Thus she ended, seeming, poor lady, half frantic with the visions that her own troubled brain and desolate heart had conjured up to torment her. I did not know that she had before told Mr. Ra.s.sendyll himself of this strange dream; though I lay small store by such matters, believing that we ourselves make our dreams, fashioning out of the fears and hopes of to-day what seems to come by night in the guise of a mysterious revelation. Yet there are some things that a man cannot understand, and I do not profess to measure with my mind the ways of G.o.d.
However, not why the queen went, but that she had gone, concerned us. We had returned to the house now, and James, remembering that men must eat though kings die, was getting us some breakfast. In fact, I had great need of food, being utterly worn out; and they, after their labors, were hardly less weary. As we ate, we talked; and it was plain to us that I also must go to Strelsau. There, in the city, the drama must be played out. There was Rudolf, there Rischenheim, there in all likelihood Rupert of Hentzau, there now the queen. And of these Rupert alone, or perhaps Rischenheim also, knew that the king was dead, and how the issue of last night had shaped itself under the compelling hand of wayward fortune.
The king lay in peace on his bed, his grave was dug; Sapt and James held the secret with solemn faith and ready lives. To Strelsau I must go to tell the queen that she was widowed, and to aim the stroke at young Rupert"s heart.
At nine in the morning I started from the lodge. I was bound to ride to Hofbau and there wait for a train which would carry me to the capital.
From Hofbau I could send a message, but the message must announce only my own coming, not the news I carried. To Sapt, thanks to the cipher, I could send word at any time, and he bade me ask Mr. Ra.s.sendyll whether he should come to our aid, or stay where he was.
"A day must decide the whole thing," he said. "We can"t conceal the king"s death long. For G.o.d"s sake, Fritz, make an end of that young villain, and get the letter."
So, wasting no time in farewells, I set out. By ten o"clock I was at Hofbau, for I rode furiously. From there I sent to Bernenstein at the palace word of my coming. But there I was delayed. There was no train for an hour.
"I"ll ride," I cried to myself, only to remember the next moment that, if I rode, I should come to my journey"s end much later. There was nothing for it but to wait, and it may be imagined in what mood I waited. Every minute seemed an hour, and I know not to this day how the hour wore itself away. I ate, I drank, I smoked, I walked, sat, and stood. The stationmaster knew me, and thought I had gone mad, till I told him that I carried most important despatches from the king, and that the delay imperiled great interests. Then he became sympathetic; but what could he do? No special train was to be had at a roadside station: I must wait; and wait, somehow, and without blowing my brains out, I did.
At last I was in the train; now indeed we moved, and I came nearer.
An hour"s run brought me in sight of the city. Then, to my unutterable wrath, we were stopped, and waited motionless twenty minutes or half an hour. At last we started again; had we not, I should have jumped out and run, for to sit longer would have driven me mad. Now we entered the station. With a great effort I calmed myself. I lolled back in my seat; when we stopped I sat there till a porter opened the door. In lazy leisureliness I bade him get me a cab, and followed him across the station. He held the door for me, and, giving him his douceur, I set my foot on the step.
"Tell him to drive to the palace," said I, "and be quick. I"m late already, thanks to this cursed train."
"The old mare"ll soon take you there, sir," said the driver. I jumped in. But at this moment I saw a man on the platform beckoning with his hand and hastening towards me. The cabman also saw him and waited. I dared not tell him to drive on, for I feared to betray any undue haste, and it would have looked strange not to spare a moment to my wife"s cousin, Anton von Strofzin. He came up, holding out his hand delicately gloved in pearl-gray kid, for young Anton was a leader of the Strelsau dandies.
"Ah, my dear Fritz!" said he. "I am glad I hold no appointment at court.
How dreadfully active you all are! I thought you were settled at Zenda for a month?"
"The queen changed her mind suddenly," said I, smiling. "Ladies do, as you know well, you who know all about them."
My compliment, or insinuation, produced a pleased smile and a gallant twirling of his moustache.
"Well, I thought you"d be here soon," he said, "but I didn"t know that the queen had come."
"You didn"t? Then why did you look for me?"
He opened his eyes a little in languid, elegant surprise. "Oh, I supposed you"d be on duty, or something, and have to come. Aren"t you in attendance?"
"On the queen? No, not just now."
"But on the king?"
"Why, yes," said I, and I leaned forward. "At least I"m engaged now on the king"s business."
"Precisely," said he. "So I thought you"d come, as soon as I heard that the king was here."
It may be that I ought to have preserved my composure. But I am not Sapt nor Rudolf Ra.s.sendyll.
"The king here?" I gasped, clutching him by the arm.
"Of course. You didn"t know? Yes, he"s in town."
But I heeded him no more. For a moment I could not speak, then I cried to the cabman:
"To the palace. And drive like the devil!"
We shot away, leaving Anton open-mouthed in wonder. For me, I sank back on the cushions, fairly aghast. The king lay dead in the hunting-lodge, but the king was in his capital!
