The Prisoner of Zenda (16 page)

“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 a propos
!”

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.

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: