The Prisoner of Zenda Part 19

"Hush, hush!" she whispered. "I don't deserve it--I don't deserve to be doubted. Ah, Rudolf! does a woman who marries without love look on the man as I look on you?"

And she hid her face from me.

For more than a minute we stood there together; and I, even with my arm about her, summoned up what honour and conscience her beauty and the toils that I was in had left me.

"Flavia," I said, in a strange dry voice that seemed not my own, "I am not--"

As I spoke--as she raised her eyes to me--there was a heavy step on the gravel outside, and a man appeared at the window. A little cry burst from Flavia, as she sprang back from me. My half-finished sentence died on my lips. Sapt stood there, bowing low, but with a stern frown on his face.

"A thousand pardons, sire," said he, "but his Eminence the Cardinal has waited this quarter of an hour to offer his respectful adieu to your Majesty."

I met his eye full and square; and I read in it an angry warning. How long he had been a listener I knew not, but he had come in upon us in the nick of time.

"We must not keep his Eminence waiting," said I.

But Flavia, in whose love there lay no shame, with radiant eyes and blushing face, held out her hand to Sapt. She said nothing, but no man could have missed her meaning, who had ever seen a woman in the exultation of love. A sour, yet sad, smile pa.s.sed over the old soldier's face, and there was tenderness in his voice, as bending to kiss her hand, he said:

"In joy and sorrow, in good times and bad, G.o.d save your Royal Highness!"

He paused and added, glancing at me and drawing himself up to military erectness:

"But, before all comes the King--G.o.d save the King!"

And Flavia caught at my hand and kissed it, murmuring:

"Amen! Good G.o.d, Amen!"

We went into the ballroom again. Forced to receive adieus, I was separated from Flavia: everyone, when they left me, went to her. Sapt was out and in of the throng, and where he had been, glances, smiles, and whispers were rife. I doubted not that, true to his relentless purpose, he was spreading the news that he had learnt. To uphold the Crown and beat Black Michael--that was his one resolve. Flavia, myself--ay, and the real King in Zenda, were pieces in his game; and p.a.w.ns have no business with pa.s.sions. Not even at the walls of the Palace did he stop; for when at last I handed Flavia down the broad marble steps and into her carriage, there was a great crowd awaiting us, and we were welcomed with deafening cheers. What could I do? Had I spoken then, they would have refused to believe that I was not the King; they might have believed that the King had run mad. By Sapt's devices and my own ungoverned pa.s.sion I had been forced on, and the way back had closed behind me; and the pa.s.sion still drove me in the same direction as the devices seduced me. I faced all Strelsau that night as the King and the accepted suitor of the Princess Flavia.

At last, at three in the morning, when the cold light of dawning day began to steal in, I was in my dressing-room, and Sapt alone was with me. I sat like a man dazed, staring into the fire; he puffed at his pipe; Fritz was gone to bed, having almost refused to speak to me. On the table by me lay a rose; it had been in Flavia's dress, and, as we parted, she had kissed it and given it to me.

Sapt advanced his hand towards the rose, but, with a quick movement, I shut mine down upon it.

"That's mine," I said, "not yours--nor the King's either."

"We struck a good blow for the King tonight," said he.

I turned on him fiercely.

"What's to prevent me striking a blow for myself?" I said.

He nodded his head.

"I know what's in your mind," he said. "Yes, lad; but you're bound in honour."

"Have you left me any honour?"

"Oh, come, to play a little trick on a girl--"

"You can spare me that. Colonel Sapt, if you would not have me utterly a villain--if you would not have your King rot in Zenda, while Michael and I play for the great stake outside--You follow me?"

"Ay, I follow you."

"We must act, and quickly! You saw tonight--you heard--tonight--"

"I did," said he.

"Your cursed acuteness told you what I should do. Well, leave me here a week--and there's another problem for you. Do you find the answer?"

"Yes, I find it," he answered, frowning heavily. "But if you did that, you'd have to fight me first--and kill me."

"Well, and if I had--or a score of men? I tell you, I could raise all Strelsau on you in an hour, and choke you with your lies--yes, your mad lies--in your mouth."

"It's gospel truth," he said--"thanks to my advice you could."

"I could marry the princess, and send Michael and his brother together to--"

"I'm not denying it, lad," said he.

"Then, in G.o.d's name," I cried, stretching out my hands to him, "let us go to Zenda and crush this Michael and bring the King back to his own again." The old fellow stood and looked at me for full a minute.

"And the princess?" he said.

I bowed my head to meet my hands, and crushed the rose between my fingers and my lips.

I felt his hand on my shoulder, and his voice sounded husky as he whispered low in my ear:

"Before G.o.d, you're the finest Elphberg of them all. But I have eaten of the King's bread, and I am the King's servant. Come, we will go to Zenda!"

And I looked up and caught him by the hand. And the eyes of both of us were wet.

CHAPTER 11

Hunting a Very Big Boar

The terrible temptation which was a.s.sailing me will now be understood.

I could so force Michael's hand that he must kill the King. I was in a position to bid him defiance and tighten my grasp on the crown--not for its own sake, but because the King of Ruritania was to wed the Princess Flavia. What of Sapt and Fritz? Ah! but a man cannot be held to write down in cold blood the wild and black thoughts that storm his brain when an uncontrolled pa.s.sion has battered a breach for them. Yet, unless he sets up as a saint, he need not hate himself for them. He is better employed, as it humbly seems to me, in giving thanks that power to resist was vouchsafed to him, than in fretting over wicked impulses which come unsought and extort an unwilling hospitality from the weakness of our nature.

It was a fine bright morning when I walked, unattended, to the princess's house, carrying a nosegay in my hand. Policy made excuses for love, and every attention that I paid her, while it riveted my own chains, bound closer to me the people of the great city, who worshipped her. I found Fritz's inamorata, the Countess Helga, gathering blooms in the garden for her mistress's wear, and prevailed on her to take mine in their place. The girl was rosy with happiness, for Fritz, in his turn, had not wasted his evening, and no dark shadow hung over his wooing, save the hatred which the Duke of Strelsau was known to bear him.

"And that," she said, with a mischievous smile, "your Majesty has made of no moment. Yes, I will take the flowers; shall I tell you, sire, what is the first thing the princess does with them?"

We were talking on a broad terrace that ran along the back of the house, and a window above our heads stood open.

"Madame!" cried the countess merrily, and Flavia herself looked out. I bared my head and bowed. She wore a white gown, and her hair was loosely gathered in a knot. She kissed her hand to me, crying: