I’m going, anyhow. Heavens, man, am I to sit here while that letter is carried to the king?”
I understood his feeling, and knew that he held life a light thing compared with the recovery of Queen Flavia’s letter. I ceased to urge him. When I assented to his wishes, every shadow vanished from his face, and he began to discuss the details of the plan with business-like brevity.
“I shall leave James with you,” said Rudolf. “He’ll be very useful, and you can rely on him absolutely. Any message that you dare trust to no other conveyance, give to him; he’ll carry it. He can shoot, too.” He rose as he spoke. “I’ll look in before I start,” he added, “and hear what the doctor says about you.”
I lay there, thinking, as men sick and weary in body will, of the dangers and the desperate nature of the risk, rather than of the hope which its boldness would have inspired in a healthy, active brain. I distrusted the rapid inference that Rudolf had drawn from Sapt’s telegram, telling myself that it was based on too slender a foundation. Well, there I was wrong, and I am glad now to pay that tribute to his discernment. The first steps of Rupert’s scheme were laid as Rudolf had conjectured: Rischenheim had started, even while I lay there, for Zenda, carrying on his person a copy of the queen’s farewell letter and armed for his enterprise by his right of audience with the king. So far we were right, then; for the rest we were in darkness, not knowing or being able even to guess where Rupert would choose to await the result of the first cast, or what precautions he had taken against the failure of his envoy. But although in total obscurity as to his future plans, I traced his past actions, and subsequent knowledge has shown that I was right. Bauer was the tool; a couple of florins apiece had hired the fellows who, conceiving that they were playing a part in some practical joke, had taken all the cabs at the station. Rupert had reckoned that I should linger looking for my servant and luggage, and thus miss my last chance of a vehicle. If, however, I had obtained one, the attack would still have been made, although, of course, under much greater difficulties. Finally—and of this at the time I knew nothing—had I evaded them and got safe to port with my cargo, the plot would have been changed. Rupert’s attention would then have been diverted from me to Rudolf; counting on love overcoming prudence, he reckoned that Mr. Rassendyll would not at once destroy what the queen sent, and had arranged to track his steps from Wintenberg till an opportunity offered of robbing him of his treasure. The scheme, as I know it, was full of audacious cunning, and required large resources—the former Rupert himself supplied; for the second he was indebted to his cousin and slave, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim.
My meditations were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He hummed and ha’d over me, but to my surprise asked me no questions as to the cause of my misfortune, and did not, as I had feared, suggest that his efforts should be seconded by those of the police. On the contrary, he appeared, from an unobtrusive hint or two, to be anxious that I should know that his discretion could be trusted.
“You must not think of moving for a couple of days,” he said; “but then, I think we can get you away without danger and quite quietly.”
I thanked him; he promised to look in again; I murmured something about his fee.
“Oh, thank you, that is all settled,” he said. “Your friend Herr Schmidt has seen to it, and, my dear sir, most liberally.”
He was hardly gone when ‘my friend Herr Schmidt’—alias Rudolf Rassendyll—was back. He laughed a little when I told him how discreet the doctor had been.
“You see,” he explained, “he thinks you’ve been very indiscreet. I was obliged, my dear Fritz, to take some liberties with your character. However, it’s odds against the matter coming to your wife’s ears.”
“But couldn’t we have laid the others by the heels?”
“With the letter on Rupert? My dear fellow, you’re very ill.”
I laughed at myself, and forgave Rudolf his trick, though I think that he might have made my fictitious inamorata something more than a baker’s wife. It would have cost no more to make her a countess, and the doctor would have looked with more respect on me. However, Rudolf had said that the baker broke my head with his rolling-pin, and thus the story rests in the doctor’s mind to this day.
“Well, I’m off,” said Rudolf.
“But where?”
“Why, to that same little station where two good friends parted from me once before. Fritz, where’s Rupert gone?”
“I wish we knew.”
“I lay he won’t be far off.”
“Are you armed?”
“The six-shooter. Well, yes, since you press me, a knife, too; but only if he uses one. You’ll let Sapt know when you come?”
“Yes; and I come the moment I can stand?”
“As if you need tell me that, old fellow!”
“Where do you go from the station?”
“To Zenda, through the forest,” he answered. “I shall reach the station about nine to-morrow night, Thursday. Unless Rischenheim has got the audience sooner than was arranged, I shall be in time.”
“How will you get hold of Sapt?”
“We must leave something to the minute.”
“God bless you, Rudolf.”
“The king sha’n’t have the letter, Fritz.”
There was a moment’s silence as we shook hands. Then that soft yet bright look came in his eyes again. He looked down at me, and caught me regarding him with a smile that I know was not unkind.
“I never thought I should see her again,” he said. “I think I shall now, Fritz. To have a turn with that boy and to see her again—it’s worth something.”
“How will you see her?”
Rudolf laughed, and I laughed too. He caught my hand again. I think that he was anxious to infect me with his gayety and confidence. But I could not answer to the appeal of his eyes. There was a motive in him that found no place in me—a great longing, the prospect or hope of whose sudden fulfilment dwarfed danger and banished despair. He saw that I detected its presence in him and perceived how it filled his mind.
“But the letter comes before all,” said he. “I expected to die without seeing her; I will die without seeing her, if I must, to save the letter.”
“I know you will,” said I.
He pressed my hand again. As he turned away, James came with his noiseless, quick step into the room.
“The carriage is at the door, sir,” said he.
“Look after the count, James,” said Rudolf. “Don’t leave him till he sends you away.”
“Very well, sir.”
I raised myself in bed.
“Here’s luck,” I cried, catching up the lemonade James had brought me, and taking a gulp of it.
“Please God,” said Rudolf, with a shrug.
And he was gone to his work and his reward—to save the queen’s letter and to see the queen’s face. Thus he went a second time to Zenda.
CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT
On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of a lover’s greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had been sorely impatient with “that fool Fritz’s” yearly pilgrimage.