
servant. Can they say that?”

The position flashed on me. Whether Michael knew me or not, he could not
speak. Unless he produced the King, what could he do? And if he produced
the King, where was he? For a moment I was carried away headlong; but in
an instant the difficulties came strong upon me.

“I must be found out,” I urged.

“Perhaps; but every hour’s something. Above all, we must have a King in
Strelsau, or the city will be Michael’s in four-and-twenty hours, and
what would the King’s life be worth then--or his throne? Lad, you must
do it!”

“Suppose they kill the King?”

“They’ll kill him, if you don’t.”

“Sapt, suppose they have killed the King?”

“Then, by heaven, you’re as good an Elphberg as Black Michael, and you
shall reign in Ruritania! But I don’t believe they have; nor will they
kill him if you’re on the throne. Will they kill him, to put you in?”

It was a wild plan--wilder even and more hopeless than the trick we
had already carried through; but as I listened to Sapt I saw the strong
points in our game. And then I was a young man and I loved action, and I
was offered such a hand in such a game as perhaps never man played yet.

“I shall be found out,” I said.

“Perhaps,” said Sapt. “Come! to Strelsau! We shall be caught like rats
in a trap if we stay here.”

“Sapt,” I cried, “I’ll try it!”

“Well played!” said he. “I hope they’ve left us the horses. I’ll go and
see.”

“We must bury that poor fellow,” said I.

“No time,” said Sapt.

“I’ll do it.”

“Hang you!” he grinned. “I make you a King, and--Well, do it. Go and
fetch him, while I look to the horses. He can’t lie very deep, but I
doubt if he’ll care about that. Poor little Josef! He was an honest bit
of a man.”

He went out, and I went to the cellar. I raised poor Josef in my arms
and bore him into the passage and thence towards the door of the house.
Just inside I laid him down, remembering that I must find spades for our
task. At this instant Sapt came up.

“The horses are all right; there’s the own brother to the one that
brought you here. But you may save yourself that job.”

“I’ll not go before he’s buried.”

“Yes, you will.”

“Not I, Colonel Sapt; not for all Ruritania.”

“You fool!” said he. “Come here.”

He drew me to the door. The moon was sinking, but about three hundred
yards away, coming along the road from Zenda, I made out a party of men.
There were seven or eight of them; four were on horseback and the rest
were walking, and I saw that they carried long implements, which I
guessed to be spades and mattocks, on their shoulders.

“They’ll save you the trouble,” said Sapt. “Come along.”

He was right. The approaching party must, beyond doubt, be Duke
Michael’s men, come to remove the traces of their evil work. I hesitated
no longer, but an irresistible desire seized me.

Pointing to the corpse of poor little Josef, I said to Sapt:

“Colonel, we ought to strike a blow for him!”

“You’d like to give him some company, eh! But it’s too risky work, your
Majesty.”

“I must have a slap at ’em,” said I.

Sapt wavered.

“Well,” said he, “it’s not business, you know; but you’ve been a good
boy--and if we come to grief, why, hang me, it’ll save us lot of
thinking! I’ll show you how to touch them.”

He cautiously closed the open chink of the door.

Then we retreated through the house and made our way to the back
entrance. Here our horses were standing. A carriage-drive swept all
round the lodge.

“Revolver ready?” asked Sapt.

“No; steel for me,” said I.

“Gad, you’re thirsty tonight,” chuckled Sapt. “So be it.”

We mounted, drawing our swords, and waited silently for a minute or two.
Then we heard the tramp of men on the drive the other side of the house.
They came to a stand, and one cried:

“Now then, fetch him out!”

“Now!” whispered Sapt.

Driving the spurs into our horses, we rushed at a gallop round the
house, and in a moment we were among the ruffians. Sapt told me
afterwards that he killed a man, and I believe him; but I saw no more of
him. With a cut, I split the head of a fellow on a brown horse, and he
fell to the ground. Then I found myself opposite a big man, and I was
half conscious of another to my right. It was too warm to stay, and with
a simultaneous action I drove my spurs into my horse again and my sword
full into the big man’s breast. His bullet whizzed past my ear--I could
almost swear it touched it. I wrenched at the sword, but it would not
come, and I dropped it and galloped after Sapt, whom I now saw about
twenty yards ahead. I waved my hand in farewell, and dropped it a second
later with a yell, for a bullet had grazed my finger and I felt the
blood. Old Sapt turned round in the saddle. Someone fired again, but
they had no rifles, and we were out of range. Sapt fell to laughing.

“That’s one to me and two to you, with decent luck,” said he. “Little
Josef will have company.”

“Ay, they’ll be a _parti carrée_,” said I. My blood was up, and I
rejoiced to have killed them.

“Well, a pleasant night’s work to the rest!” said he. “I wonder if they
noticed you?”

“The big fellow did; as I stuck him I heard him cry, ‘The King!’”

“Good! good! Oh, we’ll give Black Michael some work before we’ve done!”

Pausing an instant, we made a bandage for my wounded finger, which was
bleeding freely and ached severely, the bone being much bruised. Then we
rode on, asking of our good horses all that was in them. The excitement
of the fight and of our great resolve died away, and we rode in gloomy
silence. Day broke clear and cold. We found a farmer just up, and made
him give us sustenance for ourselves and our horses. I, feigning a
toothache, muffled my face closely. Then ahead again, till Strelsau lay
before us. It was eight o’clock or nearing nine, and the gates were all
open, as they always were save when the duke’s caprice or intrigues shut
them. We rode in by the same way as we had come out the evening before,
all four of us--the men and the horses--wearied and jaded. The streets
were even quieter than when we had gone: everyone was sleeping off last
night’s revelry, and we met hardly a soul till we reached the little
gate of the Palace. There Sapt’s old groom was waiting for us.

“Is all well, sir?” he asked.

“All’s well,” said Sapt, and the man, coming to me, took my hand to
kiss.

“The King’s hurt!” he cried.

“It’s nothing,” said I, as I dismounted; “I caught my finger in the
door.”

“Remember--silence!” said Sapt. “Ah! but, my good Freyler, I do not need
to tell you that!”

The old fellow shrugged his shoulders.

“All young men like to ride abroad now and again, why not the King?”
 said he; and Sapt’s laugh left his opinion of my motives undisturbed.

“You should always trust a man,” observed Sapt, fitting the key in the
lock, “just as far as you must.”

We went in and reached the dressing-room. Flinging open the door, we saw
Fritz von Tarlenheim stretched, fully dressed, on the sofa. He seemed to
have been sleeping, but our entry woke him. He leapt to his feet, gave
one glance at me, and with a joyful cry, threw himself on his knees
before me.

“Thank God, sire! thank God, you’re safe!” he cried, stretching his hand
up to catch hold of mine.

I confess that I was moved. This King, whatever his faults, made people
love him. For a moment I could not bear to speak or break the poor
fellow’s illusion. But tough old Sapt had no such feeling. He slapped
his hand on his thigh delightedly.

“Bravo, lad!” cried he. “We shall do!”

Fritz looked up in bewilderment. I held out my hand.

“You’re wounded, sire!” he exclaimed.

“It’s only a scratch,” said I, “but--” I paused.

He rose to his feet with a bewildered air. Holding my hand, he looked
me up and down, and down and up. Then suddenly he dropped my hand and
reeled back.

“Where’s the King? Where’s the King?” he cried.

“Hush, you fool!” hissed Sapt. “Not so loud! Here’s the King!”

A knock sounded on the door. Sapt seized me by the hand.

“Here, quick, to the bedroom! Off with your cap and boots. Get into bed.
Cover everything up.”

I did as I was bid. A moment later Sapt looked in, nodded, grinned, and
introduced an extremely smart and deferential young gentleman, who came
up to my bedside, bowing again and again, and informed me that he was
of the household of the Princess Flavia, and that her Royal Highness
had sent him especially to enquire how the King’s health was after the
fatigues which his Majesty had undergone yesterday.

“My best thanks, sir, to my cousin,” said I; “and tell her Royal
Highness that I was never better in my life.”

“The King,” added old Sapt (who, I began to find, loved a good lie for
its own sake), “has slept without a break all night.”

The young gentleman (he reminded me of “Osric” in Hamlet) bowed himself
out again. The farce was over, and Fritz von Tarlenheim’s pale face
recalled us to reality--though, in faith, the farce had to be reality
for us now.

“Is the King dead?” he whispered.

“Please God, no,” said I. “But he’s in the hands of Black Michael!”




CHAPTER 8

A Fair Cousin and a Dark Brother


A real king’s life is perhaps a hard one; but a pretended king’s is,
I warrant, much harder. On the next day, Sapt instructed me in my
duties--what I ought to do and what I ought to know--for three hours;
then I snatched breakfast, with Sapt still opposite me, telling me that
the King always took white wine in the morning and was known to detest
all highly seasoned dishes. Then came the Chancellor, for another three
hours; and to him I had to explain that the hurt to my finger (we turned
that bullet to happy account) prevented me from writing--whence arose
great to-do, hunting of precedents and so forth, ending in my “making
my mark,” and the Chancellor attesting it with a superfluity of solemn
oaths. Then the French ambassador was introduced, to present his
credentials; here my ignorance was of no importance, as the King would
have been equally raw to the business (we worked through the whole _corps
diplomatique_ in the next few days, a demise of the Crown necessitating
all this bother).

Then, at last, I was left alone. I called my new servant (we had chosen,
to succeed poor Josef, a young man who had never known the King), had a
brandy-and-soda brought to me, and observed to Sapt that I trusted that
I might now have a rest. Fritz von Tarlenheim was standing by.

“By heaven!” he cried, “we waste time. Aren’t we going to throw Black
Michael by the heels?”

“Gently, my son, gently,” said Sapt, knitting his brows. “It would be
a pleasure, but it might cost us dear. Would Michael fall and leave the
King alive?”

“And,” I suggested, “while the King is here in Strelsau, on his throne,
what grievance has he against his dear brother Michael?”

“Are we to do nothing, then?”

“We’re to do nothing stupid,” growled Sapt.

“In fact, Fritz,” said I, “I am reminded of a situation in one of our
English plays--The Critic--have you heard of it? Or, if you like, of two
men, each covering the other with a revolver. For I can’t expose Michael
without exposing myself--”

“And the King,” put in Sapt.

“And, hang me if Michael won’t expose himself, if he tries to expose
me!”

“It’s very pretty,” said old Sapt.

“If I’m found out,” I pursued, “I will make a clean breast of it, and
fight it out with the duke; but at present I’m waiting for a move from
him.”

“He’ll kill the King,” said Fritz.

“Not he,” said Sapt.

“Half of the Six are in Strelsau,” said Fritz.

“Only half? You’re sure?” asked Sapt eagerly.

“Yes--only half.”

“Then the King’s alive, for the other three are guarding him!” cried
Sapt.

“Yes--you’re right!” exclaimed Fritz, his face brightening. “If the
King were dead and buried, they’d all be here with Michael. You know
Michael’s back, colonel?”

“I know, curse him!”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” said I, “who are the Six?”

“I think you’ll make their acquaintance soon,” said Sapt. “They are six
gentlemen whom Michael maintains in his household: they belong to him
body and soul. There are three Ruritanians; then there’s a Frenchman, a
Belgian, and one of your countrymen.”

“They’d all cut a throat if Michael told them,” said Fritz.

“Perhaps they’ll cut mine,” I suggested.

“Nothing more likely,” agreed Sapt. “Who are here, Fritz?”

“De Gautet, Bersonin, and Detchard.”

“The foreigners! It’s as plain as a pikestaff. He’s brought them, and
left the Ruritanians with the King; that’s because he wants to commit
the Ruritanians as deep as he can.”

“They were none of them among our friends at the lodge, then?” I asked.

“I wish they had been,” said Sapt wistfully. “They had been, not six,
but four, by now.”

I had already developed one attribute of royalty--a feeling that I need
not reveal all my mind or my secret designs even to my intimate friends.
I had fully resolved on my course of action. I meant to make myself
as popular as I could, and at the same time to show no disfavour to
Michael. By these means I hoped to allay the hostility of his adherents,
and make it appear, if an open conflict came about, that he was
ungrateful and not oppressed.

Yet an open conflict was not what I hoped for.

The King’s interest demanded secrecy; and while secrecy lasted, I had
a fine game to play in Strelsau, Michael should not grow stronger for
delay!

I ordered my horse, and, attended by Fritz von Tarlenheim, rode in the
grand new avenue of the Royal Park, returning all the salutes which I
received with punctilious politeness. Then I rode through a few of the
streets, stopped and bought flowers of a pretty girl, paying her with
a piece of gold; and then, having attracted the desired amount of
attention (for I had a trail of half a thousand people after me), I rode
to the residence of the Princess Flavia, and asked if she would
receive me. This step created much interest, and was met with shouts of
approval. The princess was very popular, and the Chancellor himself had
not scrupled to hint to me that the more I pressed my suit, and the more
rapidly I brought it to a prosperous conclusion, the stronger should I
be in the affection of my subjects. The Chancellor, of course, did not
understand the difficulties which lay in the way of following his loyal
and excellent advice. However, I thought I could do no harm by calling;
and in this view Fritz supported me with a cordiality that surprised me,
until he confessed that he also had his motives for liking a visit to
the princess’s house, which motive was no other than a great desire to
see the princess’s lady-in-waiting and bosom friend, the Countess Helga
von Strofzin.

Etiquette seconded Fritz’s hopes. While I was ushered into the
princess’s room, he remained with the countess in the ante-chamber: in
spite of the people and servants who were hanging about, I doubt not
that they managed a _tête-à-tête;_ but I had no leisure to think of them,
for I was playing the most delicate move in all my difficult game. I had
to keep the princess devoted to me--and yet indifferent to me: I had to
show affection for her--and not feel it. I had to make love for another,
and that to a girl who--princess or no princess--was the most beautiful
I had ever seen. Well, I braced myself to the task, made no easier by
the charming embarrassment with which I was received. How I succeeded in
carrying out my programme will appear hereafter.

“You are gaining golden laurels,” she said. “You are like the prince in
Shakespeare who was transformed by becoming king. But I’m forgetting you
are King, sire.”

“I ask you to speak nothing but what your heart tells you--and to call
me nothing but my name.”

She looked at me for a moment.

“Then I’m glad and proud, Rudolf,” said she. “Why, as I told you, your
very face is changed.”

I acknowledged the compliment, but I disliked the topic; so I said:

“My brother is back, I hear. He made an excursion, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he is here,” she said, frowning a little.

“He can’t stay long from Strelsau, it seems,” I observed, smiling.
“Well, we are all glad to see him. The nearer he is, the better.”

The princess glanced at me with a gleam of amusement in her eyes.

“Why, cousin? Is it that you can--?”

“See better what he’s doing? Perhaps,” said I. “And why are you glad?”

“I didn’t say I was glad,” she answered.

“Some people say so for you.”

“There are many insolent people,” she said, with delightful haughtiness.

“Possibly you mean that I am one?”

“Your Majesty could not be,” she said, curtseying in feigned deference,
but adding, mischievously, after a pause: “Unless, that is--”

“Well, unless what?”

“Unless you tell me that I mind a snap of my fingers where the Duke of
Strelsau is.”

Really, I wished that I had been the King.

“You don’t care where cousin Michael--”

“Ah, cousin Michael! I call him the Duke of Strelsau.”

“You call him Michael when you meet him?”

“Yes--by the orders of your father.”

“I see. And now by mine?”

“If those are your orders.”

“Oh, decidedly! We must all be pleasant to our dear Michael.”

“You order me to receive his friends, too, I suppose?”

“The Six?”

“You call them that, too?”

“To be in the fashion, I do. But I order you to receive no one unless
you like.”

“Except yourself?”

“I pray for myself. I could not order.”

As I spoke, there came a cheer from the street. The princess ran to the
window.

“It is he!” she cried. “It is--the Duke of Strelsau!”

I smiled, but said nothing. She returned to her seat. For a few moments
we sat in silence. The noise outside subsided, but I heard the tread of
feet in the ante-room. I began to talk on general subjects. This went on
for some minutes. I wondered what had become of Michael, but it did
not seem to be for me to interfere. All at once, to my great surprise,
Flavia, clasping her hands asked in an agitated voice:

“Are you wise to make him angry?”

“What? Who? How am I making him angry?”

“Why, by keeping him waiting.”

“My dear cousin, I don’t want to keep him--”

“Well, then, is he to come in?”

“Of course, if you wish it.”

She looked at me curiously.

“How funny you are,” she said. “Of course no one could be announced
while I was with you.”

Here was a charming attribute of royalty!

“An excellent etiquette!” I cried. “But I had clean forgotten it; and if
I were alone with someone else, couldn’t you be announced?”

“You know as well as I do. I could be, because I am of the Blood;” and
she still looked puzzled.

“I never could remember all these silly rules,” said I, rather feebly,
as I inwardly cursed Fritz for not posting me up. “But I’ll repair my
fault.”

I jumped up, flung open the door, and advanced into the ante-room.
Michael was sitting at a table, a heavy frown on his face. Everyone
else was standing, save that impudent young dog Fritz, who was lounging
easily in an armchair, and flirting with the Countess Helga. He leapt up
as I entered, with a deferential alacrity that lent point to his former
nonchalance. I had no difficulty in understanding that the duke might
not like young Fritz.

I held out my hand, Michael took it, and I embraced him. Then I drew him
with me into the inner room.

“Brother,” I said, “if I had known you were here, you should not have
waited a moment before I asked the princess to permit me to bring you to
her.”

He thanked me, but coldly. The man had many qualities, but he could not
hide his feelings. A mere stranger could have seen that he hated me, and
hated worse to see me with Princess Flavia; yet I am persuaded that he
tried to conceal both feelings, and, further, that he tried to persuade
me that he believed I was verily the King. I did not know, of course;
but, unless the King were an impostor, at once cleverer and more
audacious than I (and I began to think something of myself in that
role), Michael could not believe that. And, if he didn’t, how he must
have loathed paying me deference, and hearing my “Michael” and my
“Flavia!”

“Your hand is hurt, sire,” he observed, with concern.

“Yes, I was playing a game with a mongrel dog” (I meant to stir him),
“and you know, brother, such have uncertain tempers.”

He smiled sourly, and his dark eyes rested on me for a moment.

“But is there no danger from the bite?” cried Flavia anxiously.

“None from this,” said I. “If I gave him a chance to bite deeper, it
would be different, cousin.”

“But surely he has been destroyed?” said she.

“Not yet. We’re waiting to see if his bite is harmful.”

“And if it is?” asked Michael, with his sour smile.

“He’ll be knocked on the head, brother,” said I.

“You won’t play with him any more?” urged Flavia.

“Perhaps I shall.”

“He might bite again.”

“Doubtless he’ll try,” said I, smiling.

Then, fearing Michael would say something which I must appear to
resent (for, though I might show him my hate, I must seem to be full of
favour), I began to compliment him on the magnificent condition of his
regiment, and of their loyal greeting to me on the day of my coronation.
Thence I passed to a rapturous description of the hunting-lodge which
he had lent me. But he rose suddenly to his feet. His temper was failing
him, and, with an excuse, he said farewell. However, as he reached the
door he stopped, saying:

“Three friends of mine are very anxious to have the honour of being
presented to you, sire. They are here in the ante-chamber.”

I joined him directly, passing my arm through his. The look on his
face was honey to me. We entered the ante-chamber in fraternal fashion.
Michael beckoned, and three men came forward.

“These gentlemen,” said Michael, with a stately courtesy which, to
do him justice, he could assume with perfect grace and ease, “are the
loyalest and most devoted of your Majesty’s servants, and are my very
faithful and attached friends.”

“On the last ground as much as the first,” said I, “I am very pleased to
see them.”

They came one by one and kissed my hand--De Gautet, a tall lean fellow,
with hair standing straight up and waxed moustache; Bersonin, the
Belgian, a portly man of middle height with a bald head (though he was
not far past thirty); and last, the Englishman, Detchard, a narrow-faced
fellow, with close-cut fair hair and a bronzed complexion. He was a
finely made man, broad in the shoulder and slender in the hips. A good
fighter, but a crooked customer, I put him down for. I spoke to him in
English, with a slight foreign accent, and I swear the fellow smiled,
though he hid the smile in an instant.

“So Mr. Detchard is in the secret,” thought I.

Having got rid of my dear brother and his friends, I returned to make my
adieu to my cousin. She was standing at the door. I bade her farewell,
taking her hand in mine.

“Rudolf,” she said, very low, “be careful, won’t you?”

“Of what?”

“You know--I can’t say. But think what your life is to--”

“Well to--?”

“To Ruritania.”

Was I right to play the part, or wrong to play the part? I know not:
evil lay both ways, and I dared not tell her the truth.

“Only to Ruritania?” I asked softly.

A sudden flush spread over her incomparable face.

“To your friends, too,” she said.

“Friends?”

“And to your cousin,” she whispered, “and loving servant.”

I could not speak. I kissed her hand, and went out cursing myself.

Outside I found Master Fritz, quite reckless of the footmen, playing at
cat’s-cradle with the Countess Helga.

“Hang it!” said he, “we can’t always be plotting. Love claims his
share.”

“I’m inclined to think he does,” said I; and Fritz, who had been by my
side, dropped respectfully behind.




CHAPTER 9

A New Use for a Tea-table


If I were to detail the ordinary events of my daily life at this time,
they might prove instructive to people who are not familiar with the
inside of palaces; if I revealed some of the secrets I learnt, they
might prove of interest to the statesmen of Europe. I intend to do
neither of these things. I should be between the Scylla of dullness and
the Charybdis of indiscretion, and I feel that I had far better confine
myself strictly to the underground drama which was being played beneath
the surface of Ruritanian politics. I need only say that the secret of
my imposture defied detection. I made mistakes. I had bad minutes: it
needed all the tact and graciousness whereof I was master to smooth over
some apparent lapses of memory and unmindfulness of old acquaintances of
which I was guilty. But I escaped, and I attribute my escape, as I have
said before, most of all, to the very audacity of the enterprise. It is
my belief that, given the necessary physical likeness, it was far easier
to pretend to be King of Ruritania than it would have been to personate
my next-door neighbour. One day Sapt came into my room. He threw me a
letter, saying:

“That’s for you--a woman’s hand, I think. But I’ve some news for you
first.”

“What’s that?”

“The King’s at the Castle of Zenda,” said he.

“How do you know?”

“Because the other half of Michael’s Six are there. I had enquiries
made, and they’re all there--Lauengram, Krafstein, and young Rupert
Hentzau: three rogues, too, on my honour, as fine as live in Ruritania.”

“Well?”

“Well, Fritz wants you to march to the Castle with horse, foot, and
artillery.”

“And drag the moat?” I asked.

“That would be about it,” grinned Sapt, “and we shouldn’t find the
King’s body then.”

