The prisoner of Zenda
“I meant to tell you,” said I. “I was going to on the night of the
ball in Strelsau, when Sapt interrupted me. After that, I couldn’t--I
couldn’t risk losing you before--before--I must! My darling, for you I
nearly left the King to die!”
“I know, I know! What are we to do now, Rudolf?”
I put my arm round her and held her up while I said:
“I am going away tonight.”
“Ah, no, no!” she cried. “Not tonight!”
“I must go tonight, before more people have seen me. And how would you
have me stay, sweetheart, except--?”
“If I could come with you!” she whispered very low.
“My God!” said I roughly, “don’t talk about that!” and I thrust her a
little back from me.
“Why not? I love you. You are as good a gentleman as the King!”
Then I was false to all that I should have held by. For I caught her in
my arms and prayed her, in words that I will not write, to come with me,
daring all Ruritania to take her from me. And for a while she listened,
with wondering, dazzled eyes. But as her eyes looked on me, I grew
ashamed, and my voice died away in broken murmurs and stammerings, and
at last I was silent.
She drew herself away from me and stood against the wall, while I sat
on the edge of the sofa, trembling in every limb, knowing what I had
done--loathing it, obstinate not to undo it. So we rested a long time.
“I am mad!” I said sullenly.
“I love your madness, dear,” she answered.
Her face was away from me, but I caught the sparkle of a tear on her
cheek. I clutched the sofa with my hand and held myself there.
“Is love the only thing?” she asked, in low, sweet tones that seemed
to bring a calm even to my wrung heart. “If love were the only thing, I
would follow you--in rags, if need be--to the world’s end; for you hold
my heart in the hollow of your hand! But is love the only thing?”
I made no answer. It gives me shame now to think that I would not help
her.
She came near me and laid her hand on my shoulder. I put my hand up and
held hers.
“I know people write and talk as if it were. Perhaps, for some, Fate
lets it be. Ah, if I were one of them! But if love had been the only
thing, you would have let the King die in his cell.”
I kissed her hand.
“Honour binds a woman too, Rudolf. My honour lies in being true to my
country and my House. I don’t know why God has let me love you; but I
know that I must stay.”
Still I said nothing; and she, pausing a while, then went on:
“Your ring will always be on my finger, your heart in my heart, the
touch of your lips on mine. But you must go and I must stay. Perhaps I
must do what it kills me to think of doing.”
I knew what she meant, and a shiver ran through me. But I could not
utterly fail her. I rose and took her hand.
“Do what you will, or what you must,” I said. “I think God shows His
purposes to such as you. My part is lighter; for your ring shall be on
my finger and your heart in mine, and no touch save of your lips will
ever be on mine. So, may God comfort you, my darling!”
There struck on our ears the sound of singing. The priests in the chapel
were singing masses for the souls of those who lay dead. They seemed to
chant a requiem over our buried joy, to pray forgiveness for our love
that would not die. The soft, sweet, pitiful music rose and fell as we
stood opposite one another, her hands in mine.
“My queen and my beauty!” said I.
“My lover and true knight!” she said. “Perhaps we shall never see one
another again. Kiss me, my dear, and go!”
I kissed her as she bade me; but at the last she clung to me, whispering
nothing but my name, and that over and over again--and again--and again;
and then I left her.
Rapidly I walked down to the bridge. Sapt and Fritz were waiting for me.
Under their directions I changed my dress, and muffling my face, as I
had done more than once before, I mounted with them at the door of the
Castle, and we three rode through the night and on to the breaking day,
and found ourselves at a little roadside station just over the border
of Ruritania. The train was not quite due, and I walked with them in a
meadow by a little brook while we waited for it. They promised to
send me all news; they overwhelmed me with kindness--even old Sapt was
touched to gentleness, while Fritz was half unmanned. I listened in a
kind of dream to all they said. “Rudolf! Rudolf! Rudolf!” still rang in
my ears--a burden of sorrow and of love. At last they saw that I could
not heed them, and we walked up and down in silence, till Fritz touched
me on the arm, and I saw, a mile or more away, the blue smoke of the
train. Then I held out a hand to each of them.
“We are all but half-men this morning,” said I, smiling. “But we have
been men, eh, Sapt and Fritz, old friends? We have run a good course
between us.”
“We have defeated traitors and set the King firm on his throne,” said
Sapt.
Then Fritz von Tarlenheim suddenly, before I could discern his purpose
or stay him, uncovered his head and bent as he used to do, and kissed my
hand; and as I snatched it away, he said, trying to laugh:
“Heaven doesn’t always make the right men kings!”
Old Sapt twisted his mouth as he wrung my hand.
“The devil has his share in most things,” said he.
The people at the station looked curiously at the tall man with the
muffled face, but we took no notice of their glances. I stood with my
two friends and waited till the train came up to us. Then we shook hands
again, saying nothing; and both this time--and, indeed, from old Sapt
it seemed strange--bared their heads, and so stood still till the train
bore me away from their sight. So that it was thought some great man
travelled privately for his pleasure from the little station that
morning; whereas, in truth it was only I, Rudolf Rassendyll, an English
gentleman, a cadet of a good house, but a man of no wealth nor position,
nor of much rank. They would have been disappointed to know that. Yet
had they known all they would have looked more curiously still. For, be
I what I might now, I had been for three months a King, which, if not
a thing to be proud of, is at least an experience to have undergone.
