The prisoner of Zenda
I leapt down. Between us we rolled back the great gate, led our horses
out, and closed it again.
“I shall be sorry for the doorkeeper if Michael finds out that he wasn’t
there. Now then, lad, for a canter. We mustn’t go too fast while we’re
near the town.”
Once, however, outside the city, we ran little danger, for everybody
else was inside, merry-making; and as the evening fell we quickened our
pace, my splendid horse bounding along under me as though I had been a
feather. It was a fine night, and presently the moon appeared. We talked
little on the way, and chiefly about the progress we were making.
“I wonder what the duke’s despatches told him,” said I, once.
“Ay, I wonder!” responded Sapt.
We stopped for a draught of wine and to bait our horses, losing half an
hour thus. I dared not go into the inn, and stayed with the horses
in the stable. Then we went ahead again, and had covered some
five-and-twenty miles, when Sapt abruptly stopped.
“Hark!” he cried.
I listened. Away, far behind us, in the still of the evening--it was
just half-past nine--we heard the beat of horses’ hoofs. The wind
blowing strong behind us, carried the sound. I glanced at Sapt.
“Come on!” he cried, and spurred his horse into a gallop. When we next
paused to listen, the hoof-beats were not audible, and we relaxed our
pace. Then we heard them again. Sapt jumped down and laid his ear to the
ground.
“There are two,” he said. “They’re only a mile behind. Thank God the
road curves in and out, and the wind’s our way.”
We galloped on. We seemed to be holding our own. We had entered the
outskirts of the forest of Zenda, and the trees, closing in behind us as
the track zigged and zagged, prevented us seeing our pursuers, and them
from seeing us.
Another half-hour brought us to a divide of the road. Sapt drew rein.
“To the right is our road,” he said. “To the left, to the Castle. Each
about eight miles. Get down.”
“But they’ll be on us!” I cried.
“Get down!” he repeated brusquely; and I obeyed. The wood was dense up
to the very edge of the road. We led our horses into the covert, bound
handkerchiefs over their eyes, and stood beside them.
“You want to see who they are?” I whispered.
“Ay, and where they’re going,” he answered.
I saw that his revolver was in his hand.
Nearer and nearer came the hoofs. The moon shone out now clear and full,
so that the road was white with it. The ground was hard, and we had left
no traces.
“Here they come!” whispered Sapt.
“It’s the duke!”
“I thought so,” he answered.
It was the duke; and with him a burly fellow whom I knew well, and who
had cause to know me afterwards--Max Holf, brother to Johann the keeper,
and body-servant to his Highness. They were up to us: the duke reined
up. I saw Sapt’s finger curl lovingly towards the trigger. I believe
he would have given ten years of his life for a shot; and he could have
picked off Black Michael as easily as I could a barn-door fowl in a
farmyard. I laid my hand on his arm. He nodded reassuringly: he was
always ready to sacrifice inclination to duty.
“Which way?” asked Black Michael.
“To the Castle, your Highness,” urged his companion. “There we shall
learn the truth.”
For an instant the duke hesitated.
“I thought I heard hoofs,” said he.
“I think not, your Highness.”
“Why shouldn’t we go to the lodge?”
“I fear a trap. If all is well, why go to the lodge? If not, it’s a
snare to trap us.”
Suddenly the duke’s horse neighed. In an instant we folded our cloaks
close round our horses’ heads, and, holding them thus, covered the duke
and his attendant with our revolvers. If they had found us, they had
been dead men, or our prisoners.
Michael waited a moment longer. Then he cried:
“To Zenda, then!” and setting spurs to his horse, galloped on.
Sapt raised his weapon after him, and there was such an expression
of wistful regret on his face that I had much ado not to burst out
laughing.
For ten minutes we stayed where we were.
“You see,” said Sapt, “they’ve sent him news that all is well.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“God knows,” said Sapt, frowning heavily. “But it’s brought him from
Strelsau in a rare puzzle.”
Then we mounted, and rode as fast as our weary horses could lay their
feet to the ground. For those last eight miles we spoke no more. Our
minds were full of apprehension. “All is well.” What did it mean? Was
all well with the King?
At last the lodge came in sight. Spurring our horses to a last gallop,
we rode up to the gate. All was still and quiet. Not a soul came to meet
us. We dismounted in haste. Suddenly Sapt caught me by the arm.
“Look there!” he said, pointing to the ground.
I looked down. At my feet lay five or six silk handkerchiefs, torn and
slashed and rent. I turned to him questioningly.
“They’re what I tied the old woman up with,” said he. “Fasten the
horses, and come along.”
The handle of the door turned without resistance. We passed into the
room which had been the scene of last night’s bout. It was still strewn
with the remnants of our meal and with empty bottles.
“Come on,” cried Sapt, whose marvellous composure had at last almost
given way.
We rushed down the passage towards the cellars. The door of the
coal-cellar stood wide open.
“They found the old woman,” said I.
“You might have known that from the handkerchiefs,” he said.
Then we came opposite the door of the wine-cellar. It was shut. It
looked in all respects as it had looked when we left it that morning.
“Come, it’s all right,” said I.
A loud oath from Sapt rang out. His face turned pale, and he pointed
again at the floor. From under the door a red stain had spread over the
floor of the passage and dried there. Sapt sank against the opposite
wall. I tried the door. It was locked.
“Where’s Josef?” muttered Sapt.
“Where’s the King?” I responded.