“You think it’s certain he’s there?”

“Very probable. Besides the fact of those three being there, the
drawbridge is kept up, and no one goes in without an order from young
Hentzau or Black Michael himself. We must tie Fritz up.”

“I’ll go to Zenda,” said I.

“You’re mad.”

“Some day.”

“Oh, perhaps. You’ll very likely stay there though, if you do.”

“That may be, my friend,” said I carelessly.

“His Majesty looks sulky,” observed Sapt. “How’s the love affair?”

“Damn you, hold your tongue!” I said.

He looked at me for a moment, then he lit his pipe. It was quite true
that I was in a bad temper, and I went on perversely:

“Wherever I go, I’m dogged by half a dozen fellows.”

“I know you are; I send ’em,” he replied composedly.

“What for?”

“Well,” said Sapt, puffing away, “it wouldn’t be exactly inconvenient
for Black Michael if you disappeared. With you gone, the old game that
we stopped would be played--or he’d have a shot at it.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“De Gautet, Bersonin, and Detchard are in Strelsau; and any one of
them, lad, would cut your throat as readily--as readily as I would Black
Michael’s, and a deal more treacherously. What’s the letter?”

I opened it and read it aloud:

“If the King desires to know what it deeply concerns the King to know,
let him do as this letter bids him. At the end of the New Avenue there
stands a house in large grounds. The house has a portico, with a statue
of a nymph on it. A wall encloses the garden; there is a gate in the
wall at the back. At twelve o’clock tonight, if the King enters alone
by that gate, turns to the right, and walks twenty yards, he will find
a summerhouse, approached by a flight of six steps. If he mounts and
enters, he will find someone who will tell him what touches most dearly
his life and his throne. This is written by a faithful friend. He must
be alone. If he neglects the invitation his life will be in danger. Let
him show this to no one, or he will ruin a woman who loves him: Black
Michael does not pardon.”

“No,” observed Sapt, as I ended, “but he can dictate a very pretty
letter.”

I had arrived at the same conclusion, and was about to throw the letter
away, when I saw there was more writing on the other side.

“Hallo! there’s some more.”

“If you hesitate,” the writer continued, “consult Colonel Sapt--”

“Eh,” exclaimed that gentleman, genuinely astonished. “Does she take me
for a greater fool than you?”

I waved to him to be silent.

“Ask him what woman would do most to prevent the duke from marrying his
cousin, and therefore most to prevent him becoming king? And ask if her
name begins with--A?”

I sprang to my feet. Sapt laid down his pipe.

“Antoinette de Mauban, by heaven!” I cried.

“How do you know?” asked Sapt.

I told him what I knew of the lady, and how I knew it. He nodded.

“It’s so far true that she’s had a great row with Michael,” said he,
thoughtfully.

“If she would, she could be useful,” I said.

“I believe, though, that Michael wrote that letter.”

“So do I, but I mean to know for certain. I shall go, Sapt.”

“No, I shall go,” said he.

“You may go as far as the gate.”

“I shall go to the summer-house.”

“I’m hanged if you shall!”

I rose and leant my back against the mantelpiece.

“Sapt, I believe in that woman, and I shall go.”

“I don’t believe in any woman,” said Sapt, “and you shan’t go.”

“I either go to the summer-house or back to England,” said I.

Sapt began to know exactly how far he could lead or drive, and when he
must follow.

“We’re playing against time,” I added. “Every day we leave the King
where he is there is fresh risk. Every day I masquerade like this, there
is fresh risk. Sapt, we must play high; we must force the game.”

“So be it,” he said, with a sigh.

To cut the story short, at half-past eleven that night Sapt and I
mounted our horses. Fritz was again left on guard, our destination not
being revealed to him. It was a very dark night. I wore no sword, but I
carried a revolver, a long knife, and a bull’s-eye lantern. We arrived
outside the gate. I dismounted. Sapt held out his hand.

“I shall wait here,” he said. “If I hear a shot, I’ll--”

“Stay where you are; it’s the King’s only chance. You mustn’t come to
grief too.”

“You’re right, lad. Good luck!”

I pressed the little gate. It yielded, and I found myself in a wild sort
of shrubbery. There was a grass-grown path and, turning to the right as
I had been bidden, I followed it cautiously. My lantern was closed, the
revolver was in my hand. I heard not a sound. Presently a large dark
object loomed out of the gloom ahead of me. It was the summer-house.
Reaching the steps, I mounted them and found myself confronted by a
weak, rickety wooden door, which hung upon the latch. I pushed it open
and walked in. A woman flew to me and seized my hand.

“Shut the door,” she whispered.

I obeyed and turned the light of my lantern on her. She was in evening
dress, arrayed very sumptuously, and her dark striking beauty was
marvellously displayed in the glare of the bull’s-eye. The summer-house
was a bare little room, furnished only with a couple of chairs and a
small iron table, such as one sees in a tea garden or an open-air cafe.

“Don’t talk,” she said. “We’ve no time. Listen! I know you, Mr.
Rassendyll. I wrote that letter at the duke’s orders.”

“So I thought,” said I.

“In twenty minutes three men will be here to kill you.”

“Three--the three?”

“Yes. You must be gone by then. If not, tonight you’ll be killed--”

“Or they will.”

“Listen, listen! When you’re killed, your body will be taken to a low
quarter of the town. It will be found there. Michael will at once
arrest all your friends--Colonel Sapt and Captain von Tarlenheim
first--proclaim a state of siege in Strelsau, and send a messenger to
Zenda. The other three will murder the King in the Castle, and the duke
will proclaim either himself or the princess--himself, if he is strong
enough. Anyhow, he’ll marry her, and become king in fact, and soon in
name. Do you see?”

“It’s a pretty plot. But why, madame, do you--?”

“Say I’m a Christian--or say I’m jealous. My God! shall I see him marry
her? Now go; but remember--this is what I have to tell you--that never,
by night or by day, are you safe. Three men follow you as a guard. Is it
not so? Well, three follow them; Michael’s three are never two hundred
yards from you. Your life is not worth a moment if ever they find you
alone. Now go. Stay, the gate will be guarded by now. Go down softly, go
past the summer-house, on for a hundred yards, and you’ll find a ladder
against the wall. Get over it, and fly for your life.”

“And you?” I asked.

“I have my game to play too. If he finds out what I have done, we shall
not meet again. If not, I may yet--But never mind. Go at once.”

“But what will you tell him?”

“That you never came--that you saw through the trick.”

I took her hand and kissed it.

“Madame,” said I, “you have served the King well tonight. Where is he in
the Castle?”

She sank her voice to a fearful whisper. I listened eagerly.

“Across the drawbridge you come to a heavy door; behind that lies--Hark!
What’s that?”

There were steps outside.

“They’re coming! They’re too soon! Heavens! they’re too soon!” and she
turned pale as death.

“They seem to me,” said I, “to be in the nick of time.”

“Close your lantern. See, there’s a chink in the door. Can you see
them?”

I put my eye to the chink. On the lowest step I saw three dim figures. I
cocked my revolver. Antoinette hastily laid her hand on mine.

“You may kill one,” said she. “But what then?”

A voice came from outside--a voice that spoke perfect English.

“Mr. Rassendyll,” it said.

I made no answer.

“We want to talk to you. Will you promise not to shoot till we’ve done?”

“Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Detchard?” I said.

“Never mind names.”

“Then let mine alone.”

“All right, sire. I’ve an offer for you.”

I still had my eye to the chink. The three had mounted two steps more;
three revolvers pointed full at the door.

“Will you let us in? We pledge our honour to observe the truce.”

“Don’t trust them,” whispered Antoinette.

“We can speak through the door,” said I.

“But you might open it and fire,” objected Detchard; “and though we
should finish you, you might finish one of us. Will you give your honour
not to fire while we talk?”

“Don’t trust them,” whispered Antoinette again.

A sudden idea struck me. I considered it for a moment. It seemed
feasible.

“I give my honour not to fire before you do,” said I; “but I won’t let
you in. Stand outside and talk.”

“That’s sensible,” he said.

The three mounted the last step, and stood just outside the door. I
laid my ear to the chink. I could hear no words, but Detchard’s head was
close to that of the taller of his companions (De Gautet, I guessed).

“H’m! Private communications,” thought I. Then I said aloud:

“Well, gentlemen, what’s the offer?”

“A safe-conduct to the frontier, and fifty thousand pounds English.”

“No, no,” whispered Antoinette in the lowest of whispers. “They are
treacherous.”

“That seems handsome,” said I, reconnoitering through the chink. They
were all close together, just outside the door now.

I had probed the hearts of the ruffians, and I did not need Antoinette’s
warning. They meant to “rush” me as soon as I was engaged in talk.

“Give me a minute to consider,” said I; and I thought I heard a laugh
outside.

I turned to Antoinette.

“Stand up close to the wall, out of the line of fire from the door,” I
whispered.

“What are you going to do?” she asked in fright.

“You’ll see,” said I.

I took up the little iron table. It was not very heavy for a man of my
strength, and I held it by the legs. The top, protruding in front of
me, made a complete screen for my head and body. I fastened my closed
lantern to my belt and put my revolver in a handy pocket. Suddenly I saw
the door move ever so slightly--perhaps it was the wind, perhaps it was
a hand trying it outside.

I drew back as far as I could from the door, holding the table in the
position that I have described. Then I called out:

“Gentlemen, I accept your offer, relying on your honour. If you will
open the door--”

“Open it yourself,” said Detchard.

“It opens outwards,” said I. “Stand back a little, gentlemen, or I shall
hit you when I open it.”

I went and fumbled with the latch. Then I stole back to my place on
tiptoe.

“I can’t open it!” I cried. “The latch has caught.”

“Tut! I’ll open it!” cried Detchard. “Nonsense, Bersonin, why not? Are
you afraid of one man?”

I smiled to myself. An instant later the door was flung back. The gleam
of a lantern showed me the three close together outside, their
revolvers levelled. With a shout, I charged at my utmost pace across the
summer-house and through the doorway. Three shots rang out and battered
into my shield. Another moment, and I leapt out and the table caught
them full and square, and in a tumbling, swearing, struggling mass, they
and I and that brave table, rolled down the steps of the summerhouse to
the ground below. Antoinette de Mauban shrieked, but I rose to my feet,
laughing aloud.

De Gautet and Bersonin lay like men stunned. Detchard was under the
table, but, as I rose, he pushed it from him and fired again. I raised
my revolver and took a snap shot; I heard him curse, and then I ran like
a hare, laughing as I went, past the summer-house and along by the wall.
I heard steps behind me, and turning round I fired again for luck. The
steps ceased.

“Please God,” said I, “she told me the truth about the ladder!” for the
wall was high and topped with iron spikes.

Yes, there it was. I was up and over in a minute. Doubling back, I saw
the horses; then I heard a shot. It was Sapt. He had heard us, and was
battling and raging with the locked gate, hammering it and firing into
the keyhole like a man possessed. He had quite forgotten that he was
not to take part in the fight. Whereat I laughed again, and said, as I
clapped him on the shoulder:

“Come home to bed, old chap. I’ve got the finest tea-table story that
ever you heard!”

He started and cried: “You’re safe!” and wrung my hand. But a moment
later he added:

“And what the devil are you laughing at?”

“Four gentlemen round a tea-table,” said I, laughing still, for it had
been uncommonly ludicrous to see the formidable three altogether routed
and scattered with no more deadly weapon than an ordinary tea-table.

Moreover, you will observe that I had honourably kept my word, and not
fired till they did.



CHAPTER 10

A Great Chance for a Villain


It was the custom that the Prefect of Police should send every afternoon
a report to me on the condition of the capital and the feeling of the
people: the document included also an account of the movements of any
persons whom the police had received instructions to watch. Since I had
been in Strelsau, Sapt had been in the habit of reading the report and
telling me any items of interest which it might contain. On the day
after my adventure in the summer-house, he came in as I was playing a
hand of _écarté_ with Fritz von Tarlenheim.

“The report is rather full of interest this afternoon,” he observed,
sitting down.

“Do you find,” I asked, “any mention of a certain fracas?”

He shook his head with a smile.

“I find this first,” he said: “‘His Highness the Duke of Strelsau left
the city (so far as it appears, suddenly), accompanied by several of his
household. His destination is believed to be the Castle of Zenda, but
the party travelled by road and not by train. MM De Gautet, Bersonin,
and Detchard followed an hour later, the last-named carrying his arm in
a sling. The cause of his wound is not known, but it is suspected that
he has fought a duel, probably incidental to a love affair.’”

“That is remotely true,” I observed, very well pleased to find that I
had left my mark on the fellow.

“Then we come to this,” pursued Sapt: “‘Madame de Mauban, whose
movements have been watched according to instructions, left by train at
midday. She took a ticket for Dresden--’”

“It’s an old habit of hers,” said I.

“‘The Dresden train stops at Zenda.’ An acute fellow, this. And finally
listen to this: ‘The state of feeling in the city is not satisfactory.
The King is much criticized’ (you know, he’s told to be quite frank)
‘for taking no steps about his marriage. From enquiries among the
entourage of the Princess Flavia, her Royal Highness is believed to be
deeply offended by the remissness of his Majesty. The common people are
coupling her name with that of the Duke of Strelsau, and the duke gains
much popularity from the suggestion.’ I have caused the announcement that
the King gives a ball tonight in honour of the princess to be widely
diffused, and the effect is good.”

“That is news to me,” said I.

“Oh, the preparations are all made!” laughed Fritz. “I’ve seen to that.”

Sapt turned to me and said, in a sharp, decisive voice:

“You must make love to her tonight, you know.”

“I think it is very likely I shall, if I see her alone,” said I. “Hang
it, Sapt, you don’t suppose I find it difficult?”

Fritz whistled a bar or two; then he said: “You’ll find it only too
easy. Look here, I hate telling you this, but I must. The Countess Helga
told me that the princess had become most attached to the King. Since
the coronation, her feelings have undergone a marked development. It’s
quite true that she is deeply wounded by the King’s apparent neglect.”

“Here’s a kettle of fish!” I groaned.

“Tut, tut!” said Sapt. “I suppose you’ve made pretty speeches to a girl
before now? That’s all she wants.”

Fritz, himself a lover, understood better my distress. He laid his hand
on my shoulder, but said nothing.

“I think, though,” pursued that cold-blooded old Sapt, “that you’d
better make your offer tonight.”

“Good heavens!”

“Or, any rate, go near it: and I shall send a ‘semi-official’ to the
papers.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort--no more will you!” said I. “I utterly
refuse to take part in making a fool of the princess.”

Sapt looked at me with his small keen eyes. A slow cunning smile passed
over his face.

“All right, lad, all right,” said he. “We mustn’t press you too hard.
Soothe her down a bit, if you can, you know. Now for Michael!”

“Oh, damn Michael!” said I. “He’ll do tomorrow. Here, Fritz, come for a
stroll in the garden.”

Sapt at once yielded. His rough manner covered a wonderful tact--and
as I came to recognize more and more, a remarkable knowledge of human
nature. Why did he urge me so little about the princess? Because he
knew that her beauty and my ardour would carry me further than all his
arguments--and that the less I thought about the thing, the more likely
was I to do it. He must have seen the unhappiness he might bring on the
princess; but that went for nothing with him. Can I say, confidently,
that he was wrong? If the King were restored, the princess must turn to
him, either knowing or not knowing the change. And if the King were not
restored to us? It was a subject that we had never yet spoken of. But I
had an idea that, in such a case, Sapt meant to seat me on the throne of
Ruritania for the term of my life. He would have set Satan himself there
sooner than that pupil of his, Black Michael.


The ball was a sumptuous affair. I opened it by dancing a quadrille
with Flavia: then I waltzed with her. Curious eyes and eager whispers
attended us. We went in to supper; and, half way through, I, half mad by
then, for her glance had answered mine, and her quick breathing met my
stammered sentences--I rose in my place before all the brilliant crowd,
and taking the Red Rose that I wore, flung the ribbon with its jewelled
badge round her neck. In a tumult of applause I sat down: I saw Sapt
smiling over his wine, and Fritz frowning. The rest of the meal passed
in silence; neither Flavia nor I could speak. Fritz touched me on the
shoulder, and I rose, gave her my arm, and walked down the hall into a
little room, where coffee was served to us. The gentlemen and ladies in
attendance withdrew, and we were alone.

The little room had French windows opening on the gardens. The night was
fine, cool, and fragrant. Flavia sat down, and I stood opposite her. I
was struggling with myself: if she had not looked at me, I believe that
even then I should have won my fight. But suddenly, involuntarily, she
gave me one brief glance--a glance of question, hurriedly turned aside;
a blush that the question had ever come spread over her cheek, and she
caught her breath. Ah, if you had seen her! I forgot the King in Zenda.
I forgot the King in Strelsau. She was a princess--and I an impostor.
Do you think I remembered that? I threw myself on my knee and seized
her hands in mine. I said nothing. Why should I? The soft sounds of the
night set my wooing to a wordless melody, as I pressed my kisses on her
lips.

She pushed me from her, crying suddenly:

“Ah! is it true? or is it only because you must?”

“It’s true!” I said, in low smothered tones--“true that I love you more
than life--or truth--or honour!”

She set no meaning to my words, treating them as one of love’s sweet
extravagances. She came close to me, and whispered:

“Oh, if you were not the King! Then I could show you how I love you! How
is it that I love you now, Rudolf?”

“Now?”

“Yes--just lately. I--I never did before.”

Pure triumph filled me. It was I--Rudolf Rassendyll--who had won her! I
caught her round the waist.

“You didn’t love me before?” I asked.

She looked up into my face, smiling, as she whispered:

“It must have been your Crown. I felt it first on the Coronation Day.”

“Never before?” I asked eagerly.

She laughed low.

“You speak as if you would be pleased to hear me say ‘Yes’ to that,” she
said.

“Would ‘Yes’ be true?”

“Yes,” I just heard her breathe, and she went on in an instant: “Be
careful, Rudolf; be careful, dear. He will be mad now.”

“What, Michael? If Michael were the worst--”

“What worse is there?”

There was yet a chance for me. Controlling myself with a mighty effort,
I took my hands off her and stood a yard or two away. I remember now the
note of the wind in the elm trees outside.

“If I were not the King,” I began, “if I were only a private
gentleman--”

Before I could finish, her hand was in mine.

“If you were a convict in the prison of Strelsau, you would be my King,”
 she said.

And under my breath I groaned, “God forgive me!” and, holding her hand
in mine, I said again:

“If I were not the King--”

“Hush, hush!” she whispered. “I don’t deserve it--I don’t deserve to be
doubted. Ah, Rudolf! does a woman who marries without love look on the
man as I look on you?”

And she hid her face from me.

For more than a minute we stood there together; and I, even with my arm
about her, summoned up what honour and conscience her beauty and the
toils that I was in had left me.

“Flavia,” I said, in a strange dry voice that seemed not my own, “I am
not--”

As I spoke--as she raised her eyes to me--there was a heavy step on the
gravel outside, and a man appeared at the window. A little cry burst
from Flavia, as she sprang back from me. My half-finished sentence died
on my lips. Sapt stood there, bowing low, but with a stern frown on his
face.

“A thousand pardons, sire,” said he, “but his Eminence the Cardinal has
waited this quarter of an hour to offer his respectful adieu to your
Majesty.”

I met his eye full and square; and I read in it an angry warning. How
long he had been a listener I knew not, but he had come in upon us in
the nick of time.

“We must not keep his Eminence waiting,” said I.

But Flavia, in whose love there lay no shame, with radiant eyes and
blushing face, held out her hand to Sapt. She said nothing, but no
man could have missed her meaning, who had ever seen a woman in the
exultation of love. A sour, yet sad, smile passed over the old soldier’s
face, and there was tenderness in his voice, as bending to kiss her
hand, he said:

“In joy and sorrow, in good times and bad, God save your Royal
Highness!”

He paused and added, glancing at me and drawing himself up to military
erectness:

“But, before all comes the King--God save the King!”

And Flavia caught at my hand and kissed it, murmuring:

“Amen! Good God, Amen!”

We went into the ballroom again. Forced to receive adieus, I was
separated from Flavia: everyone, when they left me, went to her. Sapt
was out and in of the throng, and where he had been, glances, smiles,
and whispers were rife. I doubted not that, true to his relentless
purpose, he was spreading the news that he had learnt. To uphold
the Crown and beat Black Michael--that was his one resolve. Flavia,
myself--ay, and the real King in Zenda, were pieces in his game; and
pawns have no business with passions. Not even at the walls of the
Palace did he stop; for when at last I handed Flavia down the broad
marble steps and into her carriage, there was a great crowd awaiting
us, and we were welcomed with deafening cheers. What could I do? Had I
spoken then, they would have refused to believe that I was not the King;
they might have believed that the King had run mad. By Sapt’s devices
and my own ungoverned passion I had been forced on, and the way back had
closed behind me; and the passion still drove me in the same direction
as the devices seduced me. I faced all Strelsau that night as the King
and the accepted suitor of the Princess Flavia.

At last, at three in the morning, when the cold light of dawning day
began to steal in, I was in my dressing-room, and Sapt alone was with
me. I sat like a man dazed, staring into the fire; he puffed at his
pipe; Fritz was gone to bed, having almost refused to speak to me. On
the table by me lay a rose; it had been in Flavia’s dress, and, as we
parted, she had kissed it and given it to me.

Sapt advanced his hand towards the rose, but, with a quick movement, I
shut mine down upon it.

“That’s mine,” I said, “not yours--nor the King’s either.”

“We struck a good blow for the King tonight,” said he.

I turned on him fiercely.

“What’s to prevent me striking a blow for myself?” I said.

He nodded his head.

“I know what’s in your mind,” he said. “Yes, lad; but you’re bound in
honour.”

“Have you left me any honour?”

“Oh, come, to play a little trick on a girl--”

“You can spare me that. Colonel Sapt, if you would not have me utterly a
villain--if you would not have your King rot in Zenda, while Michael and
I play for the great stake outside--You follow me?”

“Ay, I follow you.”

“We must act, and quickly! You saw tonight--you heard--tonight--”

“I did,” said he.

“Your cursed acuteness told you what I should do. Well, leave me here a
week--and there’s another problem for you. Do you find the answer?”

“Yes, I find it,” he answered, frowning heavily. “But if you did that,
you’d have to fight me first--and kill me.”

“Well, and if I had--or a score of men? I tell you, I could raise all
Strelsau on you in an hour, and choke you with your lies--yes, your mad
lies--in your mouth.”

“It’s gospel truth,” he said--“thanks to my advice you could.”

“I could marry the princess, and send Michael and his brother together
to--”

“I’m not denying it, lad,” said he.

“Then, in God’s name,” I cried, stretching out my hands to him, “let us
go to Zenda and crush this Michael and bring the King back to his own
again.” The old fellow stood and looked at me for full a minute.

“And the princess?” he said.

I bowed my head to meet my hands, and crushed the rose between my
fingers and my lips.

I felt his hand on my shoulder, and his voice sounded husky as he
whispered low in my ear:

“Before God, you’re the finest Elphberg of them all. But I have eaten
of the King’s bread, and I am the King’s servant. Come, we will go to
Zenda!”

And I looked up and caught him by the hand. And the eyes of both of us
were wet.




CHAPTER 11

Hunting a Very Big Boar


The terrible temptation which was assailing me will now be understood.
I would so force Michael’s hand that he must kill the King. I was in a
position to bid him defiance and tighten my grasp on the crown--not for
its own sake, but because the King of Ruritania was to wed the Princess
Flavia. What of Sapt and Fritz? Ah! but a man cannot be held to write
down in cold blood the wild and black thoughts that storm his brain when
an uncontrolled passion has battered a breach for them. Yet, unless
he sets up as a saint, he need not hate himself for them. He is better
employed, as it humbly seems to me, in giving thanks that power to
resist was vouchsafed to him, than in fretting over wicked impulses
which come unsought and extort an unwilling hospitality from the
weakness of our nature.

It was a fine bright morning when I walked, unattended, to the
princess’s house, carrying a nosegay in my hand. Policy made excuses
for love, and every attention that I paid her, while it riveted my own
chains, bound closer to me the people of the great city, who worshipped
her. I found Fritz’s _inamorata_, the Countess Helga, gathering blooms in
the garden for her mistress’s wear, and prevailed on her to take mine in
their place. The girl was rosy with happiness, for Fritz, in his turn,
had not wasted his evening, and no dark shadow hung over his wooing,
save the hatred which the Duke of Strelsau was known to bear him.

“And that,” she said, with a mischievous smile, “your Majesty has made
of no moment. Yes, I will take the flowers; shall I tell you, sire, what
is the first thing the princess does with them?”

We were talking on a broad terrace that ran along the back of the house,
and a window above our heads stood open.

“Madame!” cried the countess merrily, and Flavia herself looked out. I
bared my head and bowed. She wore a white gown, and her hair was loosely
gathered in a knot. She kissed her hand to me, crying:

“Bring the King up, Helga; I’ll give him some coffee.”

The countess, with a gay glance, led the way, and took me into Flavia’s
morning-room. And, left alone, we greeted one another as lovers are
wont. Then the princess laid two letters before me. One was from Black
Michael--a most courteous request that she would honour him by spending
a day at his Castle of Zenda, as had been her custom once a year in the
summer, when the place and its gardens were in the height of their great
beauty. I threw the letter down in disgust, and Flavia laughed at me.
Then, growing grave again, she pointed to the other sheet.

“I don’t know who that comes from,” she said. “Read it.”

I knew in a moment. There was no signature at all this time, but the
handwriting was the same as that which had told me of the snare in the
summer-house: it was Antoinette de Mauban’s.

“I have no cause to love you,” it ran, “but God forbid that you should
fall into the power of the duke. Accept no invitations of his. Go
nowhere without a large guard--a regiment is not too much to make you
safe. Show this, if you can, to him who reigns in Strelsau.”

“Why doesn’t it say ‘the King’?” asked Flavia, leaning over my shoulder,
so that the ripple of her hair played on my cheek. “Is it a hoax?”

“As you value life, and more than life, my queen,” I said, “obey it to
the very letter. A regiment shall camp round your house today. See that
you do not go out unless well guarded.”

“An order, sire?” she asked, a little rebellious.

“Yes, an order, madame--if you love me.”

“Ah!” she cried; and I could not but kiss her.

“You know who sent it?” she asked.

“I guess,” said I. “It is from a good friend--and I fear, an unhappy
woman. You must be ill, Flavia, and unable to go to Zenda. Make your
excuses as cold and formal as you like.”

“So you feel strong enough to anger Michael?” she said, with a proud
smile.

“I’m strong enough for anything, while you are safe,” said I.

Soon I tore myself away from her, and then, without consulting Sapt, I
took my way to the house of Marshal Strakencz. I had seen something
of the old general, and I liked and trusted him. Sapt was less
enthusiastic, but I had learnt by now that Sapt was best pleased when
he could do everything, and jealousy played some part in his views. As
things were now, I had more work than Sapt and Fritz could manage, for
they must come with me to Zenda, and I wanted a man to guard what I
loved most in all the world, and suffer me to set about my task of
releasing the King with a quiet mind.

The Marshal received me with most loyal kindness. To some extent, I took
him into my confidence. I charged him with the care of the princess,
looking him full and significantly in the face as I bade him let no one
from her cousin the duke approach her, unless he himself were there and
a dozen of his men with him.

“You may be right, sire,” said he, shaking his grey head sadly. “I have
known better men than the duke do worse things than that for love.”

I could quite appreciate the remark, but I said:

“There’s something beside love, Marshal. Love’s for the heart; is there
nothing my brother might like for his head?”

“I pray that you wrong him, sire.”

“Marshal, I’m leaving Strelsau for a few days. Every evening I will
send a courier to you. If for three days none comes, you will publish an
order which I will give you, depriving Duke Michael of the governorship
of Strelsau and appointing you in his place. You will declare a state of
siege. Then you will send word to Michael that you demand an audience of
the King--You follow me?”

“Ay, sire.”

“--In twenty-four hours. If he does not produce the King” (I laid my
hand on his knee), “then the King is dead, and you will proclaim the
next heir. You know who that is?”

“The Princess Flavia.”

“And swear to me, on your faith and honour and by the fear of the living
God, that you will stand by her to the death, and kill that reptile, and
seat her where I sit now.”

“On my faith and honour, and by the fear of God, I swear it! And may
Almighty God preserve your Majesty, for I think that you go on an errand
of danger.”

“I hope that no life more precious than mine may be demanded,” said I,
rising. Then I held out my hand to him.

“Marshal,” I said, “in days to come, it may be--I know not--that you
will hear strange things of the man who speaks to you now. Let him be
what he may, and who he may, what say you of the manner in which he has
borne himself as King in Strelsau?”

The old man, holding my hand, spoke to me, man to man.

“I have known many of the Elphbergs,” said he, “and I have seen you.
And, happen what may, you have borne yourself as a wise King and a brave
man; ay, and you have proved as courteous a gentleman and as gallant a
lover as any that have been of the House.”

“Be that my epitaph,” said I, “when the time comes that another sits on
the throne of Ruritania.”

“God send a far day, and may I not see it!” said he.

I was much moved, and the Marshal’s worn face twitched. I sat down and
wrote my order.

“I can hardly yet write,” said I; “my finger is stiff still.”

It was, in fact, the first time that I had ventured to write more than
a signature; and in spite of the pains I had taken to learn the King’s
hand, I was not yet perfect in it.

“Indeed, sire,” he said, “it differs a little from your ordinary
handwriting. It is unfortunate, for it may lead to a suspicion of
forgery.”

“Marshal,” said I, with a laugh, “what use are the guns of Strelsau, if
they can’t assuage a little suspicion?”

He smiled grimly, and took the paper.

“Colonel Sapt and Fritz von Tarlenheim go with me,” I continued.

“You go to seek the duke?” he asked in a low tone.

“Yes, the duke, and someone else of whom I have need, and who is at
Zenda,” I replied.

“I wish I could go with you,” he cried, tugging at his white moustache.
“I’d like to strike a blow for you and your crown.”

“I leave you what is more than my life and more than my crown,” said I,
“because you are the man I trust more than all other in Ruritania.”

“I will deliver her to you safe and sound,” said he, “and, failing that,
I will make her queen.”

We parted, and I returned to the Palace and told Sapt and Fritz what
I had done. Sapt had a few faults to find and a few grumbles to
utter. This was merely what I expected, for Sapt liked to be consulted
beforehand, not informed afterwards; but on the whole he approved of my
plans, and his spirits rose high as the hour of action drew nearer and
nearer. Fritz, too, was ready; though he, poor fellow, risked more than
Sapt did, for he was a lover, and his happiness hung in the scale. Yet
how I envied him! For the triumphant issue which would crown him with
happiness and unite him to his mistress, the success for which we were
bound to hope and strive and struggle, meant to me sorrow more certain
and greater than if I were doomed to fail. He understood something of
this, for when we were alone (save for old Sapt, who was smoking at the
other end of the room) he passed his arm through mine, saying:

“It’s hard for you. Don’t think I don’t trust you; I know you have
nothing but true thoughts in your heart.”

But I turned away from him, thankful that he could not see what my heart
held, but only be witness to the deeds that my hands were to do.

Yet even he did not understand, for he had not dared to lift his eyes to
the Princess Flavia, as I had lifted mine.

Our plans were now all made, even as we proceeded to carry them out, and
as they will hereafter appear. The next morning we were to start on the
hunting excursion. I had made all arrangements for being absent, and
now there was only one thing left to do--the hardest, the most
heart-breaking. As evening fell, I drove through the busy streets to
Flavia’s residence. I was recognized as I went and heartily cheered. I
played my part, and made shift to look the happy lover. In spite of my
depression, I was almost amused at the coolness and delicate hauteur
with which my sweet lover received me. She had heard that the King was
leaving Strelsau on a hunting expedition.

“I regret that we cannot amuse your Majesty here in Strelsau,” she said,
tapping her foot lightly on the floor. “I would have offered you more
entertainment, but I was foolish enough to think--”

“Well, what?” I asked, leaning over her.

“That just for a day or two after--after last night--you might be happy
without much gaiety;” and she turned pettishly from me, as she added, “I
hope the boars will be more engrossing.”

“I’m going after a very big boar,” said I; and, because I could not help
it, I began to play with her hair, but she moved her head away.

“Are you offended with me?” I asked, in feigned surprise, for I could
not resist tormenting her a little. I had never seen her angry, and
every fresh aspect of her was a delight to me.

“What right have I to be offended? True, you said last night that every
hour away from me was wasted. But a very big boar! that’s a different
thing.”

“Perhaps the boar will hunt me,” I suggested. “Perhaps, Flavia, he’ll
catch me.”

She made no answer.

“You are not touched even by that danger?”

Still she said nothing; and I, stealing round, found her eyes full of
tears.

“You weep for my danger?”

Then she spoke very low:

“This is like what you used to be; but not like the King--the King I--I
have come to love!”

With a sudden great groan, I caught her to my heart.

“My darling!” I cried, forgetting everything but her, “did you dream
that I left you to go hunting?”

“What then, Rudolf? Ah! you’re not going--?”

“Well, it is hunting. I go to seek Michael in his lair.”

She had turned very pale.

“So, you see, sweet, I was not so poor a lover as you thought me. I
shall not be long gone.”

“You will write to me, Rudolf?”

I was weak, but I could not say a word to stir suspicion in her.

“I’ll send you all my heart every day,” said I.

“And you’ll run no danger?”

“None that I need not.”

“And when will you be back? Ah, how long will it be!”

“When shall I be back?” I repeated.

“Yes, yes! Don’t be long, dear, don’t be long. I shan’t sleep while
you’re away.”

“I don’t know when I shall be back,” said I.

“Soon, Rudolf, soon?”

“God knows, my darling. But, if never--”

“Hush, hush!” and she pressed her lips to mine.

“If never,” I whispered, “you must take my place; you’ll be the only one
of the House then. You must reign, and not weep for me.”

For a moment she drew herself up like a very queen.

“Yes, I will!” she said. “I will reign. I will do my part though all my
life will be empty and my heart dead; yet I’ll do it!”

She paused, and sinking against me again, wailed softly.

“Come soon! come soon!”

Carried away, I cried loudly:

“As God lives, I--yes, I myself--will see you once more before I die!”

“What do you mean?” she exclaimed, with wondering eyes; but I had no
answer for her, and she gazed at me with her wondering eyes.

I dared not ask her to forget, she would have found it an insult. I
could not tell her then who and what I was. She was weeping, and I had
but to dry her tears.

“Shall a man not come back to the loveliest lady in all the wide world?”
 said I. “A thousand Michaels should not keep me from you!”

She clung to me, a little comforted.

“You won’t let Michael hurt you?”

“No, sweetheart.”

“Or keep you from me?”

“No, sweetheart.”

“Nor anyone else?”

And again I answered:

“No, sweetheart.”

Yet there was one--not Michael--who, if he lived, must keep me from
her; and for whose life I was going forth to stake my own. And his
figure--the lithe, buoyant figure I had met in the woods of Zenda--the
dull, inert mass I had left in the cellar of the hunting-lodge--seemed
to rise, double-shaped, before me, and to come between us, thrusting
itself in even where she lay, pale, exhausted, fainting, in my arms, and
yet looking up at me with those eyes that bore such love as I have never
seen, and haunt me now, and will till the ground closes over me--and
(who knows?) perhaps beyond.




CHAPTER 12

I Receive a Visitor and Bait a Hook


About five miles from Zenda--on the opposite side from that on which
the Castle is situated, there lies a large tract of wood. It is rising
ground, and in the centre of the demesne, on the top of the hill, stands
a fine modern chateau, the property of a distant kinsman of Fritz’s, the
Count Stanislas von Tarlenheim. Count Stanislas himself was a student
and a recluse. He seldom visited the house, and had, on Fritz’s request,
very readily and courteously offered me its hospitality for myself and
my party. This, then, was our destination; chosen ostensibly for the
sake of the boar-hunting (for the wood was carefully preserved, and
boars, once common all over Ruritania, were still to be found there
in considerable numbers), really because it brought us within striking
distance of the Duke of Strelsau’s more magnificent dwelling on the
other side of the town. A large party of servants, with horses and
luggage, started early in the morning; we followed at midday, travelling
by train for thirty miles, and then mounting our horses to ride the
remaining distance to the chateau.

We were a gallant party. Besides Sapt and Fritz, I was accompanied by
ten gentlemen: every one of them had been carefully chosen, and no less
carefully sounded, by my two friends, and all were devotedly attached to
the person of the King. They were told a part of the truth; the attempt
on my life in the summer-house was revealed to them, as a spur to their
loyalty and an incitement against Michael. They were also informed that
a friend of the King’s was suspected to be forcibly confined within the
Castle of Zenda. His rescue was one of the objects of the expedition;
but, it was added, the King’s main desire was to carry into effect
certain steps against his treacherous brother, as to the precise nature
of which they could not at present be further enlightened. Enough that
the King commanded their services, and would rely on their devotion when
occasion arose to call for it. Young, well-bred, brave, and loyal, they
asked no more: they were ready to prove their dutiful obedience, and
prayed for a fight as the best and most exhilarating mode of showing it.

Thus the scene was shifted from Strelsau to the chateau of Tarlenheim
and Castle of Zenda, which frowned at us across the valley. I tried to
shift my thoughts also, to forget my love, and to bend all my energies
to the task before me. It was to get the King out of the Castle alive.
Force was useless: in some trick lay the chance; and I had already an
inkling of what we must do. But I was terribly hampered by the publicity
which attended my movements. Michael must know by now of my expedition;
and I knew Michael too well to suppose that his eyes would be blinded by
the feint of the boar-hunt. He would understand very well what the real
quarry was. That, however, must be risked--that and all it might mean;
for Sapt, no less than myself, recognized that the present state of
things had become unendurable. And there was one thing that I dared to
calculate on--not, as I now know, without warrant. It was this--that
Black Michael would not believe that I meant well by the King. He could
not appreciate--I will not say an honest man, for the thoughts of my
own heart have been revealed--but a man acting honestly. He saw
my opportunity as I had seen it, as Sapt had seen it; he knew the
princess--nay (and I declare that a sneaking sort of pity for him
invaded me), in his way he loved her; he would think that Sapt and Fritz
could be bribed, so the bribe was large enough. Thinking thus, would he
kill the King, my rival and my danger? Ay, verily, that he would, with
as little compunction as he would kill a rat. But he would kill Rudolf
Rassendyll first, if he could; and nothing but the certainty of being
utterly damned by the release of the King alive and his restoration to
the throne would drive him to throw away the trump card which he held in
reserve to baulk the supposed game of the impudent impostor Rassendyll.
Musing on all this as I rode along, I took courage.

Michael knew of my coming, sure enough. I had not been in the house an
hour, when an imposing Embassy arrived from him. He did not quite reach
the impudence of sending my would-be assassins, but he sent the other
three of his famous Six--the three Ruritanian gentlemen--Lauengram,
Krafstein, and Rupert Hentzau. A fine, strapping trio they were,
splendidly horsed and admirably equipped. Young Rupert, who looked
a dare-devil, and could not have been more than twenty-two or
twenty-three, took the lead, and made us the neatest speech, wherein
my devoted subject and loving brother Michael of Strelsau, prayed me to
pardon him for not paying his addresses in person, and, further, for not
putting his Castle at my disposal; the reason for both of these apparent
derelictions being that he and several of his servants lay sick of
scarlet fever, and were in a very sad, and also a very infectious state.
So declared young Rupert with an insolent smile on his curling upper lip
and a toss of his thick hair--he was a handsome villain, and the gossip
ran that many a lady had troubled her heart for him already.

“If my brother has scarlet fever,” said I, “he is nearer my complexion
than he is wont to be, my lord. I trust he does not suffer?”

“He is able to attend to his affairs, sire.”

“I hope all beneath your roof are not sick. What of my good friends, De
Gautet, Bersonin, and Detchard? I heard the last had suffered a hurt.”

Lauengram and Krafstein looked glum and uneasy, but young Rupert’s smile
grew broader.

“He hopes soon to find a medicine for it, sire,” he answered.

And I burst out laughing, for I knew what medicine Detchard longed
for--it is called Revenge.

“You will dine with us, gentlemen?” I asked.

Young Rupert was profuse in apologies. They had urgent duties at the
Castle.

“Then,” said I, with a wave of my hand, “to our next meeting, gentlemen.
May it make us better acquainted.”

“We will pray your Majesty for an early opportunity,” quoth Rupert
airily; and he strode past Sapt with such jeering scorn on his face that
I saw the old fellow clench his fist and scowl black as night.

For my part, if a man must needs be a knave, I would have him a debonair
knave, and I liked Rupert Hentzau better than his long-faced, close-eyed
companions. It makes your sin no worse, as I conceive, to do it _à la
mode_ and stylishly.

Now it was a curious thing that on this first night, instead of eating
the excellent dinner my cooks had prepared for me, I must needs leave my
gentlemen to eat it alone, under Sapt’s presiding care, and ride myself
with Fritz to the town of Zenda and a certain little inn that I knew
of. There was little danger in the excursion; the evenings were long and
light, and the road this side of Zenda well frequented. So off we rode,
with a groom behind us. I muffled myself up in a big cloak.

“Fritz,” said I, as we entered the town, “there’s an uncommonly pretty
girl at this inn.”

“How do you know?” he asked.

“Because I’ve been there,” said I.

“Since--?” he began.

“No. Before,” said I.

“But they’ll recognize you?”

“Well, of course they will. Now, don’t argue, my good fellow, but listen
to me. We’re two gentlemen of the King’s household, and one of us has a
toothache. The other will order a private room and dinner, and, further,
a bottle of the best wine for the sufferer. And if he be as clever a
fellow as I take him for, the pretty girl and no other will wait on us.”

“What if she won’t?” objected Fritz.

“My dear Fritz,” said I, “if she won’t for you, she will for me.”

We were at the inn. Nothing of me but my eyes was visible as I walked
in. The landlady received us; two minutes later, my little friend (ever,
I fear me, on the look-out for such guests as might prove amusing) made
her appearance. Dinner and the wine were ordered. I sat down in the
private room. A minute later Fritz came in.

“She’s coming,” he said.

“If she were not, I should have to doubt the Countess Helga’s taste.”

She came in. I gave her time to set the wine down--I didn’t want it
dropped. Fritz poured out a glass and gave it to me.

“Is the gentleman in great pain?” the girl asked, sympathetically.

“The gentleman is no worse than when he saw you last,” said I, throwing
away my cloak.

She started, with a little shriek. Then she cried:

“It was the King, then! I told mother so the moment I saw his picture.
Oh, sir, forgive me!”

“Faith, you gave me nothing that hurt much,” said I.

“But the things we said!”

“I forgive them for the thing you did.”

“I must go and tell mother.”

“Stop,” said I, assuming a graver air. “We are not here for sport
tonight. Go and bring dinner, and not a word of the King being here.”

She came back in a few minutes, looking grave, yet very curious.

“Well, how is Johann?” I asked, beginning my dinner.

“Oh, that fellow, sir--my lord King, I mean!”

“‘Sir’ will do, please. How is he?”

“We hardly see him now, sir.”

“And why not?”

“I told him he came too often, sir,” said she, tossing her head.

“So he sulks and stays away?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But you could bring him back?” I suggested with a smile.

“Perhaps I could,” said she.

“I know your powers, you see,” said I, and she blushed with pleasure.

“It’s not only that, sir, that keeps him away. He’s very busy at the
Castle.”

“But there’s no shooting on now.”

“No, sir; but he’s in charge of the house.”

“Johann turned housemaid?”

The little girl was brimming over with gossip.

“Well, there are no others,” said she. “There’s not a woman there--not
as a servant, I mean. They do say--but perhaps it’s false, sir.”

“Let’s have it for what it’s worth,” said I.

“Indeed, I’m ashamed to tell you, sir.”

“Oh, see, I’m looking at the ceiling.”

“They do say there is a lady there, sir; but, except for her, there’s
not a woman in the place. And Johann has to wait on the gentlemen.”

“Poor Johann! He must be overworked. Yet I’m sure he could find half an
hour to come and see you.”

“It would depend on the time, sir, perhaps.”

“Do you love him?” I asked.

“Not I, sir.”

“And you wish to serve the King?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then tell him to meet you at the second milestone out of Zenda tomorrow
evening at ten o’clock. Say you’ll be there and will walk home with
him.”

“Do you mean him harm, sir?”

“Not if he will do as I bid him. But I think I’ve told you enough, my
pretty maid. See that you do as I bid you. And, mind, no one is to know
that the King has been here.”

I spoke a little sternly, for there is seldom harm in infusing a little
fear into a woman’s liking for you, and I softened the effect by giving
her a handsome present. Then we dined, and, wrapping my cloak about
my face, with Fritz leading the way, we went downstairs to our horses
again.

It was but half-past eight, and hardly yet dark; the streets were full
for such a quiet little place, and I could see that gossip was all agog.
With the King on one side and the duke on the other, Zenda felt itself
the centre of all Ruritania. We jogged gently through the town, but set
our horses to a sharper pace when we reached the open country.

“You want to catch this fellow Johann?” asked Fritz.

“Ay, and I fancy I’ve baited the hook right. Our little Delilah will
bring our Samson. It is not enough, Fritz, to have no women in a house,
though brother Michael shows some wisdom there. If you want safety, you
must have none within fifty miles.”

