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Updated: June 8, 2025
Rassendyll's wisdom in visiting Strelsau just now." The King lit a cigarette. "Well, Sapt?" said he, questioningly. "He mustn't go," growled the old fellow. "Come, colonel, you mean that I should be in Mr. Rassendyll's debt, if " "Oh, ay! wrap it up in the right way," said Sapt, hauling a great pipe out of his pocket. "Enough, sire," said I. "I'll leave Ruritania today."
Sapt was not guilty of it, but his disappointment was bitter that all our efforts had secured no better ruler for Ruritania. Sapt could serve, but he liked his master to be a man. "Ay, I'm afraid the lad's work here is done," he said, as I shook him by the hand. Then a sudden light came in his eyes. "Perhaps not," he muttered. "Who knows?"
We desired his death, but we must be his body-guard and die in his defense rather than let any other but ourselves come at him. No open means must be used, and no allies sought. All this rushed to my mind at Sapt's words, and I saw what the constable and James had never forgotten. But what to do I could not see. For the King of Ruritania lay dead.
"I wish I could go with you," he cried, tugging at his white moustache. "I'd like to strike a blow for you and your crown." "I leave you what is more than my life and more than my crown," said I, "because you are the man I trust more than all other in Ruritania." "I will deliver her to you safe and sound," said he, "and, failing that, I will make her queen."
For now a greater peril threatened than that against which we had at the first sought to guard. Then the worst we feared was that the letter should come to the king's hands. That could never be. But it would be a worse thing if it were found on Rupert, and all the kingdom, nay, all Europe, know that it was written in the hand of her who was now, in her own right, Queen of Ruritania.
Rassendyll's servant, being informed of the summons, was at my elbow with a card of the trains from Strelsau to Zenda, without waiting for any order from me. I had talked to this man in the course of our journey, and discovered that he had been in the service of Lord Topham, formerly British Ambassador to the Court of Ruritania.
"Why, then, by to-morrow at midday the news flashes through Ruritania yes, and through Europe that the king, miraculously preserved to-day " "Praise be to God!" interjected Colonel Sapt; and young Bernenstein laughed. "Has met a tragic end." "It will occasion great grief," said Sapt. "Meanwhile, I am safe over the frontier." "Oh, you are quite safe?" "Absolutely.
And the place where this lawless deed was to be done was not Ruritania or the hazy dominions of Prince Otto, but a commonplace, humdrum American town, not an hour and a half from his office chair by the expresses. In going about this task he was to conduct himself with the frankness and straightforwardness of a sneak-thief. Not a soul in New York was to know where he had gone.
We were now in front of the door of the room where Rudolf Rassendyll had supped with us on the day of his first coming to Ruritania, and whence he had set out to be crowned in Strelsau. On the right of it was the room where the king slept, and farther along in the same direction the kitchen and the cellars.
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.
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