Rupert of Hentzau: From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim<br />Sequel to The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope (the reading list TXT) 📗

don’t know,” Sapt reminded me. “He’ll be there if Rischenheim arrives in time to tell him the truth. But we have also to be ready for him here, and at the hunting lodge. Well, we’re ready for him wherever he is: Rudolf will be in Strelsau, you and I will ride to the lodge, and Bernenstein will be here with the queen.”

“Only one here?” I asked.

“Ay, but a good one,” said the constable, clapping Bernenstein on the shoulder. “We sha’n’t be gone above four hours, and those while the king is safe in his bed. Bernenstein has only to refuse access to him, and stand to that with his life till we come back. You’re equal to that, eh, Lieutenant?”

I am, by nature, a cautious man, and prone to look at the dark side of every prospect and the risks of every enterprise; but I could not see what better dispositions were possible against the attack that threatened us. Yet I was sorely uneasy concerning Mr. Rassendyll.

Now, after all our stir and runnings to and fro, came an hour or two of peace. We employed the time in having a good meal, and it was past five when, our repast finished, we sat back in our chairs enjoying cigars. James had waited on us, quietly usurping the office of the constable’s own servant, and thus we had been able to talk freely. The man’s calm confidence in his master and his master’s fortune also went far to comfort me.

“The king should be back soon,” said Sapt at last, with a glance at his big, old-fashioned silver watch. “Thank God, he’ll be too tired to sit up long. We shall be free by nine o’clock, Fritz. I wish young Rupert would come to the lodge!” And the colonel’s face expressed a lively pleasure at the idea.

Six o’clock struck, and the king did not appear. A few moments later, a message came from the queen, requesting our presence on the terrace in front of the chateau. The place commanded a view of the road by which the king would ride back, and we found the queen walking restlessly up and down, considerably disquieted by the lateness of his return. In such a position as ours, every unusual or unforeseen incident magnifies its possible meaning, and invests itself with a sinister importance which would at ordinary times seem absurd. We three shared the queen’s feelings, and forgetting the many chances of the chase, any one of which would amply account for the king’s delay, fell to speculating on remote possibilities of disaster. He might have met Rischenheim—though they had ridden in opposite directions; Rupert might have intercepted him—though no means could have brought Rupert to the forest so early. Our fears defeated common sense, and our conjectures outran possibility. Sapt was the first to recover from this foolish mood, and he rated us soundly, not sparing even the queen herself. With a laugh we regained some of our equanimity, and felt rather ashamed of our weakness.

“Still it’s strange that he doesn’t come,” murmured the queen, shading her eyes with her hand, and looking along the road to where the dark masses of the forest trees bounded our view. It was already dusk, but not so dark but that we could have seen the king’s party as soon as it came into the open.

If the king’s delay seemed strange at six, it was stranger at seven, and by eight most strange. We had long since ceased to talk lightly; by now we had lapsed into silence. Sapt’s scoldings had died away. The queen, wrapped in her furs (for it was very cold), sat sometimes on a seat, but oftener paced restlessly to and fro. Evening had fallen. We did not know what to do, nor even whether we ought to do anything. Sapt would not own to sharing our worst apprehensions, but his gloomy silence in face of our surmises witnessed that he was in his heart as disturbed as we were. For my part I had come to the end of my endurance, and I cried, “For God’s sake, let’s act! Shall I go and seek him?”

“A needle in a bundle of hay,” said Sapt with a shrug.

But at this instant my ear caught the sound of horses cantering on the road from the forest; at the same moment Bernenstein cried, “Here they come!” The queen paused, and we gathered round her. The horse-hoofs came nearer. Now we made out the figures of three men: they were the king’s huntsmen, and they rode along merrily, singing a hunting chorus. The sound of it brought relief to us; so far at least there was no disaster. But why was not the king with them?

“The king is probably tired, and is following more slowly, madam,” suggested Bernenstein.

This explanation seemed very probable, and the lieutenant and I, as ready to be hopeful on slight grounds as fearful on small provocation, joyfully accepted it. Sapt, less easily turned to either mood, said, “Ay, but let us hear,” and raising his voice, called to the huntsmen, who had now arrived in the avenue. One of them, the king’s chief huntsman Simon, gorgeous in his uniform of green and gold, came swaggering along, and bowed low to the queen.

“Well, Simon, where is the king?” she asked, trying to smile.

“The king, madam, has sent a message by me to your majesty.”

“Pray, deliver it to me, Simon.”

“I will, madam. The king has enjoyed fine sport; and, indeed, madam, if I may say so for myself, a better run.—”

“You may say, friend Simon,” interrupted the constable, tapping him on the shoulder, “anything you like for yourself, but, as a matter of etiquette, the king’s message should come first.”

“Oh, ay, Constable,” said Simon. “You’re always so down on a man, aren’t you? Well, then, madam, the king has enjoyed fine sport. For we started a boar at eleven, and—”

“Is this the king’s message, Simon?” asked the queen, smiling in genuine amusement, but impatiently.

“Why, no, madam, not precisely his majesty’s message.”

“Then get to it, man, in Heaven’s name,” growled Sapt testily. For here were we four (the queen, too, one of us!) on tenterhooks, while the fool boasted about the sport that he had shown the king. For every boar in the forest Simon took as much credit as though he, and not Almighty God, had made the animal. It is the way with such fellows.

Simon became a little confused under the combined influence of his own seductive memories and Sapt’s brusque exhortations.

“As I was saying, madam,” he resumed, “the boar led us a long way, but at last the hounds pulled him down, and his majesty himself gave the coup de grace. Well, then it was very late.”

“It’s no earlier now,” grumbled the constable.

“And the king, although indeed, madam, his majesty was so gracious as to say that no huntsman whom his majesty had ever had, had given his majesty—”

“God help us!” groaned the constable.

Simon shot an apprehensive apologetic glance at Colonel Sapt. The constable was frowning ferociously. In spite of the serious matters in hand I could not forbear a smile, while young Bernenstein broke into an audible laugh, which he tried to smother with his hand.