“None nearer than Strelsau, for instance,” said poor Fritz, with a
lovelorn sigh.

We reached the avenue of the chateau, and were soon at the house. As the
hoofs of our horses sounded on the gravel, Sapt rushed out to meet us.

“Thank God, you’re safe!” he cried. “Have you seen anything of them?”

“Of whom?” I asked, dismounting.

He drew us aside, that the grooms might not hear.

“Lad,” he said to me, “you must not ride about here, unless with half a
dozen of us. You know among our men a tall young fellow, Bernenstein by
name?”

I knew him. He was a fine strapping young man, almost of my height, and
of light complexion.

“He lies in his room upstairs, with a bullet through his arm.”

“The deuce he does!”

“After dinner he strolled out alone, and went a mile or so into the
wood; and as he walked, he thought he saw three men among the trees;
and one levelled a gun at him. He had no weapon, and he started at a run
back towards the house. But one of them fired, and he was hit, and had
much ado to reach here before he fainted. By good luck, they feared to
pursue him nearer the house.”

He paused and added:

“Lad, the bullet was meant for you.”

“It is very likely,” said I, “and it’s first blood to brother Michael.”

“I wonder which three it was,” said Fritz.

“Well, Sapt,” I said, “I went out tonight for no idle purpose, as you
shall hear. But there’s one thing in my mind.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Why this,” I answered. “That I shall ill requite the very great honours
Ruritania has done me if I depart from it leaving one of those Six
alive--neither with the help of God, will I.”

And Sapt shook my hand on that.





CHAPTER 13

An Improvement on Jacob’s Ladder


In the morning of the day after that on which I swore my oath against
the Six, I gave certain orders, and then rested in greater contentment
than I had known for some time. I was at work; and work, though it
cannot cure love, is yet a narcotic to it; so that Sapt, who grew
feverish, marvelled to see me sprawling in an armchair in the sunshine,
listening to one of my friends who sang me amorous songs in a mellow
voice and induced in me a pleasing melancholy. Thus was I engaged when
young Rupert Hentzau, who feared neither man nor devil, and rode through
the demesne--where every tree might hide a marksman, for all he knew--as
though it had been the park at Strelsau, cantered up to where I lay,
bowing with burlesque deference, and craving private speech with me
in order to deliver a message from the Duke of Strelsau. I made all
withdraw, and then he said, seating himself by me:

“The King is in love, it seems?”

“Not with life, my lord,” said I, smiling.

“It is well,” he rejoined. “Come, we are alone, Rassendyll--”

I rose to a sitting posture.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I was about to call one of my gentlemen to bring your horse, my lord.
If you do not know how to address the King, my brother must find another
messenger.”

“Why keep up the farce?” he asked, negligently dusting his boot with his
glove.

“Because it is not finished yet; and meanwhile I’ll choose my own name.”

“Oh, so be it! Yet I spoke in love for you; for indeed you are a man
after my own heart.”

“Saving my poor honesty,” said I, “maybe I am. But that I keep faith
with men, and honour with women, maybe I am, my lord.”

He darted a glance at me--a glance of anger.

“Is your mother dead?” said I.

“Ay, she’s dead.”

“She may thank God,” said I, and I heard him curse me softly. “Well,
what’s the message?” I continued.

I had touched him on the raw, for all the world knew he had broken his
mother’s heart and flaunted his mistresses in her house; and his airy
manner was gone for the moment.

“The duke offers you more than I would,” he growled. “A halter for
you, sire, was my suggestion. But he offers you safe-conduct across the
frontier and a million crowns.”

“I prefer your offer, my lord, if I am bound to one.”

“You refuse?”

“Of course.”

“I told Michael you would;” and the villain, his temper restored,
gave me the sunniest of smiles. “The fact is, between ourselves,” he
continued, “Michael doesn’t understand a gentleman.”

I began to laugh.

“And you?” I asked.

“I do,” he said. “Well, well, the halter be it.”

“I’m sorry you won’t live to see it,” I observed.

“Has his Majesty done me the honour to fasten a particular quarrel on
me?”

“I would you were a few years older, though.”

“Oh, God gives years, but the devil gives increase,” laughed he. “I can
hold my own.”

“How is your prisoner?” I asked.

“The K--?”

“Your prisoner.”

“I forgot your wishes, sire. Well, he is alive.”

He rose to his feet; I imitated him. Then, with a smile, he said:

“And the pretty princess? Faith, I’ll wager the next Elphberg will be
red enough, for all that Black Michael will be called his father.”

I sprang a step towards him, clenching my hand. He did not move an inch,
and his lip curled in insolent amusement.

“Go, while your skin’s whole!” I muttered. He had repaid me with
interest my hit about his mother.

Then came the most audacious thing I have known in my life. My friends
were some thirty yards away. Rupert called to a groom to bring him his
horse, and dismissed the fellow with a crown. The horse stood near. I
stood still, suspecting nothing. Rupert made as though to mount; then
he suddenly turned to me: his left hand resting in his belt, his right
outstretched: “Shake hands,” he said.

I bowed, and did as he had foreseen--I put my hands behind me. Quicker
than thought, his left hand darted out at me, and a small dagger flashed
in the air; he struck me in the left shoulder--had I not swerved, it
had been my heart. With a cry, I staggered back. Without touching the
stirrup, he leapt upon his horse and was off like an arrow, pursued by
cries and revolver shots--the last as useless as the first--and I
sank into my chair, bleeding profusely, as I watched the devil’s brat
disappear down the long avenue. My friends surrounded me, and then I
fainted.

I suppose that I was put to bed, and there lay, unconscious, or half
conscious, for many hours; for it was night when I awoke to my full
mind, and found Fritz beside me. I was weak and weary, but he bade me be
of good cheer, saying that my wound would soon heal, and that meanwhile
all had gone well, for Johann, the keeper, had fallen into the snare we
had laid for him, and was even now in the house.

“And the queer thing is,” pursued Fritz, “that I fancy he’s not
altogether sorry to find himself here. He seems to think that when
Black Michael has brought off his coup, witnesses of how it was
effected--saving, of course, the Six themselves--will not be at a
premium.”

This idea argued a shrewdness in our captive which led me to build
hopes on his assistance. I ordered him to be brought in at once. Sapt
conducted him, and set him in a chair by my bedside. He was sullen, and
afraid; but, to say truth, after young Rupert’s exploit, we also had
our fears, and, if he got as far as possible from Sapt’s formidable
six-shooter, Sapt kept him as far as he could from me. Moreover, when he
came in his hands were bound, but that I would not suffer.

I need not stay to recount the safeguards and rewards we promised the
fellow--all of which were honourably observed and paid, so that he lives
now in prosperity (though where I may not mention); and we were the more
free inasmuch as we soon learnt that he was rather a weak man than a
wicked, and had acted throughout this matter more from fear of the duke
and of his own brother Max than for any love of what was done. But
he had persuaded all of his loyalty; and though not in their secret
counsels, was yet, by his knowledge of their dispositions within the
Castle, able to lay bare before us the very heart of their devices. And
here, in brief, is his story:

Below the level of the ground in the Castle, approached by a flight of
stone steps which abutted on the end of the drawbridge, were situated
two small rooms, cut out of the rock itself. The outer of the two had no
windows, but was always lighted with candles; the inner had one square
window, which gave upon the moat. In the outer room there lay always,
day and night, three of the Six; and the instructions of Duke Michael
were, that on any attack being made on the outer room, the three were to
defend the door of it so long as they could without risk to themselves.
But, so soon as the door should be in danger of being forced, then
Rupert Hentzau or Detchard (for one of these two was always there)
should leave the others to hold it as long as they could, and himself
pass into the inner room, and, without more ado, kill the King who
lay there, well-treated indeed, but without weapons, and with his arms
confined in fine steel chains, which did not allow him to move his elbow
more than three inches from his side. Thus, before the outer door were
stormed, the King would be dead. And his body? For his body would be
evidence as damning as himself.

“Nay, sir,” said Johann, “his Highness has thought of that. While the
two hold the outer room, the one who has killed the King unlocks the
bars in the square window (they turn on a hinge). The window now gives
no light, for its mouth is choked by a great pipe of earthenware; and
this pipe, which is large enough to let pass through it the body of
a man, passes into the moat, coming to an end immediately above the
surface of the water, so that there is no perceptible interval between
water and pipe. The King being dead, his murderer swiftly ties a weight
to the body, and, dragging it to the window, raises it by a pulley (for,
lest the weight should prove too great, Detchard has provided one) till
it is level with the mouth of the pipe. He inserts the feet in the pipe,
and pushes the body down. Silently, without splash or sound, it falls
into the water and thence to the bottom of the moat, which is twenty
feet deep thereabouts. This done, the murderer cries loudly, ‘All’s
well!’ and himself slides down the pipe; and the others, if they can and
the attack is not too hot, run to the inner room and, seeking a moment’s
delay, bar the door, and in their turn slide down. And though the King
rises not from the bottom, they rise and swim round to the other side,
where the orders are for men to wait them with ropes, to haul them out,
and horses. And here, if things go ill, the duke will join them and seek
safety by riding; but if all goes well, they will return to the Castle,
and have their enemies in a trap. That, sir, is the plan of his Highness
for the disposal of the King in case of need. But it is not to be used
till the last; for, as we all know, he is not minded to kill the King
unless he can, before or soon after, kill you also, sir. Now, sir, I
have spoken the truth, as God is my witness, and I pray you to shield me
from the vengeance of Duke Michael; for if, after he knows what I have
done, I fall into his hands, I shall pray for one thing out of all the
world--a speedy death, and that I shall not obtain from him!”

The fellow’s story was rudely told, but our questions supplemented
his narrative. What he had told us applied to an armed attack; but if
suspicions were aroused, and there came overwhelming force--such, for
instance, as I, the King, could bring--the idea of resistance would be
abandoned; the King would be quietly murdered and slid down the pipe.
And--here comes an ingenious touch--one of the Six would take his
place in the cell, and, on the entrance of the searchers, loudly demand
release and redress; and Michael, being summoned, would confess to hasty
action, but he would say the man had angered him by seeking the favour
of a lady in the Castle (this was Antoinette de Mauban) and he had
confined him there, as he conceived he, as Lord of Zenda, had right to
do. But he was now, on receiving his apology, content to let him go,
and so end the gossip which, to his Highness’s annoyance, had arisen
concerning a prisoner in Zenda, and had given his visitors the trouble
of this enquiry. The visitors, baffled, would retire, and Michael could,
at his leisure, dispose of the body of the King.

Sapt, Fritz, and I in my bed, looked round on one another in horror and
bewilderment at the cruelty and cunning of the plan. Whether I went
in peace or in war, openly at the head of a corps, or secretly by a
stealthy assault, the King would be dead before I could come near him.
If Michael were stronger and overcame my party, there would be an end.
But if I were stronger, I should have no way to punish him, no means of
proving any guilt in him without proving my own guilt also. On the other
hand, I should be left as King (ah! for a moment my pulse quickened) and
it would be for the future to witness the final struggle between him and
me. He seemed to have made triumph possible and ruin impossible. At
the worst, he would stand as well as he had stood before I crossed
his path--with but one man between him and the throne, and that man an
impostor; at best, there would be none left to stand against him. I had
begun to think that Black Michael was over fond of leaving the fighting
to his friends; but now I acknowledged that the brains, if not the arms,
of the conspiracy were his.

“Does the King know this?” I asked.

“I and my brother,” answered Johann, “put up the pipe, under the orders
of my Lord of Hentzau. He was on guard that day, and the King asked my
lord what it meant. ‘Faith,’ he answered, with his airy laugh, ‘it’s a
new improvement on the ladder of Jacob, whereby, as you have read, sire,
men pass from the earth to heaven. We thought it not meet that your
Majesty should go, in case, sire, you must go, by the common route. So
we have made you a pretty private passage where the vulgar cannot stare
at you or incommode your passage. That, sire, is the meaning of
that pipe.’ And he laughed and bowed, and prayed the King’s leave to
replenish the King’s glass--for the King was at supper. And the King,
though he is a brave man, as are all of his House, grew red and then
white as he looked on the pipe and at the merry devil who mocked him.
Ah, sir” (and the fellow shuddered), “it is not easy to sleep quiet in
the Castle of Zenda, for all of them would as soon cut a man’s throat
as play a game at cards; and my Lord Rupert would choose it sooner for
a pastime than any other--ay, sooner than he would ruin a woman, though
that he loves also.”

The man ceased, and I bade Fritz take him away and have him carefully
guarded; and, turning to him, I added:

“If anyone asks you if there is a prisoner in Zenda, you may answer
‘Yes.’ But if any asks who the prisoner is, do not answer. For all my
promises will not save you if any man here learns from you the truth as
to the prisoner of Zenda. I’ll kill you like a dog if the thing be so
much as breathed within the house!”

Then, when he was gone, I looked at Sapt.

“It’s a hard nut!” said I.

“So hard,” said he, shaking his grizzled head, “that as I think, this
time next year is like to find you still King of Ruritania!” and he
broke out into curses on Michael’s cunning.

I lay back on my pillows.

“There seems to me,” I observed, “to be two ways by which the King can
come out of Zenda alive. One is by treachery in the duke’s followers.”

“You can leave that out,” said Sapt.

“I hope not,” I rejoined, “because the other I was about to mention
is--by a miracle from heaven!”




CHAPTER 14

A Night Outside the Castle


It would have surprised the good people of Ruritania to know of the
foregoing talk; for, according to the official reports, I had suffered a
grievous and dangerous hurt from an accidental spear-thrust, received in
the course of my sport. I caused the bulletins to be of a very serious
character, and created great public excitement, whereby three things
occurred: first, I gravely offended the medical faculty of Strelsau by
refusing to summon to my bedside any of them, save a young man, a friend
of Fritz’s, whom we could trust; secondly, I received word from Marshal
Strakencz that my orders seemed to have no more weight than his, and
that the Princess Flavia was leaving for Tarlenheim under his unwilling
escort (news whereat I strove not to be glad and proud); and thirdly, my
brother, the Duke of Strelsau, although too well informed to believe the
account of the origin of my sickness, was yet persuaded by the reports
and by my seeming inactivity that I was in truth incapable of action,
and that my life was in some danger. This I learnt from the man Johann,
whom I was compelled to trust and send back to Zenda, where, by the way,
Rupert Hentzau had him soundly flogged for daring to smirch the morals
of Zenda by staying out all night in the pursuits of love. This, from
Rupert, Johann deeply resented, and the duke’s approval of it did more
to bind the keeper to my side than all my promises.

On Flavia’s arrival I cannot dwell. Her joy at finding me up and well,
instead of on my back and fighting with death, makes a picture that
even now dances before my eyes till they grow too dim to see it; and her
reproaches that I had not trusted even her must excuse the means I took
to quiet them. In truth, to have her with me once more was like a taste
of heaven to a damned soul, the sweeter for the inevitable doom that
was to follow; and I rejoiced in being able to waste two whole days with
her. And when I had wasted two days, the Duke of Strelsau arranged a
hunting-party.

The stroke was near now. For Sapt and I, after anxious consultations,
had resolved that we must risk a blow, our resolution being clinched
by Johann’s news that the King grew peaked, pale, and ill, and that his
health was breaking down under his rigorous confinement. Now a man--be
he king or no king--may as well die swiftly and as becomes a gentleman,
from bullet or thrust, as rot his life out in a cellar! That thought
made prompt action advisable in the interests of the King; from my own
point of view, it grew more and more necessary. For Strakencz urged on
me the need of a speedy marriage, and my own inclinations seconded him
with such terrible insistence that I feared for my resolution. I do not
believe that I should have done the deed I dreamt of; but I might have
come to flight, and my flight would have ruined the cause. And--yes, I
am no saint (ask my little sister-in-law), and worse still might have
happened.

It is perhaps as strange a thing as has ever been in the history of a
country that the King’s brother and the King’s personator, in a time of
profound outward peace, near a placid, undisturbed country town, under
semblance of amity, should wage a desperate war for the person and life
of the King. Yet such was the struggle that began now between Zenda and
Tarlenheim. When I look back on the time, I seem to myself to have been
half mad. Sapt has told me that I suffered no interference and listened
to no remonstrances; and if ever a King of Ruritania ruled like a
despot, I was, in those days, the man. Look where I would, I saw nothing
that made life sweet to me, and I took my life in my hand and carried it
carelessly as a man dangles an old glove. At first they strove to guard
me, to keep me safe, to persuade me not to expose myself; but when they
saw how I was set, there grew up among them--whether they knew the truth
or not--a feeling that Fate ruled the issue, and that I must be left to
play my game with Michael my own way.

Late next night I rose from table, where Flavia had sat by me, and
conducted her to the door of her apartments. There I kissed her hand,
and bade her sleep sound and wake to happy days. Then I changed my
clothes and went out. Sapt and Fritz were waiting for me with six men
and the horses. Over his saddle Sapt carried a long coil of rope, and
both were heavily armed. I had with me a short stout cudgel and a long
knife. Making a circuit, we avoided the town, and in an hour found
ourselves slowly mounting the hill that led to the Castle of Zenda. The
night was dark and very stormy; gusts of wind and spits of rain caught
us as we breasted the incline, and the great trees moaned and sighed.
When we came to a thick clump, about a quarter of a mile from the
Castle, we bade our six friends hide there with the horses. Sapt had a
whistle, and they could rejoin us in a few moments if danger came: but,
up to now, we had met no one. I hoped that Michael was still off his
guard, believing me to be safe in bed. However that might be, we gained
the top of the hill without accident, and found ourselves on the edge of
the moat where it sweeps under the road, separating the Old Castle
from it. A tree stood on the edge of the bank, and Sapt, silently and
diligently, set to make fast the rope. I stripped off my boots, took a
pull at a flask of brandy, loosened the knife in its sheath, and took
the cudgel between my teeth. Then I shook hands with my friends, not
heeding a last look of entreaty from Fritz, and laid hold of the rope. I
was going to have a look at “Jacob’s Ladder.”

Gently I lowered myself into the water. Though the night was wild, the
day had been warm and bright, and the water was not cold. I struck out,
and began to swim round the great walls which frowned above me. I could
see only three yards ahead; I had then good hopes of not being seen,
as I crept along close under the damp, moss-grown masonry. There were
lights from the new part of the Castle on the other side, and now and
again I heard laughter and merry shouts. I fancied I recognized young
Rupert Hentzau’s ringing tones, and pictured him flushed with wine.
Recalling my thoughts to the business in hand, I rested a moment. If
Johann’s description were right, I must be near the window now. Very
slowly I moved; and out of the darkness ahead loomed a shape. It was
the pipe, curving from the window to the water: about four feet of its
surface were displayed; it was as big round as two men. I was about to
approach it, when I saw something else, and my heart stood still.
The nose of a boat protruded beyond the pipe on the other side; and
listening intently, I heard a slight shuffle--as of a man shifting his
position. Who was the man who guarded Michael’s invention? Was he awake
or was he asleep? I felt if my knife were ready, and trod water; as
I did so, I found bottom under my feet. The foundations of the Castle
extended some fifteen inches, making a ledge; and I stood on it, out of
water from my armpits upwards. Then I crouched and peered through the
darkness under the pipe, where, curving, it left a space.

There was a man in the boat. A rifle lay by him--I saw the gleam of
the barrel. Here was the sentinel! He sat very still. I listened; he
breathed heavily, regularly, monotonously. By heaven, he slept! Kneeling
on the shelf, I drew forward under the pipe till my face was within two
feet of his. He was a big man, I saw. It was Max Holf, the brother of
Johann. My hand stole to my belt, and I drew out my knife. Of all the
deeds of my life, I love the least to think of this, and whether it were
the act of a man or a traitor I will not ask. I said to myself: “It is
war--and the King’s life is the stake.” And I raised myself from beneath
the pipe and stood up by the boat, which lay moored by the ledge.
Holding my breath, I marked the spot and raised my arm. The great fellow
stirred. He opened his eyes--wide, wider. He gasped in terror at my
face and clutched at his rifle. I struck home. And I heard the chorus of
a love-song from the opposite bank.

Leaving him where he lay, a huddled mass, I turned to “Jacob’s Ladder.”
 My time was short. This fellow’s turn of watching might be over
directly, and relief would come. Leaning over the pipe, I examined it,
from the end near the water to the topmost extremity where it passed, or
seemed to pass, through the masonry of the wall. There was no break
in it, no chink. Dropping on my knees, I tested the under side. And
my breath went quick and fast, for on this lower side, where the pipe
should have clung close to the masonry, there was a gleam of light! That
light must come from the cell of the King! I set my shoulder against the
pipe and exerted my strength. The chink widened a very, very little,
and hastily I desisted; I had done enough to show that the pipe was not
fixed in the masonry at the lower side.

Then I heard a voice--a harsh, grating voice:

“Well, sire, if you have had enough of my society, I will leave you to
repose; but I must fasten the little ornaments first.”

It was Detchard! I caught the English accent in a moment.

“Have you anything to ask, sire, before we part?”

The King’s voice followed. It was his, though it was faint and
hollow--different from the merry tones I had heard in the glades of the
forest.

“Pray my brother,” said the King, “to kill me. I am dying by inches
here.”

“The duke does not desire your death, sire--yet,” sneered Detchard;
“when he does behold your path to heaven!”

The King answered:

“So be it! And now, if your orders allow it, pray leave me.”

“May you dream of paradise!” said the ruffian.

The light disappeared. I heard the bolts of the door run home. And then
I heard the sobs of the King. He was alone, as he thought. Who dares
mock at him?

I did not venture to speak to him. The risk of some exclamation escaping
him in surprise was too great. I dared do nothing that night; and my
task now was to get myself away in safety, and to carry off the carcass
of the dead man. To leave him there would tell too much. Casting loose
the boat, I got in. The wind was blowing a gale now, and there was
little danger of oars being heard. I rowed swiftly round to where my
friends waited. I had just reached the spot, when a loud whistle sounded
over the moat behind me.

“Hullo, Max!” I heard shouted.

I hailed Sapt in a low tone. The rope came down. I tied it round the
corpse, and then went up it myself.

“Whistle you too,” I whispered, “for our men, and haul in the line. No
talk now.”

They hauled up the body. Just as it reached the road, three men on
horseback swept round from the front of the Castle. We saw them; but,
being on foot ourselves, we escaped their notice. But we heard our men
coming up with a shout.

“The devil, but it’s dark!” cried a ringing voice.

It was young Rupert. A moment later, shots rang out. Our people had met
them. I started forward at a run, Sapt and Fritz following me.

“Thrust, thrust!” cried Rupert again, and a loud groan following told
that he himself was not behind-hand.

“I’m done, Rupert!” cried a voice. “They’re three to one. Save
yourself!”

I ran on, holding my cudgel in my hand. Suddenly a horse came towards
me. A man was on it, leaning over his shoulder.

“Are you cooked too, Krafstein?” he cried.

There was no answer.

I sprang to the horse’s head. It was Rupert Hentzau.

“At last!” I cried.

For we seemed to have him. He had only his sword in his hand. My men
were hot upon him; Sapt and Fritz were running up. I had outstripped
them; but if they got close enough to fire, he must die or surrender.

“At last!” I cried.

“It’s the play-actor!” cried he, slashing at my cudgel. He cut it clean
in two; and, judging discretion better than death, I ducked my head
and (I blush to tell it) scampered for my life. The devil was in Rupert
Hentzau; for he put spurs to his horse, and I, turning to look, saw him
ride, full gallop, to the edge of the moat and leap in, while the shots
of our party fell thick round him like hail. With one gleam of moonlight
we should have riddled him with balls; but, in the darkness, he won to
the corner of the Castle, and vanished from our sight.

“The deuce take him!” grinned Sapt.

“It’s a pity,” said I, “that he’s a villain. Whom have we got?”

We had Lauengram and Krafstein: they lay dead; and, concealment being
no longer possible, we flung them, with Max, into the moat; and, drawing
together in a compact body, rode off down the hill. And, in our midst,
went the bodies of three gallant gentlemen. Thus we travelled home,
heavy at heart for the death of our friends, sore uneasy concerning
the King, and cut to the quick that young Rupert had played yet another
winning hand with us.

For my own part, I was vexed and angry that I had killed no man in open
fight, but only stabbed a knave in his sleep. And I did not love to hear
Rupert call me a play-actor.




CHAPTER 15

I Talk with a Tempter


Ruritania is not England, or the quarrel between Duke Michael and myself
could not have gone on, with the extraordinary incidents which marked
it, without more public notice being directed to it. Duels were frequent
among all the upper classes, and private quarrels between great men
kept the old habit of spreading to their friends and dependents.
Nevertheless, after the affray which I have just related, such reports
began to circulate that I felt it necessary to be on my guard. The death
of the gentlemen involved could not be hidden from their relatives. I
issued a stern order, declaring that duelling had attained unprecedented
licence (the Chancellor drew up the document for me, and very well he
did it), and forbidding it save in the gravest cases. I sent a public
and stately apology to Michael, and he returned a deferential and
courteous reply to me; for our one point of union was--and it underlay
all our differences and induced an unwilling harmony between our
actions--that we could neither of us afford to throw our cards on the
table. He, as well as I, was a “play-actor”, and, hating one another, we
combined to dupe public opinion. Unfortunately, however, the necessity
for concealment involved the necessity of delay: the King might die
in his prison, or even be spirited off somewhere else; it could not be
helped. For a little while I was compelled to observe a truce, and
my only consolation was that Flavia most warmly approved of my edict
against duelling, and, when I expressed delight at having won her
favour, prayed me, if her favour were any motive to me, to prohibit the
practice altogether.

“Wait till we are married,” said I, smiling.

Not the least peculiar result of the truce and of the secrecy which
dictated it was that the town of Zenda became in the day-time--I would
not have trusted far to its protection by night--a sort of neutral zone,
where both parties could safely go; and I, riding down one day with
Flavia and Sapt, had an encounter with an acquaintance, which presented
a ludicrous side, but was at the same time embarrassing. As I rode
along, I met a dignified looking person driving in a two-horsed
carriage. He stopped his horses, got out, and approached me, bowing low.
I recognized the Head of the Strelsau Police.

“Your Majesty’s ordinance as to duelling is receiving our best
attention,” he assured me.

If the best attention involved his presence in Zenda, I determined at
once to dispense with it.

“Is that what brings you to Zenda, Prefect?” I asked.

“Why no, sire; I am here because I desired to oblige the British
Ambassador.”

“What’s the British Ambassador doing _dans cette galère_?” said I,
carelessly.

“A young countryman of his, sire--a man of some position--is missing.
His friends have not heard from him for two months, and there is reason
to believe that he was last seen in Zenda.”

Flavia was paying little attention. I dared not look at Sapt.

“What reason?”

“A friend of his in Paris--a certain M. Featherly--has given us
information which makes it possible that he came here, and the officials
of the railway recollect his name on some luggage.”

“What was his name?”

“Rassendyll, sire,” he answered; and I saw that the name meant nothing
to him. But, glancing at Flavia, he lowered his voice, as he went on:
“It is thought that he may have followed a lady here. Has your Majesty
heard of a certain Madame de Mauban?”

“Why, yes,” said I, my eye involuntarily travelling towards the Castle.

“She arrived in Ruritania about the same time as this Rassendyll.”

I caught the Prefect’s glance; he was regarding me with enquiry writ
large on his face.

“Sapt,” said I, “I must speak a word to the Prefect. Will you ride on
a few paces with the princess?” And I added to the Prefect: “Come, sir,
what do you mean?”

He drew close to me, and I bent in the saddle.

“If he were in love with the lady?” he whispered. “Nothing has been
heard of him for two months;” and this time it was the eye of the
Prefect which travelled towards the Castle.

“Yes, the lady is there,” I said quietly. “But I don’t suppose Mr.
Rassendyll--is that the name?--is.”

“The duke,” he whispered, “does not like rivals, sire.”

“You’re right there,” said I, with all sincerity. “But surely you hint
at a very grave charge?”

He spread his hands out in apology. I whispered in his ear:

“This is a grave matter. Go back to Strelsau--”

“But, sire, if I have a clue here?”

“Go back to Strelsau,” I repeated. “Tell the Ambassador that you have a
clue, but that you must be left alone for a week or two. Meanwhile, I’ll
charge myself with looking into the matter.”

“The Ambassador is very pressing, sir.”

“You must quiet him. Come, sir; you see that if your suspicions are
correct, it is an affair in which we must move with caution. We can have
no scandal. Mind you return tonight.”

He promised to obey me, and I rode on to rejoin my companions, a little
easier in my mind. Enquiries after me must be stopped at all hazards for
a week or two; and this clever official had come surprisingly near the
truth. His impression might be useful some day, but if he acted on it
now it might mean the worse to the King. Heartily did I curse George
Featherly for not holding his tongue.

“Well,” asked Flavia, “have you finished your business?”

“Most satisfactorily,” said I. “Come, shall we turn round? We are almost
trenching on my brother’s territory.”

We were, in fact, at the extreme end of the town, just where the hills
begin to mount towards the Castle. We cast our eyes up, admiring the
massive beauty of the old walls, and we saw a _cortège_ winding slowly
down the hill. On it came.

“Let us go back,” said Sapt.

“I should like to stay,” said Flavia; and I reined my horse beside hers.

We could distinguish the approaching party now. There came first two
mounted servants in black uniforms, relieved only by a silver badge.
These were followed by a car drawn by four horses: on it, under a
heavy pall, lay a coffin; behind it rode a man in plain black clothes,
carrying his hat in his hand. Sapt uncovered, and we stood waiting,
Flavia keeping by me and laying her hand on my arm.

“It is one of the gentlemen killed in the quarrel, I expect,” she said.

I beckoned to a groom.

“Ride and ask whom they escort,” I ordered.

He rode up to the servants, and I saw him pass on to the gentleman who
rode behind.

“It’s Rupert of Hentzau,” whispered Sapt.

Rupert it was, and directly afterwards, waving to the procession to
stand still, Rupert trotted up to me. He was in a frock-coat, tightly
buttoned, and trousers. He wore an aspect of sadness, and he bowed with
profound respect. Yet suddenly he smiled, and I smiled too, for old
Sapt’s hand lay in his left breast-pocket, and Rupert and I both guessed
what lay in the hand inside the pocket.

“Your Majesty asks whom we escort,” said Rupert. “It is my dear friend,
Albert of Lauengram.”

“Sir,” said I, “no one regrets the unfortunate affair more than I. My
ordinance, which I mean to have obeyed, is witness to it.”

“Poor fellow!” said Flavia softly, and I saw Rupert’s eyes flash at her.
Whereat I grew red; for, if I had my way, Rupert Hentzau should not
have defiled her by so much as a glance. Yet he did it and dared to let
admiration be seen in his look.

“Your Majesty’s words are gracious,” he said. “I grieve for my friend.
Yet, sire, others must soon lie as he lies now.”

“It is a thing we all do well to remember, my lord,” I rejoined.

“Even kings, sire,” said Rupert, in a moralizing tone; and old Sapt
swore softly by my side.

“It is true,” said I. “How fares my brother, my lord?”

“He is better, sire.”

“I am rejoiced.”

“He hopes soon to leave for Strelsau, when his health is secured.”

“He is only convalescent then?”

“There remain one or two small troubles,” answered the insolent fellow,
in the mildest tone in the world.

“Express my earnest hope,” said Flavia, “that they may soon cease to
trouble him.”

“Your Royal Highness’s wish is, humbly, my own,” said Rupert, with a
bold glance that brought a blush to Flavia’s cheek.

I bowed; and Rupert, bowing lower, backed his horse and signed to his
party to proceed. With a sudden impulse, I rode after him. He turned
swiftly, fearing that, even in the presence of the dead and before a
lady’s eyes, I meant him mischief.

“You fought as a brave man the other night,” I said. “Come, you are
young, sir. If you will deliver your prisoner alive to me, you shall
come to no hurt.”

He looked at me with a mocking smile; but suddenly he rode nearer to me.

“I’m unarmed,” he said; “and our old Sapt there could pick me off in a
minute.”

“I’m not afraid,” said I.

“No, curse you!” he answered. “Look here, I made you a proposal from the
duke once.”

“I’ll hear nothing from Black Michael,” said I.

“Then hear one from me.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Attack the
Castle boldly. Let Sapt and Tarlenheim lead.”

“Go on,” said I.

“Arrange the time with me.”

“I have such confidence in you, my lord!”

“Tut! I’m talking business now. Sapt there and Fritz will fall; Black
Michael will fall--”

“What!”

“--Black Michael will fall, like the dog he is; the prisoner, as you
call him, will go by ‘Jacob’s Ladder’--ah, you know that!--to hell! Two
men will be left--I, Rupert Hentzau, and you, the King of Ruritania.”

He paused, and then, in a voice that quivered with eagerness, added:

“Isn’t that a hand to play?--a throne and your princess! And for me, say
a competence and your Majesty’s gratitude.”

“Surely,” I exclaimed, “while you’re above ground, hell wants its
master!”

“Well, think it over,” he said. “And, look you, it would take more than
a scruple or two to keep me from yonder girl,” and his evil eye flashed
again at her I loved.

“Get out of my reach!” said I; and yet in a moment I began to laugh for
the very audacity of it.

“Would you turn against your master?” I asked.

He swore at Michael for being what the offspring of a legal, though
morganatic, union should not be called, and said to me in an almost
confidential and apparently friendly tone:

“He gets in my way, you know. He’s a jealous brute! Faith, I nearly
stuck a knife into him last night; he came most cursedly _mal àpropos_!”

My temper was well under control now; I was learning something.

“A lady?” I asked negligently.

“Ay, and a beauty,” he nodded. “But you’ve seen her.”

“Ah! was it at a tea-party, when some of your friends got on the wrong
side of the table?”

“What can you expect of fools like Detchard and De Gautet? I wish I’d
been there.”

“And the duke interferes?”

“Well,” said Rupert meditatively, “that’s hardly a fair way of putting
it, perhaps. I want to interfere.”

“And she prefers the duke?”

“Ay, the silly creature! Ah, well, you think about my plan,” and, with a
bow, he pricked his horse and trotted after the body of his friend.

I went back to Flavia and Sapt, pondering on the strangeness of the man.
Wicked men I have known in plenty, but Rupert Hentzau remains unique in
my experience. And if there be another anywhere, let him be caught and
hanged out of hand. So say I!

“He’s very handsome, isn’t he?” said Flavia.

Well, of course, she didn’t know him as I did; yet I was put out, for I
thought his bold glances would have made her angry. But my dear Flavia
was a woman, and so--she was not put out. On the contrary, she thought
young Rupert very handsome--as, beyond question, the ruffian was.

“And how sad he looked at his friend’s death!” said she.

“He’ll have better reason to be sad at his own,” observed Sapt, with a
grim smile.

As for me, I grew sulky; unreasonable it was perhaps, for what better
business had I to look at her with love than had even Rupert’s lustful
eyes? And sulky I remained till, as evening fell and we rode up to
Tarlenheim, Sapt having fallen behind in case anyone should be
following us, Flavia, riding close beside me, said softly, with a little
half-ashamed laugh:

“Unless you smile, Rudolf, I cry. Why are you angry?”

“It was something that fellow said to me,” said I, but I was smiling as
we reached the door and dismounted.

There a servant handed me a note: it was unaddressed.

“Is it for me?” I asked.

“Yes, sire; a boy brought it.”

I tore it open:


Johann carries this for me. I warned you once. In the name of God, and
if you are a man, rescue me from this den of murderers!--A. de M.


I handed it to Sapt; but all that the tough old soul said in reply to
this piteous appeal was:

“Whose fault brought her there?”

Nevertheless, not being faultless myself, I took leave to pity
Antoinette de Mauban.




CHAPTER 16

A Desperate Plan


As I had ridden publicly in Zenda, and had talked there with Rupert
Hentzau, of course all pretence of illness was at an end. I marked the
effect on the garrison of Zenda: they ceased to be seen abroad; and any
of my men who went near the Castle reported that the utmost vigilance
prevailed there. Touched as I was by Madame de Mauban’s appeal, I seemed
as powerless to befriend her as I had proved to help the King. Michael
bade me defiance; and although he too had been seen outside the walls,
with more disregard for appearances than he had hitherto shown, he did
not take the trouble to send any excuse for his failure to wait on the
King. Time ran on in inactivity, when every moment was pressing; for
not only was I faced with the new danger which the stir about my
disappearance brought on me, but great murmurs had arisen in Strelsau at
my continued absence from the city. They had been greater, but for the
knowledge that Flavia was with me; and for this reason I suffered her to
stay, though I hated to have her where danger was, and though every
day of our present sweet intercourse strained my endurance almost to
breaking. As a final blow, nothing would content my advisers, Strakencz
and the Chancellor (who came out from Strelsau to make an urgent
representation to me), save that I should appoint a day for the public
solemnization of my betrothal, a ceremony which in Ruritania is well
nigh as binding and great a thing as the marriage itself. And this--with
Flavia sitting by me--I was forced to do, setting a date a fortnight
ahead, and appointing the Cathedral in Strelsau as the place. And this
formal act being published far and wide, caused great joy throughout the
kingdom, and was the talk of all tongues; so that I reckoned there were
but two men who chafed at it--I mean Black Michael and myself; and but
one who did not know of it--that one the man whose name I bore, the King
of Ruritania.

In truth, I heard something of the way the news was received in the
Castle; for after an interval of three days, the man Johann, greedy for
more money, though fearful for his life, again found means to visit us.
He had been waiting on the duke when the tidings came. Black Michael’s
face had grown blacker still, and he had sworn savagely; nor was he
better pleased when young Rupert took oath that I meant to do as I
said, and turning to Madame de Mauban, wished her joy on a rival gone.
Michael’s hand stole towards his sword (said Johann), but not a bit did
Rupert care; for he rallied the duke on having made a better King than
had reigned for years past in Ruritania. “And,” said he, with a meaning
bow to his exasperated master, “the devil sends the princess a finer man
than heaven had marked out for her, by my soul, it does!” Then Michael
harshly bade him hold his tongue, and leave them; but Rupert must needs
first kiss madame’s hand, which he did as though he loved her, while
Michael glared at him.

This was the lighter side of the fellow’s news; but more serious came
behind, and it was plain that if time pressed at Tarlenheim, it pressed
none the less fiercely at Zenda. For the King was very sick: Johann had
seen him, and he was wasted and hardly able to move. “There could be no
thought of taking another for him now.” So alarmed were they, that they
had sent for a physician from Strelsau; and the physician having been
introduced into the King’s cell, had come forth pale and trembling, and
urgently prayed the duke to let him go back and meddle no more in the
affair; but the duke would not, and held him there a prisoner, telling
him his life was safe if the King lived while the duke desired and died
when the duke desired--not otherwise. And, persuaded by the physician,
they had allowed Madame de Mauban to visit the King and give him such
attendance as his state needed, and as only a woman can give. Yet his
life hung in the balance; and I was still strong and whole and free.
Wherefore great gloom reigned at Zenda; and save when they quarrelled,
to which they were very prone, they hardly spoke. But the deeper the
depression of the rest, young Rupert went about Satan’s work with a
smile in his eye and a song on his lip; and laughed “fit to burst” (said
Johann) because the duke always set Detchard to guard the King when
Madame de Mauban was in the cell--which precaution was, indeed, not
unwise in my careful brother. Thus Johann told his tale and seized his
crowns. Yet he besought us to allow him to stay with us in Tarlenheim,
and not venture his head again in the lion’s den; but we had need of him
there, and, although I refused to constrain him, I prevailed on him by
increased rewards to go back and carry tidings to Madame de Mauban that
I was working for her, and that, if she could, she should speak one
word of comfort to the King. For while suspense is bad for the sick, yet
despair is worse still, and it might be that the King lay dying of mere
hopelessness, for I could learn of no definite disease that afflicted
him.

“And how do they guard the King now?” I asked, remembering that two of
the Six were dead, and Max Holf also.

“Detchard and Bersonin watch by night, Rupert Hentzau and De Gautet by
day, sir,” he answered.

“Only two at a time?”

“Ay, sir; but the others rest in a room just above, and are within sound
of a cry or a whistle.”

“A room just above? I didn’t know of that. Is there any communication
between it and the room where they watch?”

“No, sir. You must go down a few stairs and through the door by the
drawbridge, and so to where the King is lodged.”

“And that door is locked?”

“Only the four lords have keys, sir.”

I drew nearer to him.

“And have they keys of the grating?” I asked in a low whisper.

“I think, sir, only Detchard and Rupert.”

“Where does the duke lodge?”

“In the chateau, on the first floor. His apartments are on the right as
you go towards the drawbridge.”

“And Madame de Mauban?”

“Just opposite, on the left. But her door is locked after she has
entered.”

“To keep her in?”

“Doubtless, sir.”

“Perhaps for another reason?”

“It is possible.”

“And the duke, I suppose, has the key?”

“Yes. And the drawbridge is drawn back at night, and of that, too, the
duke holds the key, so that it cannot be run across the moat without
application to him.”

“And where do you sleep?”

“In the entrance hall of the chateau, with five servants.”

“Armed?”

“They have pikes, sir, but no firearms. The duke will not trust them
with firearms.”

Then at last I took the matter boldly in my hands. I had failed once at
“Jacob’s Ladder;” I should fail again there. I must make the attack from
the other side.

“I have promised you twenty thousand crowns,” said I. “You shall have
fifty thousand if you will do what I ask of you tomorrow night. But,
first, do those servants know who your prisoner is?”

“No, sir. They believe him to be some private enemy of the duke’s.”

“And they would not doubt that I am the King?”

“How should they?” he asked.

“Look to this, then. Tomorrow, at two in the morning exactly, fling open
the front door of the chateau. Don’t fail by an instant.”

“Shall you be there, sir?”

“Ask no questions. Do what I tell you. Say the hall is close, or what
you will. That is all I ask of you.”

“And may I escape by the door, sir, when I have opened it?”

“Yes, as quick as your legs will carry you. One thing more. Carry this
note to madame--oh, it’s in French, you can’t read it--and charge her,
for the sake of all our lives, not to fail in what it orders.”

The man was trembling but I had to trust to what he had of courage and
to what he had of honesty. I dared not wait, for I feared that the King
would die.

When the fellow was gone, I called Sapt and Fritz to me, and unfolded
the plan that I had formed. Sapt shook his head over it.

“Why can’t you wait?” he asked.

“The King may die.”

“Michael will be forced to act before that.”

“Then,” said I, “the King may live.”

“Well, and if he does?”

“For a fortnight?” I asked simply.

And Sapt bit his moustache.

Suddenly Fritz von Tarlenheim laid his hand on my shoulder.

“Let us go and make the attempt,” said he.

“I mean you to go--don’t be afraid,” said I.

“Ay, but do you stay here, and take care of the princess.”

A gleam came into old Sapt’s eye.

“We should have Michael one way or the other then,” he chuckled;
“whereas if you go and are killed with the King, what will become of
those of us who are left?”

“They will serve Queen Flavia,” said I, “and I would to God I could be
one of them.”

A pause followed. Old Sapt broke it by saying sadly, yet with an unmeant
drollery that set Fritz and me laughing:

“Why didn’t old Rudolf the Third marry your--great-grandmother, was it?”

“Come,” said I, “it is the King we are thinking about.”

“It is true,” said Fritz.

“Moreover,” I went on, “I have been an impostor for the profit of
another, but I will not be one for my own; and if the King is not alive
and on his throne before the day of betrothal comes, I will tell the
truth, come what may.”

“You shall go, lad,” said Sapt.

Here is the plan I had made. A strong party under Sapt’s command was
to steal up to the door of the chateau. If discovered prematurely, they
were to kill anyone who found them--with their swords, for I wanted no
noise of firing. If all went well, they would be at the door when Johann
opened it. They were to rush in and secure the servants if their mere
presence and the use of the King’s name were not enough. At the same
moment--and on this hinged the plan--a woman’s cry was to ring out loud
and shrill from Antoinette de Mauban’s chamber. Again and again she was
to cry: “Help, help! Michael, help!” and then to utter the name of young
Rupert Hentzau. Then, as we hoped, Michael, in fury, would rush out of
his apartments opposite, and fall alive into the hands of Sapt. Still
the cries would go on; and my men would let down the drawbridge; and it
would be strange if Rupert, hearing his name thus taken in vain, did not
descend from where he slept and seek to cross. De Gautet might or might
not come with him: that must be left to chance.

And when Rupert set his foot on the drawbridge? There was my part: for I
was minded for another swim in the moat; and, lest I should grow weary,
I had resolved to take with me a small wooden ladder, on which I could
rest my arms in the water--and my feet when I left it. I would rear it
against the wall just by the bridge; and when the bridge was across, I
would stealthily creep on to it--and then if Rupert or De Gautet crossed
in safety, it would be my misfortune, not my fault. They dead, two men
only would remain; and for them we must trust to the confusion we had
created and to a sudden rush. We should have the keys of the door that
led to the all-important rooms. Perhaps they would rush out. If they
stood by their orders, then the King’s life hung on the swiftness with
which we could force the outer door; and I thanked God that not Rupert
Hentzau watched, but Detchard. For though Detchard was a cool man,
relentless, and no coward, he had neither the dash nor the recklessness
of Rupert. Moreover, he, if any one of them, really loved Black Michael,
and it might be that he would leave Bersonin to guard the King, and rush
across the bridge to take part in the affray on the other side.

