The Prisoner of Zenda, Anthony Hope [best inspirational books txt] 📗

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?”

“Aye, 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.

XI 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 summerhouse; it was Antoinette de Mauban’s.

“I have no cause