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Updated: October 6, 2025
When the door from the drawing-room opened and Rupert of Hentzau appeared, I was almost glad to see him. Whenever he spoke to me he always began or ended his sentence with "Mr. Davis." He gave it an emphasis and meaning which was intended to show that he knew it was not my name. I would not have thought it possible to put so much insolence into two innocent words. It was as though he said: "Mr.
He was answered by the very words I had written in my letter. "Help, Michael Hentzau!" A fierce oath rang out from the duke, and with a loud thud he threw himself against the door. At the same moment I heard a window above my head open, and a voice cried: "What's the matter?" and I heard a man's hasty footsteps. I grasped my sword. If De Gautet came my way, the Six would be less by one more.
And Fritz found my horse, and feared the worst. Then, as I have told, he found me, guided by the shout with which I had called on Rupert to stop and face me. And I think a man has never been more glad to find his own brother alive than was Fritz to come on me; so that, in love and anxiety for me, he thought nothing of a thing so great as would have been the death of Rupert Hentzau.
I was rather amused at the part I had assigned to my young friend Rupert Hentzau; but I owed him a stroke for, even as I sat, my shoulder ached where he had, with an audacity that seemed half to hide his treachery, struck at me, in the sight of all my friends, on the terrace at Tarlenheim. Suddenly the duke's window grew bright.
He rode up to the servants, and I saw him pass on to the gentleman who rode behind. "It's Rupert of Hentzau," whispered Sapt. Rupert it was, and directly afterwards, waving to the procession to stand still, Rupert trotted up to me. He was in a frock-coat, tightly buttoned, and trousers. He wore an aspect of sadness, and he bowed with profound respect.
Then he went on more loudly, "I won't quit Ruritania a second time leaving Rupert of Hentzau alive. Fritz, send word to Sapt that the king is in Strelsau he will understand and that instructions from the king will follow by midday. When I have killed Rupert, I shall visit the lodge on my way to the frontier." He turned to go, but the queen, following, detained him for a minute.
All of which at the time I did not know and did not want to know. All I wanted was to prove I was not an English officer, but an American correspondent who by accident had stumbled upon their secret. To convince them of that, strangely enough, was difficult. When Rupert of Hentzau returned the other officers were with him, and, fortunately for me, they spoke or understood English.
He started as though surprised, then fell again into his reverie. "What's to be done, Rudolf?" I asked again. "I'm going to kill Rupert of Hentzau," he said. "The rest we'll talk of afterwards." He walked rapidly across the room and rang the bell. "Clear those people away," he ordered. "Tell them that I want to be quiet. Then send a closed carriage round for me. Don't be more than ten minutes."
Thus was I engaged when young Rupert Hentzau, who feared neither man nor devil, and rode through the demesne where every tree might hide a marksman, for all he knew as though it had been the park at Strelsau, cantered up to where I lay, bowing with burlesque deference, and craving private speech with me in order to deliver a message from the Duke of Strelsau.
In fine, the Count of Hentzau, shrewdly discerning the feeling that existed between the queen and Rudolf Rassendyll, set his spies to work, and was rewarded by discovering the object of my yearly meetings with Mr. Rassendyll. At least he conjectured the nature of my errand; this was enough for him.
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