So I planned--desperately. And, that our enemy might be the better
lulled to security, I gave orders that our residence should be
brilliantly lighted from top to bottom, as though we were engaged in
revelry; and should so be kept all night, with music playing and people
moving to and fro. Strakencz would be there, and he was to conceal our
departure, if he could, from Flavia. And if we came not again by the
morning, he was to march, openly and in force to the Castle, and demand
the person of the King; if Black Michael were not there, as I did not
think he would be, the Marshal would take Flavia with him, as swiftly as
he could, to Strelsau, and there proclaim Black Michael’s treachery and
the probable death of the King, and rally all that there was honest and
true round the banner of the princess. And, to say truth, this was what
I thought most likely to happen. For I had great doubts whether either
the King or Black Michael or I had more than a day to live. Well, if
Black Michael died, and if I, the play-actor, slew Rupert Hentzau with
my own hand, and then died myself, it might be that Fate would deal
as lightly with Ruritania as could be hoped, notwithstanding that she
demanded the life of the King--and to her dealing thus with me, I was in
no temper to make objection.

It was late when we rose from conference, and I betook me to the
princess’s apartments. She was pensive that evening; yet, when I left
her, she flung her arms about me and grew, for an instant, bashfully
radiant as she slipped a ring on my finger. I was wearing the King’s
ring; but I had also on my little finger a plain band of gold engraved
with the motto of our family: “_Nil Quae Feci_.” This I took off and put
on her, and signed to her to let me go. And she, understanding, stood
away and watched me with dimmed eyes.

“Wear that ring, even though you wear another when you are queen,” I
said.

“Whatever else I wear, this I will wear till I die and after,” said she,
as she kissed the ring.




CHAPTER 17

Young Rupert’s Midnight Diversions


The night came fine and clear. I had prayed for dirty weather, such as
had favoured my previous voyage in the moat, but Fortune was this time
against me. Still I reckoned that by keeping close under the wall and in
the shadow I could escape detection from the windows of the chateau
that looked out on the scene of my efforts. If they searched the moat,
indeed, my scheme must fail; but I did not think they would. They had
made “Jacob’s Ladder” secure against attack. Johann had himself helped
to fix it closely to the masonry on the under side, so that it could
not now be moved from below any more than from above. An assault with
explosives or a long battering with picks alone could displace it, and
the noise involved in either of these operations put them out of the
question. What harm, then, could a man do in the moat? I trusted that
Black Michael, putting this query to himself, would answer confidently,
“None;” while, even if Johann meant treachery, he did not know my
scheme, and would doubtless expect to see me, at the head of my friends,
before the front entrance to the chateau. There, I said to Sapt, was the
real danger. “And there,” I added, “you shall be. Doesn’t that content
you?”

But it did not. Dearly would he have liked to come with me, had I not
utterly refused to take him. One man might escape notice, to double
the party more than doubled the risk; and when he ventured to hint once
again that my life was too valuable, I, knowing the secret thought he
clung to, sternly bade him be silent, assuring him that unless the King
lived through the night, I would not live through it either.

At twelve o’clock, Sapt’s command left the chateau of Tarlenheim and
struck off to the right, riding by unfrequented roads, and avoiding the
town of Zenda. If all went well, they would be in front of the Castle by
about a quarter to two. Leaving their horses half a mile off, they were
to steal up to the entrance and hold themselves in readiness for the
opening of the door. If the door were not opened by two, they were to
send Fritz von Tarlenheim round to the other side of the Castle. I would
meet him there if I were alive, and we would consult whether to storm
the Castle or not. If I were not there, they were to return with all
speed to Tarlenheim, rouse the Marshal, and march in force to Zenda. For
if not there, I should be dead; and I knew that the King would not be
alive five minutes after I ceased to breathe. I must now leave Sapt and
his friends, and relate how I myself proceeded on this eventful night.
I went out on the good horse which had carried me, on the night of
the coronation, back from the hunting-lodge to Strelsau. I carried a
revolver in the saddle and my sword. I was covered with a large cloak,
and under this I wore a warm, tight-fitting woollen jersey, a pair of
knickerbockers, thick stockings, and light canvas shoes. I had rubbed
myself thoroughly with oil, and I carried a large flask of whisky. The
night was warm, but I might probably be immersed a long while, and it
was necessary to take every precaution against cold: for cold not only
saps a man’s courage if he has to die, but impairs his energy if others
have to die, and, finally, gives him rheumatics, if it be God’s will
that he lives. Also I tied round my body a length of thin but stout
cord, and I did not forget my ladder. I, starting after Sapt, took a
shorter route, skirting the town to the left, and found myself in the
outskirts of the forest at about half-past twelve. I tied my horse up
in a thick clump of trees, leaving the revolver in its pocket in the
saddle--it would be no use to me--and, ladder in hand, made my way to
the edge of the moat. Here I unwound my rope from about my waist, bound
it securely round the trunk of a tree on the bank, and let myself down.
The Castle clock struck a quarter to one as I felt the water under me
and began to swim round the keep, pushing the ladder before me, and
hugging the Castle wall. Thus voyaging, I came to my old friend,
“Jacob’s Ladder,” and felt the ledge of the masonry under me. I crouched
down in the shadow of the great pipe--I tried to stir it, but it was
quite immovable--and waited. I remember that my predominant feeling
was neither anxiety for the King nor longing for Flavia, but an intense
desire to smoke; and this craving, of course, I could not gratify.

The drawbridge was still in its place. I saw its airy, slight framework
above me, some ten yards to my right, as I crouched with my back against
the wall of the King’s cell. I made out a window two yards my side of it
and nearly on the same level. That, if Johann spoke true, must belong to
the duke’s apartments; and on the other side, in about the same relative
position, must be Madame de Mauban’s window. Women are careless,
forgetful creatures. I prayed that she might not forget that she was to
be the victim of a brutal attempt at two o’clock precisely. I was rather
amused at the part I had assigned to my young friend Rupert Hentzau; but
I owed him a stroke--for, even as I sat, my shoulder ached where he had,
with an audacity that seemed half to hide his treachery, struck at me,
in the sight of all my friends, on the terrace at Tarlenheim.

Suddenly the duke’s window grew bright. The shutters were not closed,
and the interior became partially visible to me as I cautiously raised
myself till I stood on tiptoe. Thus placed, my range of sight embraced a
yard or more inside the window, while the radius of light did not
reach me. The window was flung open and someone looked out. I marked
Antoinette de Mauban’s graceful figure, and, though her face was in
shadow, the fine outline of her head was revealed against the light
behind. I longed to cry softly, “Remember!” but I dared not--and
happily, for a moment later a man came up and stood by her. He tried to
put his arm round her waist, but with a swift motion she sprang away and
leant against the shutter, her profile towards me. I made out who the
newcomer was: it was young Rupert. A low laugh from him made me sure, as
he leant forward, stretching out his hand towards her.

“Gently, gently!” I murmured. “You’re too soon, my boy!”

His head was close to hers. I suppose he whispered to her, for I saw her
point to the moat, and I heard her say, in slow and distinct tones:

“I had rather throw myself out of this window!”

He came close up to the window and looked out.

“It looks cold,” said he. “Come, Antoinette, are you serious?”

She made no answer so far as I heard; and he, smiting his hand petulantly
on the window-sill, went on, in the voice of some spoilt child:

“Hang Black Michael! Isn’t the princess enough for him? Is he to have
everything? What the devil do you see in Black Michael?”

“If I told him what you say--” she began.

“Well, tell him,” said Rupert, carelessly; and, catching her off her
guard, he sprang forward and kissed her, laughing, and crying, “There’s
something to tell him!”

If I had kept my revolver with me, I should have been very sorely
tempted. Being spared the temptation, I merely added this new score to
his account.

“Though, faith,” said Rupert, “it’s little he cares. He’s mad about the
princess, you know. He talks of nothing but cutting the play-actor’s
throat.”

Didn’t he, indeed?

“And if I do it for him, what do you think he’s promised me?”

The unhappy woman raised her hands above her head, in prayer or in
despair.

“But I detest waiting,” said Rupert; and I saw that he was about to
lay his hand on her again, when there was a noise of a door in the room
opening, and a harsh voice cried:

“What are you doing here, sir?”

Rupert turned his back to the window, bowed low, and said, in his loud,
merry tones: “Apologizing for your absence, sir. Could I leave the lady
alone?”

The newcomer must be Black Michael. I saw him directly, as he advanced
towards the window. He caught young Rupert by the arm.

“The moat would hold more than the King!” said he, with a significant
gesture.

“Does your Highness threaten me?” asked Rupert.

“A threat is more warning than most men get from me.”

“Yet,” observed Rupert, “Rudolf Rassendyll has been much threatened, and
yet lives!”

“Am I in fault because my servants bungle?” asked Michael scornfully.

“Your Highness has run no risk of bungling!” sneered Rupert.

It was telling the duke that he shirked danger as plain as ever I
have heard a man told. Black Michael had self-control. I dare say he
scowled--it was a great regret to me that I could not see their faces
better--but his voice was even and calm, as he answered:

“Enough, enough! We mustn’t quarrel, Rupert. Are Detchard and Bersonin
at their posts?”

“They are, sir.”

“I need you no more.”

“Nay, I’m not oppressed with fatigue,” said Rupert.

“Pray, sir, leave us,” said Michael, more impatiently. “In ten minutes
the drawbridge will be drawn back, and I presume you have no wish to
swim to your bed.”

Rupert’s figure disappeared. I heard the door open and shut again.
Michael and Antoinette de Mauban were left together. To my chagrin,
the duke laid his hand on the window and closed it. He stood talking
to Antoinette for a moment or two. She shook her head, and he turned
impatiently away. She left the window. The door sounded again, and Black
Michael closed the shutters.

“De Gautet, De Gautet, man!” sounded from the drawbridge. “Unless you
want a bath before your bed, come along!”

It was Rupert’s voice, coming from the end of the drawbridge. A moment
later he and De Gautet stepped out on the bridge. Rupert’s arm was
through De Gautet’s, and in the middle of the bridge he detained his
companion and leant over. I dropped behind the shelter of “Jacob’s
Ladder.”

Then Master Rupert had a little sport. He took from De Gautet a bottle
which he carried, and put it to his lips.

“Hardly a drop!” he cried discontentedly, and flung it in the moat.

It fell, as I judged from the sound and the circles on the water, within
a yard of the pipe. And Rupert, taking out his revolver, began to shoot
at it. The first two shots missed the bottle, but hit the pipe. The
third shattered the bottle. I hoped that the young ruffian would be
content; but he emptied the other barrels at the pipe, and one, skimming
over the pipe, whistled through my hair as I crouched on the other side.

“‘Ware bridge!” a voice cried, to my relief.

Rupert and De Gautet cried, “A moment!” and ran across. The bridge was
drawn back, and all became still. The clock struck a quarter-past one. I
rose and stretched myself and yawned.

I think some ten minutes had passed when I heard a slight noise to my
right. I peered over the pipe, and saw a dark figure standing in the
gateway that led to the bridge. It was a man. By the careless, graceful
poise, I guessed it to be Rupert again. He held a sword in his hand, and
he stood motionless for a minute or two. Wild thoughts ran through me.
On what mischief was the young fiend bent now? Then he laughed low
to himself; then he turned his face to the wall, took a step in my
direction, and, to my surprise, began to climb down the wall. In an
instant I saw that there must be steps in the wall; it was plain. They
were cut into or affixed to the wall, at intervals of about eighteen
inches. Rupert set his foot on the lower one. Then he placed his sword
between his teeth, turned round, and noiselessly let himself into the
water. Had it been a matter of my life only, I would have swum to
meet him. Dearly would I have loved to fight it out with him then and
there--with steel, on a fine night, and none to come between us. But
there was the King! I restrained myself, but I could not bridle my swift
breathing, and I watched him with the intensest eagerness.

He swam leisurely and quietly across. There were more steps up on
the other side, and he climbed them. When he set foot in the gateway,
standing on the drawn-back bridge, he felt in his pocket and took
something out. I heard him unlock the door. I could hear no noise of its
closing behind him. He vanished from my sight.

Abandoning my ladder--I saw I did not need it now--I swam to the side of
the bridge and climbed half way up the steps. There I hung with my sword
in my hand, listening eagerly. The duke’s room was shuttered and dark.
There was a light in the window on the opposite side of the bridge.
Not a sound broke the silence, till half-past one chimed from the great
clock in the tower of the chateau.

There were other plots than mine afoot in the Castle that night.




CHAPTER 18

The Forcing of the Trap


The position wherein I stood does not appear very favourable to thought;
yet for the next moment or two I thought profoundly. I had, I told
myself, scored one point. Be Rupert Hentzau’s errand what it might, and
the villainy he was engaged on what it would, I had scored one point. He
was on the other side of the moat from the King, and it would be by no
fault of mine if ever he set foot on the same side again. I had three
left to deal with: two on guard and De Gautet in his bed. Ah, if I
had the keys! I would have risked everything and attacked Detchard and
Bersonin before their friends could join them. But I was powerless. I
must wait till the coming of my friends enticed someone to cross the
bridge--someone with the keys. And I waited, as it seemed, for half an
hour, really for about five minutes, before the next act in the rapid
drama began.

All was still on the other side. The duke’s room remained inscrutable
behind its shutters. The light burnt steadily in Madame de Mauban’s
window. Then I heard the faintest, faintest sound: it came from behind
the door which led to the drawbridge on the other side of the moat. It
but just reached my ear, yet I could not be mistaken as to what it was.
It was made by a key being turned very carefully and slowly. Who was
turning it? And of what room was it the key? There leapt before my eyes
the picture of young Rupert, with the key in one hand, his sword in the
other, and an evil smile on his face. But I did not know what door it
was, nor on which of his favourite pursuits young Rupert was spending
the hours of that night.

I was soon to be enlightened, for the next moment--before my friends
could be near the chateau door--before Johann the keeper would have
thought to nerve himself for his task--there was a sudden crash from
the room with the lighted window. It sounded as though someone had flung
down a lamp; and the window went dark and black. At the same instant a
cry rang out, shrill in the night: “Help, help! Michael, help!” and was
followed by a shriek of utter terror.

I was tingling in every nerve. I stood on the topmost step, clinging to
the threshold of the gate with my right hand and holding my sword in my
left. Suddenly I perceived that the gateway was broader than the bridge;
there was a dark corner on the opposite side where a man could stand. I
darted across and stood there. Thus placed, I commanded the path, and no
man could pass between the chateau and the old Castle till he had tried
conclusions with me.

There was another shriek. Then a door was flung open and clanged against
the wall, and I heard the handle of a door savagely twisted.

“Open the door! In God’s name, what’s the matter?” cried a voice--the
voice of Black Michael himself.

He was answered by the very words I had written in my letter.

“Help, Michael--Hentzau!”

A fierce oath rang out from the duke, and with a loud thud he threw
himself against the door. At the same moment I heard a window above my
head open, and a voice cried: “What’s the matter?” and I heard a man’s
hasty footsteps. I grasped my sword. If De Gautet came my way, the Six
would be less by one more.

Then I heard the clash of crossed swords and a tramp of feet and--I
cannot tell the thing so quickly as it happened, for all seemed to come
at once. There was an angry cry from madame’s room, the cry of a wounded
man; the window was flung open; young Rupert stood there sword in hand.
He turned his back, and I saw his body go forward to the lunge.

“Ah, Johann, there’s one for you! Come on, Michael!”

Johann was there, then--come to the rescue of the duke! How would he
open the door for me? For I feared that Rupert had slain him.

“Help!” cried the duke’s voice, faint and husky.

I heard a step on the stairs above me; and I heard a stir down to my
left, in the direction of the King’s cell. But, before anything happened
on my side of the moat, I saw five or six men round young Rupert in
the embrasure of madame’s window. Three or four times he lunged with
incomparable dash and dexterity. For an instant they fell back, leaving
a ring round him. He leapt on the parapet of the window, laughing as he
leapt, and waving his sword in his hand. He was drunk with blood, and he
laughed again wildly as he flung himself headlong into the moat.

What became of him then? I did not see: for as he leapt, De Gautet’s
lean face looked out through the door by me, and, without a second’s
hesitation, I struck at him with all the strength God had given me, and
he fell dead in the doorway without a word or a groan. I dropped on my
knees by him. Where were the keys? I found myself muttering: “The keys,
man, the keys?” as though he had been yet alive and could listen; and
when I could not find them, I--God forgive me!--I believe I struck a
dead man’s face.

At last I had them. There were but three. Seizing the largest, I felt
the lock of the door that led to the cell. I fitted in the key. It was
right. The lock turned. I drew the door close behind me and locked it as
noiselessly as I could, putting the key in my pocket.

I found myself at the top of a flight of steep stone stairs. An oil lamp
burnt dimly in the bracket. I took it down and held it in my hand; and I
stood and listened.

“What in the devil can it be?” I heard a voice say.

It came from behind a door that faced me at the bottom of the stairs.

And another answered:

“Shall we kill him?”

I strained to hear the answer, and could have sobbed with relief when
Detchard’s voice came grating and cold:

“Wait a bit. There’ll be trouble if we strike too soon.”

There was a moment’s silence. Then I heard the bolt of the door
cautiously drawn back. Instantly I put out the light I held, replacing
the lamp in the bracket.

“It’s dark--the lamp’s out. Have you a light?” said the other
voice--Bersonin’s.

No doubt they had a light, but they should not use it. It was come to
the crisis now, and I rushed down the steps and flung myself against the
door. Bersonin had unbolted it and it gave way before me. The Belgian
stood there sword in hand, and Detchard was sitting on a couch at the
side of the room. In astonishment at seeing me, Bersonin recoiled;
Detchard jumped to his sword. I rushed madly at the Belgian: he gave
way before me, and I drove him up against the wall. He was no swordsman,
though he fought bravely, and in a moment he lay on the floor before
me. I turned--Detchard was not there. Faithful to his orders, he had
not risked a fight with me, but had rushed straight to the door of the
King’s room, opened it and slammed it behind him. Even now he was at his
work inside.

And surely he would have killed the King, and perhaps me also, had it
not been for one devoted man who gave his life for the King. For when I
forced the door, the sight I saw was this: the King stood in the corner
of the room: broken by his sickness, he could do nothing; his fettered
hands moved uselessly up and down, and he was laughing horribly in
half-mad delirium. Detchard and the doctor were together in the middle
of the room; and the doctor had flung himself on the murderer, pinning
his hands to his sides for an instant. Then Detchard wrenched himself
free from the feeble grip, and, as I entered, drove his sword through
the hapless man. Then he turned on me, crying:

“At last!”

We were sword to sword. By blessed chance, neither he nor Bersonin had
been wearing their revolvers. I found them afterwards, ready loaded,
on the mantelpiece of the outer room: it was hard by the door, ready to
their hands, but my sudden rush in had cut off access to them. Yes, we
were man to man: and we began to fight, silently, sternly, and hard.
Yet I remember little of it, save that the man was my match with the
sword--nay, and more, for he knew more tricks than I; and that he forced
me back against the bars that guarded the entrance to “Jacob’s Ladder.”
 And I saw a smile on his face, and he wounded me in the left arm.

No glory do I take for that contest. I believe that the man would have
mastered me and slain me, and then done his butcher’s work, for he was
the most skilful swordsman I have ever met; but even as he pressed me
hard, the half-mad, wasted, wan creature in the corner leapt high in
lunatic mirth, shrieking:

“It’s cousin Rudolf! Cousin Rudolf! I’ll help you, cousin Rudolf!” and
catching up a chair in his hands (he could but just lift it from the
ground and hold it uselessly before him) he came towards us. Hope came
to me. “Come on!” I cried. “Come on! Drive it against his legs.”

Detchard replied with a savage thrust. He all but had me.

“Come on! Come on, man!” I cried. “Come and share the fun!”

And the King laughed gleefully, and came on, pushing his chair before
him.

With an oath Detchard skipped back, and, before I knew what he was
doing, had turned his sword against the King. He made one fierce cut at
the King, and the King, with a piteous cry, dropped where he stood. The
stout ruffian turned to face me again. But his own hand had prepared
his destruction: for in turning he trod in the pool of blood that flowed
from the dead physician. He slipped; he fell. Like a dart I was upon
him. I caught him by the throat, and before he could recover himself I
drove my point through his neck, and with a stifled curse he fell across
the body of his victim.

Was the King dead? It was my first thought. I rushed to where he lay.
Ay, it seemed as if he were dead, for he had a great gash across his
forehead, and he lay still in a huddled heap on the floor. I dropped on
my knees beside him, and leant my ear down to hear if he breathed. But
before I could there was a loud rattle from the outside. I knew the
sound: the drawbridge was being pushed out. A moment later it rang home
against the wall on my side of the moat. I should be caught in a trap
and the King with me, if he yet lived. He must take his chance, to
live or die. I took my sword, and passed into the outer room. Who were
pushing the drawbridge out--my men? If so, all was well. My eye fell on
the revolvers, and I seized one; and paused to listen in the doorway of
the outer room. To listen, say I? Yes, and to get my breath: and I tore
my shirt and twisted a strip of it round my bleeding arm; and stood
listening again. I would have given the world to hear Sapt’s voice. For
I was faint, spent, and weary. And that wild-cat Rupert Hentzau was yet
at large in the Castle. Yet, because I could better defend the narrow
door at the top of the stairs than the wider entrance to the room, I
dragged myself up the steps, and stood behind it listening.

What was the sound? Again a strange one for the place and time. An
easy, scornful, merry laugh--the laugh of young Rupert Hentzau! I could
scarcely believe that a sane man would laugh. Yet the laugh told me that
my men had not come; for they must have shot Rupert ere now, if they had
come. And the clock struck half-past two! My God! The door had not been
opened! They had gone to the bank! They had not found me! They had gone
by now back to Tarlenheim, with the news of the King’s death--and mine.
Well, it would be true before they got there. Was not Rupert laughing in
triumph?

For a moment, I sank, unnerved, against the door. Then I started up
alert again, for Rupert cried scornfully:

“Well, the bridge is there! Come over it! And in God’s name, let’s see
Black Michael. Keep back, you curs! Michael, come and fight for her!”

If it were a three-cornered fight, I might yet bear my part. I turned
the key in the door and looked out.




CHAPTER 19

Face to Face in the Forest


For a moment I could see nothing, for the glare of lanterns and torches
caught me full in the eyes from the other side of the bridge. But soon
the scene grew clear: and it was a strange scene. The bridge was in its
place. At the far end of it stood a group of the duke’s servants; two or
three carried the lights which had dazzled me, three or four held pikes
in rest. They were huddled together; their weapons were protruded before
them; their faces were pale and agitated. To put it plainly, they
looked in as arrant a fright as I have seen men look, and they gazed
apprehensively at a man who stood in the middle of the bridge, sword in
hand. Rupert Hentzau was in his trousers and shirt; the white linen
was stained with blood, but his easy, buoyant pose told me that he was
himself either not touched at all or merely scratched. There he stood,
holding the bridge against them, and daring them to come on; or, rather,
bidding them send Black Michael to him; and they, having no firearms,
cowered before the desperate man and dared not attack him. They
whispered to one another; and in the backmost rank, I saw my friend
Johann, leaning against the portal of the door and stanching with a
handkerchief the blood which flowed from a wound in his cheek.