Doubtless I should have thought more of it, had there not echoed through
the air, from the towers of Zenda that we were leaving far away, into
my ears and into my heart the cry of a woman’s love--“Rudolf! Rudolf!
Rudolf!”
Hark! I hear it now!
CHAPTER 22
Present, Past--and Future?
The details of my return home can have but little interest. I went
straight to the Tyrol and spent a quiet fortnight--mostly on my back,
for a severe chill developed itself; and I was also the victim of a
nervous reaction, which made me weak as a baby. As soon as I had reached
my quarters, I sent an apparently careless postcard to my brother,
announcing my good health and prospective return. That would serve to
satisfy the inquiries as to my whereabouts, which were probably still
vexing the Prefect of the Police of Strelsau. I let my moustache and
imperial grow again; and as hair comes quickly on my face, they were
respectable, though not luxuriant, by the time that I landed myself in
Paris and called on my friend George Featherly. My interview with
him was chiefly remarkable for the number of unwilling but necessary
falsehoods that I told; and I rallied him unmercifully when he told me
that he had made up his mind that I had gone in the track of Madame de
Mauban to Strelsau. The lady, it appeared, was back in Paris, but was
living in great seclusion--a fact for which gossip found no difficulty
in accounting. Did not all the world know of the treachery and death
of Duke Michael? Nevertheless, George bade Bertram Bertrand be of good
cheer, “for,” said he flippantly, “a live poet is better than a dead
duke.” Then he turned on me and asked:
“What have you been doing to your moustache?”
“To tell the truth,” I answered, assuming a sly air, “a man now and then
has reasons for wishing to alter his appearance. But it’s coming on very
well again.”
“What? Then I wasn’t so far out! If not the fair Antoinette, there was a
charmer?”
“There is always a charmer,” said I, sententiously.
But George would not be satisfied till he had wormed out of me (he
took much pride in his ingenuity) an absolutely imaginary love-affair,
attended with the proper _soupçon_ of scandal, which had kept me all this
time in the peaceful regions of the Tyrol. In return for this
narrative, George regaled me with a great deal of what he called “inside
information” (known only to diplomatists), as to the true course of
events in Ruritania, the plots and counterplots. In his opinion, he told
me, with a significant nod, there was more to be said for Black Michael
than the public supposed; and he hinted at a well-founded suspicion that
the mysterious prisoner of Zenda, concerning whom a good many paragraphs
had appeared, was not a man at all, but (here I had much ado not to
smile) a woman disguised as a man; and that strife between the King and
his brother for this imaginary lady’s favour was at the bottom of their
quarrel.
“Perhaps it was Madame de Mauban herself,” I suggested.
“No!” said George decisively, “Antoinette de Mauban was jealous of her,
and betrayed the duke to the King for that reason. And, to confirm what
I say, it’s well known that the Princess Flavia is now extremely cold to
the King, after having been most affectionate.”
At this point I changed the subject, and escaped from George’s
“inspired” delusions. But if diplomatists never know anything more than
they had succeeded in finding out in this instance, they appear to me to
be somewhat expensive luxuries.
While in Paris I wrote to Antoinette, though I did not venture to call
upon her. I received in return a very affecting letter, in which she
assured me that the King’s generosity and kindness, no less than her
regard for me, bound her conscience to absolute secrecy. She expressed
the intention of settling in the country, and withdrawing herself
entirely from society. Whether she carried out her designs, I have never
heard; but as I have not met her, or heard news of her up to this time,
it is probable that she did. There is no doubt that she was deeply
attached to the Duke of Strelsau; and her conduct at the time of his
death proved that no knowledge of the man’s real character was enough to
root her regard for him out of her heart.
I had one more battle left to fight--a battle that would, I knew, be
severe, and was bound to end in my complete defeat. Was I not back
from the Tyrol, without having made any study of its inhabitants,
institutions, scenery, fauna, flora, or other features? Had I not simply
wasted my time in my usual frivolous, good-for-nothing way? That was the
aspect of the matter which, I was obliged to admit, would present itself
to my sister-in-law; and against a verdict based on such evidence, I had
really no defence to offer. It may be supposed, then, that I presented
myself in Park Lane in a shamefaced, sheepish fashion. On the whole, my
reception was not so alarming as I had feared. It turned out that I
had done, not what Rose wished, but--the next best thing--what she
prophesied. She had declared that I should make no notes, record no
observations, gather no materials. My brother, on the other hand,
had been weak enough to maintain that a serious resolve had at length
animated me.
When I returned empty-handed, Rose was so occupied in triumphing over
Burlesdon that she let me down quite easily, devoting the greater
part of her reproaches to my failure to advertise my friends of my
whereabouts.
“We’ve wasted a lot of time trying to find you,” she said.
“I know you have,” said I. “Half our ambassadors have led weary lives
on my account. George Featherly told me so. But why should you have been