Sapt took out a flask and put it to his lips. I ran back to the
dining-room, and seized a heavy poker from the fireplace. In my terror
and excitement I rained blows on the lock of the door, and I fired a
cartridge into it. It gave way, and the door swung open.
“Give me a light,” said I; but Sapt still leant against the wall.
He was, of course, more moved than I, for he loved his master. Afraid
for himself he was not--no man ever saw him that; but to think what
might lie in that dark cellar was enough to turn any man’s face pale.
I went myself, and took a silver candlestick from the dining-table and
struck a light, and, as I returned, I felt the hot wax drip on my naked
hand as the candle swayed to and fro; so that I cannot afford to despise
Colonel Sapt for his agitation.
I came to the door of the cellar. The red stain turning more and more to
a dull brown, stretched inside. I walked two yards into the cellar, and
held the candle high above my head. I saw the full bins of wine; I saw
spiders crawling on the walls; I saw, too, a couple of empty bottles
lying on the floor; and then, away in the corner, I saw the body of a
man, lying flat on his back, with his arms stretched wide, and a crimson
gash across his throat. I walked to him and knelt down beside him, and
commended to God the soul of a faithful man. For it was the body of
Josef, the little servant, slain in guarding the King.
I felt a hand on my shoulders, and, turning, saw Sapt, eyes glaring and
terror-struck, beside me.
“The King? My God! the King?” he whispered hoarsely.
I threw the candle’s gleam over every inch of the cellar.
“The King is not here,” said I.
CHAPTER 7
His Majesty Sleeps in Strelsau
I put my arm round Sapt’s waist and supported him out of the cellar,
drawing the battered door close after me. For ten minutes or more we sat
silent in the dining-room. Then old Sapt rubbed his knuckles into his
eyes, gave one great gasp, and was himself again. As the clock on the
mantelpiece struck one he stamped his foot on the floor, saying:
“They’ve got the King!”
“Yes,” said I, “‘all’s well!’ as Black Michael’s despatch said. What
a moment it must have been for him when the royal salutes fired at
Strelsau this morning! I wonder when he got the message?”
“It must have been sent in the morning,” said Sapt. “They must have sent
it before news of your arrival at Strelsau reached Zenda--I suppose it
came from Zenda.”
“And he’s carried it about all day!” I exclaimed. “Upon my honour, I’m
not the only man who’s had a trying day! What did he think, Sapt?”
“What does that matter? What does he think, lad, now?”
I rose to my feet.
“We must get back,” I said, “and rouse every soldier in Strelsau. We
ought to be in pursuit of Michael before midday.”
Old Sapt pulled out his pipe and carefully lit it from the candle which
guttered on the table.
“The King may be murdered while we sit here!” I urged.
Sapt smoked on for a moment in silence.
“That cursed old woman!” he broke out. “She must have attracted their
attention somehow. I see the game. They came up to kidnap the King,
and--as I say--somehow they found him. If you hadn’t gone to Strelsau,
you and I and Fritz had been in heaven by now!”
“And the King?”
“Who knows where the King is now?” he asked.
“Come, let’s be off!” said I; but he sat still. And suddenly he burst
into one of his grating chuckles:
“By Jove, we’ve shaken up Black Michael!”
“Come, come!” I repeated impatiently.
“And we’ll shake him up a bit more,” he added, a cunning smile
broadening on his wrinkled, weather-beaten face, and his teeth working
on an end of his grizzled moustache. “Ay, lad, we’ll go back to
Strelsau. The King shall be in his capital again tomorrow.”
“The King?”
“The crowned King!”
“You’re mad!” I cried.
“If we go back and tell the trick we played, what would you give for our
lives?”
“Just what they’re worth,” said I.
“And for the King’s throne? Do you think that the nobles and the people
will enjoy being fooled as you’ve fooled them? Do you think they’ll love
a King who was too drunk to be crowned, and sent a servant to personate
him?”
“He was drugged--and I’m no servant.”
“Mine will be Black Michael’s version.”
He rose, came to me, and laid his hand on my shoulder.
“Lad,” he said, “if you play the man, you may save the King yet. Go back
and keep his throne warm for him.”
“But the duke knows--the villains he has employed know--”
“Ay, but they can’t speak!” roared Sapt in grim triumph.
“We’ve got ’em! How can they denounce you without denouncing themselves?
This is not the King, because we kidnapped the King and murdered his
servant. Can they say that?”
The position flashed on me. Whether Michael knew me or not, he could not
speak. Unless he produced the King, what could he do? And if he produced
the King, where was he? For a moment I was carried away headlong; but in
an instant the difficulties came strong upon me.
“I must be found out,” I urged.
“Perhaps; but every hour’s something. Above all, we must have a King in
Strelsau, or the city will be Michael’s in four-and-twenty hours, and
what would the King’s life be worth then--or his throne? Lad, you must
do it!”
“Suppose they kill the King?”
“They’ll kill him, if you don’t.”
“Sapt, suppose they have killed the King?”
“Then, by heaven, you’re as good an Elphberg as Black Michael, and you
shall reign in Ruritania! But I don’t believe they have; nor will they
kill him if you’re on the throne. Will they kill him, to put you in?”
It was a wild plan--wilder even and more hopeless than the trick we
had already carried through; but as I listened to Sapt I saw the strong
points in our game. And then I was a young man and I loved action, and I
was offered such a hand in such a game as perhaps never man played yet.
“I shall be found out,” I said.