By marvellous chance, I was master. The cravens would oppose me no more
than they dared attack Rupert. I had but to raise my revolver, and I
sent him to his account with his sins on his head. He did not so much as
know that I was there. I did nothing--why, I hardly know to this day.
I had killed one man stealthily that night, and another by luck rather
than skill--perhaps it was that. Again, villain as the man was, I did
not relish being one of a crowd against him--perhaps it was that. But
stronger than either of these restrained feelings came a curiosity and
a fascination which held me spellbound, watching for the outcome of the
scene.

“Michael, you dog! Michael! If you can stand, come on!” cried Rupert;
and he advanced a step, the group shrinking back a little before him.
“Michael, you bastard! Come on!”

The answer to his taunts came in the wild cry of a woman:

“He’s dead! My God, he’s dead!”

“Dead!” shouted Rupert. “I struck better than I knew!” and he laughed
triumphantly. Then he went on: “Down with your weapons there! I’m your
master now! Down with them, I say!”

I believe they would have obeyed, but as he spoke came new things.
First, there arose a distant sound, as of shouts and knockings from the
other side of the chateau. My heart leapt. It must be my men, come by a
happy disobedience to seek me. The noise continued, but none of the
rest seemed to heed it. Their attention was chained by what now happened
before their eyes. The group of servants parted and a woman staggered on
to the bridge. Antoinette de Mauban was in a loose white robe, her dark
hair streamed over her shoulders, her face was ghastly pale, and her
eyes gleamed wildly in the light of the torches. In her shaking hand she
held a revolver, and, as she tottered forward, she fired it at Rupert
Hentzau. The ball missed him, and struck the woodwork over my head.

“Faith, madame,” laughed Rupert, “had your eyes been no more deadly
than your shooting, I had not been in this scrape--nor Black Michael in
hell--tonight!”

She took no notice of his words. With a wonderful effort, she
calmed herself till she stood still and rigid. Then very slowly and
deliberately she began to raise her arm again, taking most careful aim.

He would be mad to risk it. He must rush on her, chancing the bullet, or
retreat towards me. I covered him with my weapon.

He did neither. Before she had got her aim, he bowed in his most
graceful fashion, cried “I can’t kill where I’ve kissed,” and before
she or I could stop him, laid his hand on the parapet of the bridge, and
lightly leapt into the moat.

At that very moment I heard a rush of feet, and a voice I
knew--Sapt’s--cry: “God! it’s the duke--dead!” Then I knew that the King
needed me no more, and throwing down my revolver, I sprang out on the
bridge. There was a cry of wild wonder, “The King!” and then I, like
Rupert of Hentzau, sword in hand, vaulted over the parapet, intent on
finishing my quarrel with him where I saw his curly head fifteen yards
off in the water of the moat.

He swam swiftly and easily. I was weary and half crippled with my
wounded arm. I could not gain on him. For a time I made no sound, but as
we rounded the corner of the old keep I cried:

“Stop, Rupert, stop!”

I saw him look over his shoulder, but he swam on. He was under the bank
now, searching, as I guessed, for a spot that he could climb. I knew
there to be none--but there was my rope, which would still be hanging
where I had left it. He would come to where it was before I could.
Perhaps he would miss it--perhaps he would find it; and if he drew it up
after him, he would get a good start of me. I put forth all my remaining
strength and pressed on. At last I began to gain on him; for he,
occupied with his search, unconsciously slackened his pace.

Ah, he had found it! A low shout of triumph came from him. He laid
hold of it and began to haul himself up. I was near enough to hear him
mutter: “How the devil comes this here?” I was at the rope, and he,
hanging in mid air, saw me, but I could not reach him.

“Hullo! who’s here?” he cried in startled tones.

For a moment, I believe, he took me for the King--I dare say I was pale
enough to lend colour to the thought; but an instant later he cried:

“Why it’s the play-actor! How come you here, man?”

And so saying he gained the bank.

I laid hold of the rope, but I paused. He stood on the bank, sword in
hand, and he could cut my head open or spit me through the heart as I
came up. I let go the rope.

“Never mind,” said I; “but as I am here, I think I’ll stay.”

He smiled down on me.

“These women are the deuce--” he began; when suddenly the great bell of
the Castle started to ring furiously, and a loud shout reached us from
the moat.

Rupert smiled again, and waved his hand to me.

“I should like a turn with you, but it’s a little too hot!” said he, and
he disappeared from above me.

In an instant, without thinking of danger, I laid my hand to the rope.
I was up. I saw him thirty yards off, running like a deer towards the
shelter of the forest. For once Rupert Hentzau had chosen discretion for
his part. I laid my feet to the ground and rushed after him, calling to
him to stand. He would not. Unwounded and vigorous, he gained on me at
every step; but, forgetting everything in the world except him and my
thirst for his blood, I pressed on, and soon the deep shades of the
forest of Zenda engulfed us both, pursued and pursuer.

It was three o’clock now, and day was dawning. I was on a long straight
grass avenue, and a hundred yards ahead ran young Rupert, his curls
waving in the fresh breeze. I was weary and panting; he looked over his
shoulder and waved his hand again to me. He was mocking me, for he saw
he had the pace of me. I was forced to pause for breath. A moment later,
Rupert turned sharply to the right and was lost from my sight.

I thought all was over, and in deep vexation sank on the ground. But I
was up again directly, for a scream rang through the forest--a woman’s
scream. Putting forth the last of my strength, I ran on to the place
where he had turned out of my sight, and, turning also, I saw him again.
But alas! I could not touch him. He was in the act of lifting a girl
down from her horse; doubtless it was her scream that I heard. She
looked like a small farmer’s or a peasant’s daughter, and she carried
a basket on her arm. Probably she was on her way to the early market at
Zenda. Her horse was a stout, well shaped animal. Master Rupert lifted
her down amid her shrieks--the sight of him frightened her; but he
treated her gently, laughed, kissed her, and gave her money. Then he
jumped on the horse, sitting sideways like a woman; and then he waited
for me. I, on my part, waited for him.

Presently he rode towards me, keeping his distance, however. He lifted
up his hand, saying:

“What did you in the Castle?”

“I killed three of your friends,” said I.

“What! You got to the cells?”

“Yes.”

“And the King?”

“He was hurt by Detchard before I killed Detchard, but I pray that he
lives.”

“You fool!” said Rupert, pleasantly.

“One thing more I did.”

“And what’s that?”

“I spared your life. I was behind you on the bridge, with a revolver in
my hand.”

“No? Faith, I was between two fires!”

“Get off your horse,” I cried, “and fight like a man.”

“Before a lady!” said he, pointing to the girl. “Fie, your Majesty!”

Then in my rage, hardly knowing what I did, I rushed at him. For a
moment he seemed to waver. Then he reined his horse in and stood waiting
for me. On I went in my folly. I seized the bridle and I struck at him.
He parried and thrust at me. I fell back a pace and rushed at him again;
and this time I reached his face and laid his cheek open, and darted
back almost before he could strike me. He seemed almost dazed at the
fierceness of my attack; otherwise I think he must have killed me. I
sank on my knee panting, expecting him to ride at me. And so he would
have done, and then and there, I doubt not, one or both of us would have
died; but at the moment there came a shout from behind us, and, looking
round, I saw, just at the turn of the avenue, a man on a horse. He was
riding hard, and he carried a revolver in his hand. It was Fritz von
Tarlenheim, my faithful friend. Rupert saw him, and knew that the game
was up. He checked his rush at me and flung his leg over the saddle, but
yet for just a moment he waited. Leaning forward, he tossed his hair off
his forehead and smiled, and said: “_Au revoir_, Rudolf Rassendyll!”

Then, with his cheek streaming blood, but his lips laughing and his
body swaying with ease and grace, he bowed to me; and he bowed to the
farm-girl, who had drawn near in trembling fascination, and he waved his
hand to Fritz, who was just within range and let fly a shot at him. The
ball came nigh doing its work, for it struck the sword he held, and he
dropped the sword with an oath, wringing his fingers and clapped his
heels hard on his horse’s belly, and rode away at a gallop.

And I watched him go down the long avenue, riding as though he rode for
his pleasure and singing as he went, for all there was that gash in his
cheek.

Once again he turned to wave his hand, and then the gloom of thickets
swallowed him and he was lost from our sight. Thus he vanished--reckless
and wary, graceful and graceless, handsome, debonair, vile, and
unconquered. And I flung my sword passionately on the ground and cried
to Fritz to ride after him. But Fritz stopped his horse, and leapt down
and ran to me, and knelt, putting his arm about me. And indeed it was
time, for the wound that Detchard had given me was broken forth afresh,
and my blood was staining the ground.

“Then give me the horse!” I cried, staggering to my feet and throwing
his arms off me. And the strength of my rage carried me so far as where
the horse stood, and then I fell prone beside it. And Fritz knelt by me
again.

“Fritz!” I said.

“Ay, friend--dear friend!” he said, tender as a woman.

“Is the King alive?”

He took his handkerchief and wiped my lips, and bent and kissed me on
the forehead.

“Thanks to the most gallant gentleman that lives,” said he softly, “the
King is alive!”

The little farm-girl stood by us, weeping for fright and wide-eyed for
wonder; for she had seen me at Zenda; and was not I, pallid, dripping,
foul, and bloody as I was--yet was not I the King?

And when I heard that the King was alive, I strove to cry “Hurrah!” But
I could not speak, and I laid my head back in Fritz’s arms and closed
my eyes, and I groaned; and then, lest Fritz should do me wrong in his
thoughts, I opened my eyes and tried to say “Hurrah!” again. But I could
not. And being very tired, and now very cold, I huddled myself close up
to Fritz, to get the warmth of him, and shut my eyes again and went to
sleep.




CHAPTER 20

The Prisoner and the King


In order to a full understanding of what had occurred in the Castle of
Zenda, it is necessary to supplement my account of what I myself saw
and did on that night by relating briefly what I afterwards learnt
from Fritz and Madame de Mauban. The story told by the latter explained
clearly how it happened that the cry which I had arranged as a stratagem
and a sham had come, in dreadful reality, before its time, and had thus,
as it seemed at the moment, ruined our hopes, while in the end it
had favoured them. The unhappy woman, fired, I believe by a genuine
attachment to the Duke of Strelsau, no less than by the dazzling
prospects which a dominion over him opened before her eyes, had followed
him at his request from Paris to Ruritania. He was a man of strong
passions, but of stronger will, and his cool head ruled both. He was
content to take all and give nothing. When she arrived, she was not
long in finding that she had a rival in the Princess Flavia; rendered
desperate, she stood at nothing which might give, or keep for her, her
power over the duke. As I say, he took and gave not. Simultaneously,
Antoinette found herself entangled in his audacious schemes. Unwilling
to abandon him, bound to him by the chains of shame and hope, yet she
would not be a decoy, nor, at his bidding, lure me to death. Hence the
letters of warning she had written. Whether the lines she sent to Flavia
were inspired by good or bad feeling, by jealousy or by pity, I do not
know; but here also she served us well. When the duke went to Zenda, she
accompanied him; and here for the first time she learnt the full measure
of his cruelty, and was touched with compassion for the unfortunate
King. From this time she was with us; yet, from what she told me, I know
that she still (as women will) loved Michael, and trusted to gain
his life, if not his pardon, from the King, as the reward for her
assistance. His triumph she did not desire, for she loathed his crime,
and loathed yet more fiercely what would be the prize of it--his
marriage with his cousin, Princess Flavia.

At Zenda new forces came into play--the lust and daring of young Rupert.
He was caught by her beauty, perhaps; perhaps it was enough for him that
she belonged to another man, and that she hated him. For many days there
had been quarrels and ill will between him and the duke, and the scene
which I had witnessed in the duke’s room was but one of many. Rupert’s
proposals to me, of which she had, of course, been ignorant, in no
way surprised her when I related them; she had herself warned Michael
against Rupert, even when she was calling on me to deliver her from both
of them. On this night, then, Rupert had determined to have his will.
When she had gone to her room, he, having furnished himself with a key
to it, had made his entrance. Her cries had brought the duke, and there
in the dark room, while she screamed, the men had fought; and Rupert,
having wounded his master with a mortal blow, had, on the servants
rushing in, escaped through the window as I have described. The duke’s
blood, spurting out, had stained his opponent’s shirt; but Rupert, not
knowing that he had dealt Michael his death, was eager to finish the
encounter. How he meant to deal with the other three of the band, I know
not. I dare say he did not think, for the killing of Michael was not
premeditated. Antoinette, left alone with the duke, had tried to stanch
his wound, and thus was she busied till he died; and then, hearing
Rupert’s taunts, she had come forth to avenge him. Me she had not seen,
nor did she till I darted out of my ambush, and leapt after Rupert into
the moat.

The same moment found my friends on the scene. They had reached the
chateau in due time, and waited ready by the door. But Johann, swept
with the rest to the rescue of the duke, did not open it; nay, he took
a part against Rupert, putting himself forward more bravely than any
in his anxiety to avert suspicion; and he had received a wound, in the
embrasure of the window. Till nearly half-past two Sapt waited; then,
following my orders, he had sent Fritz to search the banks of the moat.
I was not there. Hastening back, Fritz told Sapt; and Sapt was for
following orders still, and riding at full speed back to Tarlenheim;
while Fritz would not hear of abandoning me, let me have ordered what I
would. On this they disputed some few minutes; then Sapt, persuaded by
Fritz, detached a party under Bernenstein to gallop back to Tarlenheim
and bring up the marshal, while the rest fell to on the great door
of the chateau. For several minutes it resisted them; then, just as
Antoinette de Mauban fired at Rupert of Hentzau on the bridge, they
broke in, eight of them in all: and the first door they came to was the
door of Michael’s room; and Michael lay dead across the threshold, with
a sword-thrust through his breast. Sapt cried out at his death, as I
had heard, and they rushed on the servants; but these, in fear, dropped
their weapons, and Antoinette flung herself weeping at Sapt’s feet. And
all she cried was that I had been at the end of the bridge and leapt
off. “What of the prisoner?” asked Sapt; but she shook her head. Then
Sapt and Fritz, with the gentlemen behind them, crossed the bridge,
slowly, warily, and without noise; and Fritz stumbled over the body of
De Gautet in the way of the door. They felt him and found him dead.

Then they consulted, listening eagerly for any sound from the cells
below; but there came none, and they were greatly afraid that the King’s
guards had killed him, and having pushed his body through the great
pipe, had escaped the same way themselves. Yet, because I had been seen
here, they had still some hope (thus indeed Fritz, in his friendship,
told me); and going back to Michael’s body, pushing aside Antoinette,
who prayed by it, they found a key to the door which I had locked, and
opened the door. The staircase was dark, and they would not use a torch
at first, lest they should be more exposed to fire. But soon Fritz
cried: “The door down there is open! See, there is light!” So they went
on boldly, and found none to oppose them. And when they came to the
outer room and saw the Belgian, Bersonin, lying dead, they thanked God,
Sapt saying: “Ay, he has been here.” Then rushing into the King’s cell,
they found Detchard lying dead across the dead physician, and the King
on his back with his chair by him. And Fritz cried: “He’s dead!” and
Sapt drove all out of the room except Fritz, and knelt down by the King;
and, having learnt more of wounds and the sign of death than I, he soon
knew that the King was not dead, nor, if properly attended, would die.
And they covered his face and carried him to Duke Michael’s room, and
laid him there; and Antoinette rose from praying by the body of the duke
and went to bathe the King’s head and dress his wounds, till a doctor
came. And Sapt, seeing I had been there, and having heard Antoinette’s
story, sent Fritz to search the moat and then the forest. He dared send
no one else. And Fritz found my horse, and feared the worst. Then, as I
have told, he found me, guided by the shout with which I had called on
Rupert to stop and face me. And I think a man has never been more glad
to find his own brother alive than was Fritz to come on me; so that, in
love and anxiety for me, he thought nothing of a thing so great as would
have been the death of Rupert Hentzau. Yet, had Fritz killed him, I
should have grudged it.

The enterprise of the King’s rescue being thus prosperously concluded,
it lay on Colonel Sapt to secure secrecy as to the King ever having
been in need of rescue. Antoinette de Mauban and Johann the keeper (who,
indeed, was too much hurt to be wagging his tongue just now) were sworn
to reveal nothing; and Fritz went forth to find--not the King, but the
unnamed friend of the King, who had lain in Zenda and flashed for
a moment before the dazed eyes of Duke Michael’s servants on the
drawbridge. The metamorphosis had happened; and the King, wounded almost
to death by the attacks of the gaolers who guarded his friend, had
at last overcome them, and rested now, wounded but alive, in Black
Michael’s own room in the Castle. There he had been carried, his face
covered with a cloak, from the cell; and thence orders issued, that if
his friend were found, he should be brought directly and privately to
the King, and that meanwhile messengers should ride at full speed to
Tarlenheim, to tell Marshall Strakencz to assure the princess of the
King’s safety and to come himself with all speed to greet the King.
The princess was enjoined to remain at Tarlenheim, and there await her
cousin’s coming or his further injunctions. Thus the King would come
to his own again, having wrought brave deeds, and escaped, almost by a
miracle, the treacherous assault of his unnatural brother.

This ingenious arrangement of my long-headed old friend prospered in
every way, save where it encountered a force that often defeats the most
cunning schemes. I mean nothing else than the pleasure of a woman. For,
let her cousin and sovereign send what command he chose (or Colonel
Sapt chose for him), and let Marshal Strakencz insist as he would, the
Princess Flavia was in no way minded to rest at Tarlenheim while her
lover lay wounded at Zenda; and when the Marshal, with a small suite,
rode forth from Tarlenheim on the way to Zenda, the princess’s carriage
followed immediately behind, and in this order they passed through the
town, where the report was already rife that the King, going the night
before to remonstrate with his brother, in all friendliness, for that
he held one of the King’s friends in confinement in the Castle, had been
most traitorously set upon; that there had been a desperate conflict;
that the duke was slain with several of his gentlemen; and that the
King, wounded as he was, had seized and held the Castle of Zenda. All of
which talk made, as may be supposed, a mighty excitement: and the wires
were set in motion, and the tidings came to Strelsau only just after
orders had been sent thither to parade the troops and overawe the
dissatisfied quarters of the town with a display of force.

Thus the Princess Flavia came to Zenda. And as she drove up the hill,
with the Marshal riding by the wheel and still imploring her to return
in obedience to the King’s orders, Fritz von Tarlenheim, with the
prisoner of Zenda, came to the edge of the forest. I had revived from
my swoon, and walked, resting on Fritz’s arm; and looking out from the
cover of the trees, I saw the princess. Suddenly understanding from a
glance at my companion’s face that we must not meet her, I sank on my
knees behind a clump of bushes. But there was one whom we had forgotten,
but who followed us, and was not disposed to let slip the chance of
earning a smile and maybe a crown or two; and, while we lay hidden,
the little farm-girl came by us and ran to the princess, curtseying and
crying:

“Madame, the King is here--in the bushes! May I guide you to him,
madame?”

“Nonsense, child!” said old Strakencz; “the King lies wounded in the
Castle.”

“Yes, sir, he’s wounded, I know; but he’s there--with Count Fritz--and
not at the Castle,” she persisted.

“Is he in two places, or are there two Kings?” asked Flavia, bewildered.
“And how should he be there?”

“He pursued a gentleman, madame, and they fought till Count Fritz came;
and the other gentleman took my father’s horse from me and rode away;
but the King is here with Count Fritz. Why, madame, is there another man
in Ruritania like the King?”

“No, my child,” said Flavia softly (I was told it afterwards), and she
smiled and gave the girl money. “I will go and see this gentleman,” and
she rose to alight from the carriage.

But at this moment Sapt came riding from the Castle, and, seeing the
princess, made the best of a bad job, and cried to her that the King was
well tended and in no danger.

“In the Castle?” she asked.

“Where else, madame?” said he, bowing.

“But this girl says he is yonder--with Count Fritz.”

Sapt turned his eyes on the child with an incredulous smile.

“Every fine gentleman is a King to such,” said he.

“Why, he’s as like the King as one pea to another, madame!” cried the
girl, a little shaken but still obstinate.

Sapt started round. The old Marshal’s face asked unspoken questions.
Flavia’s glance was no less eloquent. Suspicion spread quick.

“I’ll ride myself and see this man,” said Sapt hastily.

“Nay, I’ll come myself,” said the princess.

“Then come alone,” he whispered.

And she, obedient to the strange hinting in his face, prayed the Marshal
and the rest to wait; and she and Sapt came on foot towards where we
lay, Sapt waving to the farm-girl to keep at a distance. And when I saw
them coming, I sat in a sad heap on the ground, and buried my face in my
hands. I could not look at her. Fritz knelt by me, laying his hand on my
shoulder.

“Speak low, whatever you say,” I heard Sapt whisper as they came up; and
the next thing I heard was a low cry--half of joy, half of fear--from
the princess:

“It is he! Are you hurt?”

And she fell on the ground by me, and gently pulled my hands away; but I
kept my eyes to the ground.

“It is the King!” she said. “Pray, Colonel Sapt, tell me where lay the
wit of the joke you played on me?”

We answered none of us; we three were silent before her. Regardless of
them, she threw her arms round my neck and kissed me. Then Sapt spoke in
a low hoarse whisper:

“It is not the King. Don’t kiss him; he’s not the King.”

She drew back for a moment; then, with an arm still round my neck, she
asked, in superb indignation:

“Do I not know my love? Rudolf my love!”

“It is not the King,” said old Sapt again; and a sudden sob broke from
tender-hearted Fritz.

It was the sob that told her no comedy was afoot.

“He is the King!” she cried. “It is the King’s face--the King’s ring--my
ring! It is my love!”

“Your love, madame,” said old Sapt, “but not the King. The King is there
in the Castle. This gentleman--”

“Look at me, Rudolf! look at me!” she cried, taking my face between her
hands. “Why do you let them torment me? Tell me what it means!”

Then I spoke, gazing into her eyes.

“God forgive me, madame!” I said. “I am not the King!”

I felt her hands clutch my cheeks. She gazed at me as never man’s face
was scanned yet. And I, silent again, saw wonder born, and doubt grow,
and terror spring to life as she looked. And very gradually the grasp of
her hands slackened; she turned to Sapt, to Fritz, and back to me: then
suddenly she reeled forward and fell in my arms; and with a great cry of
pain I gathered her to me and kissed her lips. Sapt laid his hand on my
arm. I looked up in his face. And I laid her softly on the ground, and
stood up, looking on her, cursing heaven that young Rupert’s sword had
spared me for this sharper pang.




CHAPTER 21

If love were all!


It was night, and I was in the cell wherein the King had lain in the
Castle of Zenda. The great pipe that Rupert of Hentzau had nicknamed
“Jacob’s Ladder” was gone, and the lights in the room across the moat
twinkled in the darkness. All was still; the din and clash of strife
were gone. I had spent the day hidden in the forest, from the time when
Fritz had led me off, leaving Sapt with the princess. Under cover of
dusk, muffled up, I had been brought to the Castle and lodged where I
now lay. Though three men had died there--two of them by my hand--I was
not troubled by ghosts. I had thrown myself on a pallet by the window,
and was looking out on the black water; Johann, the keeper, still pale
from his wound, but not much hurt besides, had brought me supper. He
told me that the King was doing well, that he had seen the princess;
that she and he, Sapt and Fritz, had been long together. Marshal
Strakencz was gone to Strelsau; Black Michael lay in his coffin, and
Antoinette de Mauban watched by him; had I not heard, from the chapel,
priests singing mass for him?

Outside there were strange rumours afloat. Some said that the prisoner
of Zenda was dead; some, that he had vanished yet alive; some, that he
was a friend who had served the King well in some adventure in England;
others, that he had discovered the Duke’s plots, and had therefore been
kidnapped by him. One or two shrewd fellows shook their heads and said
only that they would say nothing, but they had suspicions that more was
to be known than was known, if Colonel Sapt would tell all he knew.

Thus Johann chattered till I sent him away and lay there alone,
thinking, not of the future, but--as a man is wont to do when stirring
things have happened to him--rehearsing the events of the past weeks,
and wondering how strangely they had fallen out. And above me, in the
stillness of the night, I heard the standards flapping against their
poles, for Black Michael’s banner hung there half-mast high, and above
it the royal flag of Ruritania, floating for one night more over my
head. Habit grows so quick, that only by an effort did I recollect that
it floated no longer for me.

Presently Fritz von Tarlenheim came into the room. I was standing then
by the window; the glass was opened, and I was idly fingering the cement
which clung to the masonry where “Jacob’s Ladder” had been. He told me
briefly that the King wanted me, and together we crossed the drawbridge
and entered the room that had been Black Michael’s.

The King was lying there in bed; our doctor from Tarlenheim was in
attendance on him, and whispered to me that my visit must be brief. The
King held out his hand and shook mine. Fritz and the doctor withdrew to
the window.

I took the King’s ring from my finger and placed it on his.

“I have tried not to dishonour it, sire,” said I.

“I can’t talk much to you,” he said, in a weak voice. “I have had a
great fight with Sapt and the Marshal--for we have told the Marshal
everything. I wanted to take you to Strelsau and keep you with me, and
tell everyone of what you had done; and you would have been my best and
nearest friend, Cousin Rudolf. But they tell me I must not, and that the
secret must be kept--if kept it can be.”

“They are right, sire. Let me go. My work here is done.”

“Yes, it is done, as no man but you could have done it. When they see me
again, I shall have my beard on; I shall--yes, faith, I shall be wasted
with sickness. They will not wonder that the King looks changed in face.
Cousin, I shall try to let them find him changed in nothing else. You
have shown me how to play the King.”

“Sire,” said I. “I can take no praise from you. It is by the narrowest
grace of God that I was not a worse traitor than your brother.”

He turned inquiring eyes on me; but a sick man shrinks from puzzles,
and he had no strength to question me. His glance fell on Flavia’s
ring, which I wore. I thought he would question me about it; but, after
fingering it idly, he let his head fall on his pillow.

“I don’t know when I shall see you again,” he said faintly, almost
listlessly.

“If I can ever serve you again, sire,” I answered.

His eyelids closed. Fritz came with the doctor. I kissed the King’s
hand, and let Fritz lead me away. I have never seen the King since.

Outside, Fritz turned, not to the right, back towards the drawbridge,
but to the left, and without speaking led me upstairs, through a
handsome corridor in the chateau.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

Looking away from me, Fritz answered:

“She has sent for you. When it is over, come back to the bridge. I’ll
wait for you there.”

“What does she want?” said I, breathing quickly.

He shook his head.

“Does she know everything?”

“Yes, everything.”

He opened a door, and gently pushing me in, closed it behind me. I found
myself in a drawing-room, small and richly furnished. At first I thought
that I was alone, for the light that came from a pair of shaded candles
on the mantelpiece was very dim. But presently I discerned a woman’s
figure standing by the window. I knew it was the princess, and I walked
up to her, fell on one knee, and carried the hand that hung by her
side to my lips. She neither moved nor spoke. I rose to my feet, and,
piercing the gloom with my eager eyes, saw her pale face and the gleam
of her hair, and before I knew, I spoke softly:

“Flavia!”

She trembled a little, and looked round. Then she darted to me, taking
hold of me.

“Don’t stand, don’t stand! No, you mustn’t! You’re hurt! Sit down--here,
here!”

She made me sit on a sofa, and put her hand on my forehead.

“How hot your head is,” she said, sinking on her knees by me. Then she
laid her head against me, and I heard her murmur: “My darling, how hot
your head is!”

Somehow love gives even to a dull man the knowledge of his lover’s
heart. I had come to humble myself and pray pardon for my presumption;
but what I said now was:

“I love you with all my heart and soul!”

For what troubled and shamed her? Not her love for me, but the fear that
I had counterfeited the lover as I had acted the King, and taken her
kisses with a smothered smile.

“With all my life and heart,” said I, as she clung to me. “Always, from
the first moment I saw you in the Cathedral! There has been but one
woman in the world to me--and there will be no other. But God forgive me
the wrong I’ve done you!”

“They made you do it!” she said quickly; and she added, raising her head
and looking in my eyes: “It might have made no difference if I’d known
it. It was always you, never the King!”

“I meant to tell you,” said I. “I was going to on the night of the
ball in Strelsau, when Sapt interrupted me. After that, I couldn’t--I
couldn’t risk losing you before--before--I must! My darling, for you I
nearly left the King to die!”

“I know, I know! What are we to do now, Rudolf?”

I put my arm round her and held her up while I said:

“I am going away tonight.”

“Ah, no, no!” she cried. “Not tonight!”

“I must go tonight, before more people have seen me. And how would you
have me stay, sweetheart, except--?”

“If I could come with you!” she whispered very low.

“My God!” said I roughly, “don’t talk about that!” and I thrust her a
little back from me.

“Why not? I love you. You are as good a gentleman as the King!”

Then I was false to all that I should have held by. For I caught her in
my arms and prayed her, in words that I will not write, to come with me,
daring all Ruritania to take her from me. And for a while she listened,
with wondering, dazzled eyes. But as her eyes looked on me, I grew
ashamed, and my voice died away in broken murmurs and stammerings, and
at last I was silent.

She drew herself away from me and stood against the wall, while I sat
on the edge of the sofa, trembling in every limb, knowing what I had
done--loathing it, obstinate not to undo it. So we rested a long time.

“I am mad!” I said sullenly.

“I love your madness, dear,” she answered.

Her face was away from me, but I caught the sparkle of a tear on her
cheek. I clutched the sofa with my hand and held myself there.

“Is love the only thing?” she asked, in low, sweet tones that seemed
to bring a calm even to my wrung heart. “If love were the only thing, I
would follow you--in rags, if need be--to the world’s end; for you hold
my heart in the hollow of your hand! But is love the only thing?”

I made no answer. It gives me shame now to think that I would not help
her.

She came near me and laid her hand on my shoulder. I put my hand up and
held hers.

“I know people write and talk as if it were. Perhaps, for some, Fate
lets it be. Ah, if I were one of them! But if love had been the only
thing, you would have let the King die in his cell.”

I kissed her hand.

“Honour binds a woman too, Rudolf. My honour lies in being true to my
country and my House. I don’t know why God has let me love you; but I
know that I must stay.”

Still I said nothing; and she, pausing a while, then went on:

“Your ring will always be on my finger, your heart in my heart, the
touch of your lips on mine. But you must go and I must stay. Perhaps I
must do what it kills me to think of doing.”

I knew what she meant, and a shiver ran through me. But I could not
utterly fail her. I rose and took her hand.

“Do what you will, or what you must,” I said. “I think God shows His
purposes to such as you. My part is lighter; for your ring shall be on
my finger and your heart in mine, and no touch save of your lips will
ever be on mine. So, may God comfort you, my darling!”

There struck on our ears the sound of singing. The priests in the chapel
were singing masses for the souls of those who lay dead. They seemed to
chant a requiem over our buried joy, to pray forgiveness for our love
that would not die. The soft, sweet, pitiful music rose and fell as we
stood opposite one another, her hands in mine.

“My queen and my beauty!” said I.

“My lover and true knight!” she said. “Perhaps we shall never see one
another again. Kiss me, my dear, and go!”

I kissed her as she bade me; but at the last she clung to me, whispering
nothing but my name, and that over and over again--and again--and again;
and then I left her.

Rapidly I walked down to the bridge. Sapt and Fritz were waiting for me.
Under their directions I changed my dress, and muffling my face, as I
had done more than once before, I mounted with them at the door of the
Castle, and we three rode through the night and on to the breaking day,
and found ourselves at a little roadside station just over the border
of Ruritania. The train was not quite due, and I walked with them in a
meadow by a little brook while we waited for it. They promised to
send me all news; they overwhelmed me with kindness--even old Sapt was
touched to gentleness, while Fritz was half unmanned. I listened in a
kind of dream to all they said. “Rudolf! Rudolf! Rudolf!” still rang in
my ears--a burden of sorrow and of love. At last they saw that I could
not heed them, and we walked up and down in silence, till Fritz touched
me on the arm, and I saw, a mile or more away, the blue smoke of the
train. Then I held out a hand to each of them.

“We are all but half-men this morning,” said I, smiling. “But we have
been men, eh, Sapt and Fritz, old friends? We have run a good course
between us.”

“We have defeated traitors and set the King firm on his throne,” said
Sapt.

Then Fritz von Tarlenheim suddenly, before I could discern his purpose
or stay him, uncovered his head and bent as he used to do, and kissed my
hand; and as I snatched it away, he said, trying to laugh:

“Heaven doesn’t always make the right men kings!”

Old Sapt twisted his mouth as he wrung my hand.

“The devil has his share in most things,” said he.

The people at the station looked curiously at the tall man with the
muffled face, but we took no notice of their glances. I stood with my
two friends and waited till the train came up to us. Then we shook hands
again, saying nothing; and both this time--and, indeed, from old Sapt
it seemed strange--bared their heads, and so stood still till the train
bore me away from their sight. So that it was thought some great man
travelled privately for his pleasure from the little station that
morning; whereas, in truth it was only I, Rudolf Rassendyll, an English
gentleman, a cadet of a good house, but a man of no wealth nor position,
nor of much rank. They would have been disappointed to know that. Yet
had they known all they would have looked more curiously still. For, be
I what I might now, I had been for three months a King, which, if not
a thing to be proud of, is at least an experience to have undergone.
Doubtless I should have thought more of it, had there not echoed through
the air, from the towers of Zenda that we were leaving far away, into
my ears and into my heart the cry of a woman’s love--“Rudolf! Rudolf!
Rudolf!”

Hark! I hear it now!




CHAPTER 22

Present, Past--and Future?


The details of my return home can have but little interest. I went
straight to the Tyrol and spent a quiet fortnight--mostly on my back,
for a severe chill developed itself; and I was also the victim of a
nervous reaction, which made me weak as a baby. As soon as I had reached
my quarters, I sent an apparently careless postcard to my brother,
announcing my good health and prospective return. That would serve to
satisfy the inquiries as to my whereabouts, which were probably still
vexing the Prefect of the Police of Strelsau. I let my moustache and
imperial grow again; and as hair comes quickly on my face, they were
respectable, though not luxuriant, by the time that I landed myself in
Paris and called on my friend George Featherly. My interview with
him was chiefly remarkable for the number of unwilling but necessary
falsehoods that I told; and I rallied him unmercifully when he told me
that he had made up his mind that I had gone in the track of Madame de
Mauban to Strelsau. The lady, it appeared, was back in Paris, but was
living in great seclusion--a fact for which gossip found no difficulty
in accounting. Did not all the world know of the treachery and death
of Duke Michael? Nevertheless, George bade Bertram Bertrand be of good
cheer, “for,” said he flippantly, “a live poet is better than a dead
duke.” Then he turned on me and asked:

“What have you been doing to your moustache?”

“To tell the truth,” I answered, assuming a sly air, “a man now and then
has reasons for wishing to alter his appearance. But it’s coming on very
well again.”

“What? Then I wasn’t so far out! If not the fair Antoinette, there was a
charmer?”

“There is always a charmer,” said I, sententiously.

But George would not be satisfied till he had wormed out of me (he
took much pride in his ingenuity) an absolutely imaginary love-affair,
attended with the proper _soupçon_ of scandal, which had kept me all this
time in the peaceful regions of the Tyrol. In return for this
narrative, George regaled me with a great deal of what he called “inside
information” (known only to diplomatists), as to the true course of
events in Ruritania, the plots and counterplots. In his opinion, he told
me, with a significant nod, there was more to be said for Black Michael
than the public supposed; and he hinted at a well-founded suspicion that
the mysterious prisoner of Zenda, concerning whom a good many paragraphs
had appeared, was not a man at all, but (here I had much ado not to
smile) a woman disguised as a man; and that strife between the King and
his brother for this imaginary lady’s favour was at the bottom of their
quarrel.

“Perhaps it was Madame de Mauban herself,” I suggested.

“No!” said George decisively, “Antoinette de Mauban was jealous of her,
and betrayed the duke to the King for that reason. And, to confirm what
I say, it’s well known that the Princess Flavia is now extremely cold to
the King, after having been most affectionate.”

At this point I changed the subject, and escaped from George’s
“inspired” delusions. But if diplomatists never know anything more than
they had succeeded in finding out in this instance, they appear to me to
be somewhat expensive luxuries.

While in Paris I wrote to Antoinette, though I did not venture to call
upon her. I received in return a very affecting letter, in which she
assured me that the King’s generosity and kindness, no less than her
regard for me, bound her conscience to absolute secrecy. She expressed
the intention of settling in the country, and withdrawing herself
entirely from society. Whether she carried out her designs, I have never
heard; but as I have not met her, or heard news of her up to this time,
it is probable that she did. There is no doubt that she was deeply
attached to the Duke of Strelsau; and her conduct at the time of his
death proved that no knowledge of the man’s real character was enough to
root her regard for him out of her heart.

I had one more battle left to fight--a battle that would, I knew, be
severe, and was bound to end in my complete defeat. Was I not back
from the Tyrol, without having made any study of its inhabitants,
institutions, scenery, fauna, flora, or other features? Had I not simply
wasted my time in my usual frivolous, good-for-nothing way? That was the
aspect of the matter which, I was obliged to admit, would present itself
to my sister-in-law; and against a verdict based on such evidence, I had
really no defence to offer. It may be supposed, then, that I presented
myself in Park Lane in a shamefaced, sheepish fashion. On the whole, my
reception was not so alarming as I had feared. It turned out that I
had done, not what Rose wished, but--the next best thing--what she
prophesied. She had declared that I should make no notes, record no
observations, gather no materials. My brother, on the other hand,
had been weak enough to maintain that a serious resolve had at length
animated me.

When I returned empty-handed, Rose was so occupied in triumphing over
Burlesdon that she let me down quite easily, devoting the greater
part of her reproaches to my failure to advertise my friends of my
whereabouts.

“We’ve wasted a lot of time trying to find you,” she said.

“I know you have,” said I. “Half our ambassadors have led weary lives
on my account. George Featherly told me so. But why should you have been
anxious? I can take care of myself.”

“Oh, it wasn’t that,” she cried scornfully, “but I wanted to tell you
about Sir Jacob Borrodaile. You know, he’s got an Embassy--at least,
he will have in a month--and he wrote to say he hoped you would go with
him.”

“Where’s he going to?”

“He’s going to succeed Lord Topham at Strelsau,” said she. “You couldn’t
have a nicer place, short of Paris.”

“Strelsau! H’m!” said I, glancing at my brother.

“Oh, _that_ doesn’t matter!” exclaimed Rose impatiently. “Now, you will
go, won’t you?”

“I don’t know that I care about it!”

“Oh, you’re too exasperating!”

“And I don’t think I can go to Strelsau. My dear Rose, would it
be--suitable?”

“Oh, nobody remembers that horrid old story now.”

Upon this, I took out of my pocket a portrait of the King of Ruritania.
It had been taken a month or two before he ascended the throne. She
could not miss my point when I said, putting it into her hands:

“In case you’ve not seen, or not noticed, a picture of Rudolf V, there
he is. Don’t you think they might recall the story, if I appeared at the
Court of Ruritania?”

My sister-in-law looked at the portrait, and then at me.

“Good gracious!” she said, and flung the photograph down on the table.

“What do you say, Bob?” I asked.

Burlesdon got up, went to a corner of the room, and searched in a heap
of newspapers. Presently he came back with a copy of the Illustrated
London News. Opening the paper, he displayed a double-page engraving of
the Coronation of Rudolf V at Strelsau. The photograph and the picture
he laid side by side. I sat at the table fronting them; and, as I
looked, I grew absorbed. My eye travelled from my own portrait to Sapt,
to Strakencz, to the rich robes of the Cardinal, to Black Michael’s
face, to the stately figure of the princess by his side. Long I looked
and eagerly. I was roused by my brother’s hand on my shoulder. He was
gazing down at me with a puzzled expression.

“It’s a remarkable likeness, you see,” said I. “I really think I had
better not go to Ruritania.”

Rose, though half convinced, would not abandon her position.

“It’s just an excuse,” she said pettishly. “You don’t want to do
anything. Why, you might become an ambassador!”

“I don’t think I want to be an ambassador,” said I.

“It’s more than you ever will be,” she retorted.

That is very likely true, but it is not more than I have been.

The idea of being an ambassador could scarcely dazzle me. I had been a
king!

So pretty Rose left us in dudgeon; and Burlesdon, lighting a cigarette,
looked at me still with that curious gaze.

“That picture in the paper--” he said.

“Well, what of it? It shows that the King of Ruritania and your humble
servant are as like as two peas.”

My brother shook his head.

“I suppose so,” he said. “But I should know you from the man in the
photograph.”

“And not from the picture in the paper?”

“I should know the photograph from the picture: the picture’s very like
the photograph, but--”

“Well?”

“It’s more like you!” said my brother.

My brother is a good man and true--so that, for all that he is a married
man and mighty fond of his wife, he should know any secret of mine. But
this secret was not mine, and I could not tell it to him.

“I don’t think it’s so much like me as the photograph,” said I boldly.
“But, anyhow, Bob, I won’t go to Strelsau.”

“No, don’t go to Strelsau, Rudolf,” said he.

And whether he suspects anything, or has a glimmer of the truth, I do
not know. If he has, he keeps it to himself, and he and I never refer to
it. And we let Sir Jacob Borrodaile find another attaché.

Since all these events whose history I have set down happened I have
lived a very quiet life at a small house which I have taken in the
country. The ordinary ambitions and aims of men in my position seem to
me dull and unattractive. I have little fancy for the whirl of society,
and none for the jostle of politics. Lady Burlesdon utterly despairs of
me; my neighbours think me an indolent, dreamy, unsociable fellow. Yet
I am a young man; and sometimes I have a fancy--the superstitious would
call it a presentiment--that my part in life is not yet altogether
played; that, somehow and some day, I shall mix again in great affairs,
I shall again spin policies in a busy brain, match my wits against my
enemies’, brace my muscles to fight a good fight and strike stout blows.
Such is the tissue of my thoughts as, with gun or rod in hand, I wander
through the woods or by the side of the stream. Whether the fancy will
be fulfilled, I cannot tell--still less whether the scene that, led by
memory, I lay for my new exploits will be the true one--for I love to
see myself once again in the crowded streets of Strelsau, or beneath the
frowning keep of the Castle of Zenda.

Thus led, my broodings leave the future, and turn back on the past.
Shapes rise before me in long array--the wild first revel with the King,
the rush with my brave tea-table, the night in the moat, the pursuit in
the forest: my friends and my foes, the people who learnt to love and
honour me, the desperate men who tried to kill me. And, from amidst
these last, comes one who alone of all of them yet moves on earth,
though where I know not, yet plans (as I do not doubt) wickedness, yet
turns women’s hearts to softness and men’s to fear and hate. Where is
young Rupert of Hentzau--the boy who came so nigh to beating me? When
his name comes into my head, I feel my hand grip and the blood move
quicker through my veins: and the hint of Fate--the presentiment--seems
to grow stronger and more definite, and to whisper insistently in my ear
that I have yet a hand to play with young Rupert; therefore I exercise
myself in arms, and seek to put off the day when the vigour of youth
must leave me.

One break comes every year in my quiet life. Then I go to Dresden, and
there I am met by my dear friend and companion, Fritz von Tarlenheim.
Last time, his pretty wife Helga came, and a lusty crowing baby with
her. And for a week Fritz and I are together, and I hear all of what
falls out in Strelsau; and in the evenings, as we walk and smoke
together, we talk of Sapt, and of the King, and often of young Rupert;
and, as the hours grow small, at last we speak of Flavia. For every year
Fritz carries with him to Dresden a little box; in it lies a red rose,
and round the stalk of the rose is a slip of paper with the words
written: “Rudolf--Flavia--always.” And the like I send back by him. That
message, and the wearing of the rings, are all that now bind me and the
Queen of Ruritania. For--nobler, as I hold her, for the act--she has
followed where her duty to her country and her House led her, and is the
wife of the King, uniting his subjects to him by the love they bear to
her, giving peace and quiet days to thousands by her self-sacrifice.
There are moments when I dare not think of it, but there are others when
I rise in spirit to where she ever dwells; then I can thank God that I
love the noblest lady in the world, the most gracious and beautiful, and
that there was nothing in my love that made her fall short in her high
duty.

Shall I see her face again--the pale face and the glorious hair? Of that
I know nothing; Fate has no hint, my heart no presentiment. I do not
know. In this world, perhaps--nay, it is likely--never. And can it
be that somewhere, in a manner whereof our flesh-bound minds have no
apprehension, she and I will be together again, with nothing to come
between us, nothing to forbid our love? That I know not, nor wiser heads
than mine. But if it be never--if I can never hold sweet converse again
with her, or look upon her face, or know from her her love; why, then,
this side the grave, I will live as becomes the man whom she loves; and,
for the other side, I must pray a dreamless sleep.




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