"I see it is."
"Yes. The boar-hound tried to bite me, cousin. And the forester would have stabbed me. And--well, the king wanted to shoot me."
"Yes, yes! For G.o.d"s sake, what happened?"
"Well, they none of them did what they wanted. That"s what happened, dear cousin."
Rischenheim was staring at him now with wide-opened eyes. Rupert smiled down on him composedly.
"Because, you see," he added, "Heaven helped me. So that, my dear cousin, the dog will bite no more, and the forester will stab no more.
Surely the country is well rid of them?"
A silence followed. Then Rischenheim, leaning forward, said in a low whisper, as though afraid to hear his own question:
"And the king?"
"The king? Well, the king will shoot no more."
For a moment Rischenheim, still leaning forward, gazed at his cousin.
Then he sank slowly back into his chair.
"My G.o.d!" he murmured: "my G.o.d!"
"The king was a fool," said Rupert. "Come, I"ll tell you a little more about it." He drew a chair up and seated himself in it.
While he talked Rischenheim seemed hardly to listen. The story gained in effect from the contrast of Rupert"s airy telling; his companion"s pale face and twitching hands tickled his fancy to more shameless jesting.
But when he had finished, he gave a pull to his small smartly-curled moustache and said with a sudden gravity:
"After all, though, it"s a serious matter."
Rischenheim was appalled at the issue. His cousin"s influence had been strong enough to lead him into the affair of the letter; he was aghast to think how Rupert"s reckless dare-deviltry had led on from stage to stage till the death of a king seemed but an incident in his schemes. He sprang suddenly to his feet, crying:
"But we must fly--we must fly!"
"No, we needn"t fly. Perhaps we"d better go, but we needn"t fly."
"But when it becomes known?" He broke off and then cried:
"Why did you tell me? Why did you come back here?"
"Well, I told you because it was interesting, and I came back here because I had no money to go elsewhere."
"I would have sent money."
"I find that I get more when I ask in person. Besides, is everything finished?"
"I"ll have no more to do with it."
"Ah, my dear cousin, you despond too soon. The good king has unhappily gone from us, but we still have our dear queen. We have also, by the kindness of Heaven, our dear queen"s letter."
"I"ll have no more to do with it."
"Your neck feeling--?" Rupert delicately imitated the putting of a noose about a man"s throat.
Rischenheim rose suddenly and flung the window open wide.
"I"m suffocated," he muttered with a sullen frown, avoiding Rupert"s eyes.
"Where"s Rudolf Ra.s.sendyll?" asked Rupert. "Have you heard of him?"
"No, I don"t know where he is."
"We must find that out, I think."
Rischenheim turned abruptly on him.
"I had no hand in this thing," he said, "and I"ll have no more to do with it. I was not there. What did I know of the king being there? I"m not guilty of it: on my soul, I know nothing of it."
"That"s all very true," nodded Rupert.
"Rupert," cried he, "let me go, let me alone. If you want money, I"ll give it to you. For G.o.d"s sake take it, and get out of Strelsau!"
"I"m ashamed to beg, my dear cousin, but in fact I want a little money until I can contrive to realize my valuable property. Is it safe, I wonder? Ah, yes, here it is."
He drew from his inner pocket the queen"s letter. "Now if the king hadn"t been a fool!" he murmured regretfully, as he regarded it.
Then he walked across to the window and looked out; he could not himself be seen from the street, and n.o.body was visible at the windows opposite.
Men and women pa.s.sed to and fro on their daily labors or pleasures; there was no unusual stir in the city. Looking over the roofs, Rupert could see the royal standard floating in the wind over the palace and the barracks. He took out his watch; Rischenheim imitated his action; it was ten minutes to ten.
"Rischenheim," he called, "come here a moment. Here--look out."
Rischenheim obeyed, and Rupert let him look for a minute or two before speaking again.
"Do you see anything remarkable?" he asked then.
"No, nothing," answered Rischenheim, still curt and sullen in his fright.
"Well, no more do I. And that"s very odd. For don"t you think that Sapt or some other of her Majesty"s friends must have gone to the lodge last night?"
"They meant to, I swear," said Rischenheim with sudden attention.
"Then they would have found the king. There"s a telegraph wire at Hofbau, only a few miles away. And it"s ten o"clock. My cousin, why isn"t Strelsau mourning for our lamented king? Why aren"t the flags at half-mast? I don"t understand it."
"No," murmured Rischenheim, his eyes now fixed on his cousin"s face.
Rupert broke into a smile and tapped his teeth with his fingers.
"I wonder," said he meditatively, "if that old player Sapt has got a king up his sleeve again! If that were so--" He stopped and seemed to fall into deep thought. Rischenheim did not interrupt him, but stood looking now at him, now out of the window. Still there was no stir in the streets, and still the standards floated at the summit of the flag staffs. The king"s death was not yet known in Strelsau.