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After all, red hair and long noses are not confined to the House of Elphberg, and the old story seemed a preposterously insufficient reason for debarring myself from acquaintance with a highly interesting and important kingdom, one which had played no small part in European history, and might do the like again under the sway of a young and vigorous ruler, such as the new King was rumoured to be.
Are we beasts, to eat without drinking? Are we cattle, Josef?" At this reproof Josef hastened to load the table with bottles. "Remember tomorrow!" said Fritz. "Ay tomorrow!" said old Sapt. The King drained a bumper to his "Cousin Rudolf," as he was gracious or merry enough to call me; and I drank its fellow to the "Elphberg Red," whereat he laughed loudly.
He was full of interest in my family, laughed heartily when I told him of the portraits with Elphberg hair in our galleries, and yet more heartily when he heard that my expedition to Ruritania was a secret one. "You have to visit your disreputable cousin on the sly, have you?" said he. Suddenly emerging from the wood, we came on a small and rude hunting-lodge.
"Oh, there's many to think as I do!" cried the old woman stubbornly. I threw myself back in my deep armchair, and laughed at her zeal. "For my part," said the younger and prettier of the two daughters, a fair, buxom, smiling wench, "I hate Black Michael! A red Elphberg for me, mother! The King, they say, is as red as a fox or as "
Then, with a smile, he said: "And the pretty princess? Faith, I'll wager the next Elphberg will be red enough, for all that Black Michael will be called his father." I sprang a step towards him, clenching my hand. He did not move an inch, and his lip curled in insolent amusement. "Go, while your skin's whole!" I muttered. He had repaid me with interest my hit about his mother.
When I read a story, I skip the explanations; yet the moment I begin to write one, I find that I must have an explanation. For it is manifest that I must explain why my sister-in-law was vexed with my nose and hair, and why I ventured to call myself an Elphberg.
All the people took up the cry with boundless fervor, and thus we all, high and low in Strelsau, that afternoon hailed Mr. Rassendyll for our king. There had been no such zeal since Henry the Lion came back from his wars, a hundred and fifty years ago. "And yet," observed old Helsing at my elbow, "agitators say that there is no enthusiasm for the house of Elphberg!"
I felt his hand on my shoulder, and his voice sounded husky as he whispered low in my ear: "Before God, 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. Hunting a Very Big Boar
The hound, in subtle understanding of his master's movement, growled angrily. "You expected me, sire?" said Rupert with a bow; but he smiled. I know that the sight of the king's alarm pleased him. To inspire terror was his delight, and it does not come to every man to strike fear into the heart of a king and an Elphberg. It had come more than once to Rupert of Hentzau. "No," muttered the king.
At a mighty price our task had been made easy; many might have doubted the living, none questioned the dead; suspicions which might have gathered round a throne died away at the gate of a vault. The king was dead. Who would ask if it were in truth the king who lay in state in the great hall of the palace, or whether the humble grave at Zenda held the bones of the last male Elphberg?
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