Of course, the truth soon flashed through my mind, but it brought no comfort. Rudolf Ra.s.sendyll was in Strelsau. He had been seen by somebody and taken for the king. But comfort? What comfort was there, now that the king was dead and could never come to the rescue of his counterfeit?
In fact, the truth was worse than I conceived. Had I known it all, I might well have yielded to despair. For not by the chance, uncertain sight of a pa.s.ser-by, not by mere rumor which might have been st.u.r.dily denied, not by the evidence of one only or of two, was the king"s presence in the city known. That day, by the witness of a crowd of people, by his own claim and his own voice, ay, and by the a.s.sent of the queen herself, Mr. Ra.s.sendyll was taken to be the king in Strelsau, while neither he nor Queen Flavia knew that the king was dead. I must now relate the strange and perverse succession of events which forced them to employ a resource so dangerous and face a peril so immense. Yet, great and perilous as they knew the risk to be even when they dared it, in the light of what they did not know it was more fearful and more fatal still.
CHAPTER X. THE KING IN STRELSAU
MR. Ra.s.sENDYLL reached Strelsau from Zenda without accident about nine o"clock in the evening of the same day as that which witnessed the tragedy of the hunting-lodge. He could have arrived sooner, but prudence did not allow him to enter the populous suburbs of the town till the darkness guarded him from notice. The gates of the city were no longer shut at sunset, as they had used to be in the days when Duke Michael was governor, and Rudolf pa.s.sed them without difficulty. Fortunately the night, fine where we were, was wet and stormy at Strelsau; thus there were few people in the streets, and he was able to gain the door of my house still unremarked. Here, of course, a danger presented itself.
None of my servants were in the secret; only my wife, in whom the queen herself had confided, knew Rudolf, and she did not expect to see him, since she was ignorant of the recent course of events. Rudolf was quite alive to the peril, and regretted the absence of his faithful attendant, who could have cleared the way for him. The pouring rain gave him an excuse for twisting a scarf about his face and pulling his coat-collar up to his ears, while the gusts of wind made the cramming of his hat low down over his eyes no more than a natural precaution against its loss.
Thus masked from curious eyes, he drew rein before my door, and, having dismounted, rang the bell. When the butler came a strange hoa.r.s.e voice, half-stifled by folds of scarf, asked for the countess, alleging for pretext a message from myself. The man hesitated, as well he might, to leave the stranger alone with the door open and the contents of the hall at his mercy. Murmuring an apology in case his visitor should prove to be a gentleman, he shut the door and went in search of his mistress. His description of the untimely caller at once roused my wife"s quick wit; she had heard from me how Rudolf had ridden once from Strelsau to the hunting-lodge with m.u.f.fled face; a very tall man with his face wrapped in a scarf and his hat over his eyes, who came with a private message, suggested to her at least a possibility of Mr. Ra.s.sendyll"s arrival.
Helga will never admit that she is clever, yet I find she discovers from me what she wants to know, and I suspect hides successfully the small matters of which she in her wifely discretion deems I had best remain ignorant. Being able thus to manage me, she was equal to coping with the butler. She laid aside her embroidery most composedly.
"Ah, yes," she said, "I know the gentleman. Surely you haven"t left him out in the rain?" She was anxious lest Rudolf"s features should have been exposed too long to the light of the hall-lamps.
The butler stammered an apology, explaining his fears for our goods and the impossibility of distinguishing social rank on a dark night. Helga cut him short with an impatient gesture, crying, "How stupid of you!"
and herself ran quickly down and opened the door--a little way only, though. The first sight of Mr. Ra.s.sendyll confirmed her suspicions; in a moment, she said, she knew his eyes.
"It is you, then?" she cried. "And my foolish servant has left you in the rain! Pray come in. Oh, but your horse!" She turned to the penitent butler, who had followed her downstairs. "Take the baron"s horse round to the stables," she said.
"I will send some one at once, my lady."
"No, no, take it yourself--take it at once. I"ll look after the baron."
Reluctantly and ruefully the fat fellow stepped out into the storm.
Rudolf drew back and let him pa.s.s, then he entered quickly, to find himself alone with Helga in the hall. With a finger on her lips, she led him swiftly into a small sitting-room on the ground floor, which I used as a sort of office or place of business. It looked out on the street, and the rain could be heard driving against the broad panes of the window. Rudolf turned to her with a smile, and, bowing, kissed her hand.
"The baron what, my dear countess?" he inquired.
"He won"t ask," said she with a shrug. "Do tell me what brings you here, and what has happened."
He told her very briefly all he knew. She hid bravely her alarm at hearing that I might perhaps meet Rupert at the lodge, and at once listened to what Rudolf wanted of her.
"Can I get out of the house, and, if need be, back again unnoticed?" he asked.
"The door is locked at night, and only Fritz and the butler have keys."
Mr. Ra.s.sendyll"s eye traveled to the window of the room.
"I haven"t grown so fat that I can"t get through there," said he. "So we"d better not trouble the butler. He"d talk, you know."
"I will sit here all night and keep everybody from the room."
"I may come back pursued if I bungle my work and an alarm is raised."
"Your work?" she asked, shrinking back a little.