The Prisoner of Zenda (13 page)

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 a 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 o
ur 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.

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 know-ledge 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: