"Why, then, by to-morrow at midday the news flashes through Ruritania--yes, and through Europe--that the king, miraculously preserved to-day--"
"Praise be to G.o.d!" interjected Colonel Sapt; and young Bernenstein laughed.
"Has met a tragic end."
"It will occasion great grief," said Sapt.
"Meanwhile, I am safe over the frontier."
"Oh, you are quite safe?"
"Absolutely. And in the afternoon of to-morrow, you and Bernenstein will set out for Strelsau, bringing with you the body of the king." And Rudolf, after a pause, whispered, "You must shave his face. And if the doctors want to talk about how long he"s been dead, why, they have, as I say, palms."
Sapt sat silent for a while, apparently considering the scheme. It was risky enough in all conscience, but success had made Rudolf bold, and he had learnt how slow suspicion is if a deception be bold enough. It is only likely frauds that are detected.
"Well, what do you say?" asked Mr. Ra.s.sendyll. I observed that he said nothing to Sapt of what the queen and he had determined to do afterwards.
Sapt wrinkled his forehead. I saw him glance at James, and the slightest, briefest smile showed on James"s face.
"It"s dangerous, of course," pursued Rudolf. "But I believe that when they see the king"s body--"
"That"s the point," interrupted Sapt. "They can"t see the king"s body."
Rudolf looked at him with some surprise. Then speaking in a low voice, lest the queen should hear and be distressed, he went on: "You must prepare it, you know. Bring it here in a sh.e.l.l; only a few officials need see the face."
Sapt rose to his feet and stood facing Mr. Ra.s.sendyll.
"The plan"s a pretty one, but it breaks down at one point," said he in a strange voice, even harsher than his was wont to be. I was on fire with excitement, for I would have staked my life now that he had some strange tidings for us. "There is no body," said he.
Even Mr. Ra.s.sendyll"s composure gave way. He sprang forward, catching Sapt by the arm.
"No body? What do you mean?" he exclaimed.
Sapt cast another glance at James, and then began in an even, mechanical voice, as though he were reading a lesson he had learnt, or playing a part that habit made familiar:
"That poor fellow Herbert carelessly left a candle burning where the oil and the wood were kept," he said. "This afternoon, about six, James and I lay down for a nap after our meal. At about seven James came to my side and roused me. My room was full of smoke. The lodge was ablaze. I darted out of bed: the fire had made too much headway; we could not hope to quench it; we had but one thought!" He suddenly paused, and looked at James.
"But one thought, to save our companion," said James gravely.
"But one thought, to save our companion. We rushed to the door of the room where he was. I opened the door and tried to enter. It was certain death. James tried, but fell back. Again I rushed in. James pulled me back: it was but another death. We had to save ourselves. We gained the open air. The lodge was a sheet of flame. We could do nothing but stand watching, till the swiftly burning wood blackened to ashes and the flames died down. As we watched we knew that all in the cottage must be dead. What could we do? At last James started off in the hope of getting help. He found a party of charcoal-burners, and they came with him.
The flames were burnt down now; and we and they approached the charred ruins. Everything was in ashes. But"--he lowered his voice--"we found what seemed to be the body of Boris the hound; in another room was a charred corpse, whose hunting-horn, melted to a molten ma.s.s, told us that it had been Herbert the forester. And there was another corpse, almost shapeless, utterly unrecognizable. We saw it; the charcoal-burners saw it. Then more peasants came round, drawn by the sight of the flames. None could tell who it was; only I and James knew.
And we mounted our horses and have ridden here to tell the king."
Sapt finished his lesson or his story. A sob burst from the queen, and she hid her face in her hands. Bernenstein and I, amazed at this strange tale, scarcely understanding whether it were jest or earnest, stood staring stupidly at Sapt. Then I, overcome by the strange thing, turned half-foolish by the bizarre mingling of comedy and impressiveness in Sapt"s rendering of it, plucked him by the sleeve, and asked, with something between a laugh and a gasp:
"Who had that other corpse been, Constable?"
He turned his small, keen eyes on me in persistent gravity and unflinching effrontery.
"A Mr. Ra.s.sendyll, a friend of the king"s, who with his servant James was awaiting his Majesty"s return from Strelsau. His servant here is ready to start for England, to tell Mr. Ra.s.sendyll"s relatives the news."
The queen had begun to listen before now; her eyes were fixed on Sapt, and she had stretched out one arm to him, as if imploring him to read her his riddle. But a few words had in truth declared his device plainly enough in all its simplicity. Rudolf Ra.s.sendyll was dead, his body burnt to a cinder, and the king was alive, whole, and on his throne in Strelsau. Thus had Sapt caught from James, the servant, the infection of his madness, and had fulfilled in action the strange imagination which the little man had unfolded to him in order to pa.s.s their idle hours at the lodge.
Suddenly Mr. Ra.s.sendyll spoke in clear, short tones.
"This is all a lie, Sapt," said he, and his lips curled in contemptuous amus.e.m.e.nt.
"It"s no lie that the lodge is burnt, and the bodies in it, and that half a hundred of the peasants know it, and that no man could tell the body for the king"s. As for the rest, it is a lie. But I think the truth in it is enough to serve."
The two men stood facing one another with defiant eyes. Rudolf had caught the meaning of the great and audacious trick which Sapt and his companion had played. It was impossible now to bring the king"s body to Strelsau; it seemed no less impossible to declare that the man burnt in the lodge was the king. Thus Sapt had forced Rudolf"s hand; he had been inspired by the same vision as we, and endowed with more unshrinking boldness. But when I saw how Rudolf looked at him, I did not know but that they would go from the queen"s presence set on a deadly quarrel.
Mr. Ra.s.sendyll, however, mastered his temper.
"You"re all bent on having me a rascal," he said coldly. "Fritz and Bernenstein here urge me; you, Sapt, try to force me. James, there, is in the plot, for all I know."
"I suggested it, sir," said James, not defiantly or with disrespect, but as if in simple dutiful obedience to his master"s implied question.
"As I thought--all of you! Well, I won"t be forced. I see now that there"s no way out of this affair, save one. That one I"ll follow."
We none of us spoke, but waited till he should be pleased to continue.
"Of the queen"s letter I need say nothing and will say nothing,"
he pursued. "But I will tell them that I"m not the king, but Rudolf Ra.s.sendyll, and that I played the king only in order to serve the queen and punish Rupert of Hentzau. That will serve, and it will cut this net of Sapt"s from about my limbs."
He spoke firmly and coldly; so that when I looked at him I was amazed to see how his lips twitched and that his forehead was moist with sweat.
Then I understood what a sudden, swift, and fearful struggle he had suffered, and how the great temptation had wrung and tortured him before he, victorious, had set the thing behind him. I went to him and clasped his hand: this action of mine seemed to soften him.
"Sapt, Sapt," he said, "you almost made a rogue of me."
Sapt did not respond to his gentler mood. He had been pacing angrily up and down the room. Now he stopped abruptly before Rudolf, and pointed with his finger at the queen.
"I make a rogue of you?" he exclaimed. "And what do you make of our queen, whom we all serve? What does this truth that you"ll tell make of her? Haven"t I heard how she greeted you before all Strelsau as her husband and her love? Will they believe that she didn"t know her husband? Ay, you may show yourself, you may say they didn"t know you.
Will they believe she didn"t? Was the king"s ring on your finger? Where is it? And how comes Mr. Ra.s.sendyll to be at Fritz von Tarlenheim"s for hours with the queen, when the king is at his hunting lodge? A king has died already, and two men besides, to save a word against her. And you--you"ll be the man to set every tongue in Strelsau talking, and every finger pointing in suspicion at her?"
Rudolf made no answer. When Sapt had first uttered the queen"s name, he had drawn near and let his hand fall over the back of her chair. She put hers up to meet it, and so they remained. But I saw that Rudolf"s face had gone very pale.
"And we, your friends?" pursued Sapt. "For we"ve stood by you as we"ve stood by the queen, by G.o.d we have--Fritz, and young Bernenstein here, and I. If this truth"s told, who"ll believe that we were loyal to the king, that we didn"t know, that we weren"t accomplices in the tricking of the king--maybe, in his murder? Ah, Rudolf Ra.s.sendyll, G.o.d preserve me from a conscience that won"t let me be true to the woman I love, or to the friends who love me!"
I had never seen the old fellow so moved; he carried me with him, as he carried Bernenstein. I know now that we were too ready to be convinced; rather that, borne along by our pa.s.sionate desire, we needed no convincing at all. His excited appeal seemed to us an argument. At least the danger to the queen, on which he dwelt, was real and true and great.
Then a sudden change came over him. He caught Rudolf"s hand and spoke to him again in a low, broken voice, an unwonted softness transforming his harsh tones.
"Lad," he said, "don"t say no. Here"s the finest lady alive sick for her lover, and the finest country in the world sick for its true king, and the best friends--ay, by Heaven, the best friends--man ever had, sick to call you master. I know nothing about your conscience; but this I know: the king"s dead, and the place is empty; and I don"t see what Almighty G.o.d sent you here for unless it was to fill it. Come, lad--for our love and her honor! While he was alive I"d have killed you sooner than let you take it. He"s dead. Now--for our love and her honor, lad!"
I do not know what thoughts pa.s.sed in Mr. Ra.s.sendyll"s mind. His face was set and rigid. He made no sign when Sapt finished, but stood as he was, motionless, for a long while. Then he slowly bent his head and looked down into the queen"s eyes. For a while she sat looking back into his. Then, carried away by the wild hope of immediate joy, and by her love for him and her pride in the place he was offered, she sprang up and threw herself at his feet, crying:
"Yes, yes! For my sake, Rudolf--for my sake!"
"Are you, too, against me, my queen?" he murmured caressing her ruddy hair.