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

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,”