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Updated: May 5, 2025
"I have had a great fight with Sapt and the Marshal for we have told the Marshal everything. I wanted to take you to Strelsau and keep you with me, and tell everyone of what you had done; and you would have been my best and nearest friend, Cousin Rudolf. But they tell me I must not, and that the secret must be kept if kept it can be." "They are right, sire. Let me go. My work here is done."
"In case," said he; and we shook hands heartily. "Damn your sentiment!" growled Sapt. "Come along." He went, not to the door, but to a panel in the wall. "In the old King's time," said he, "I knew this way well." I followed him, and we walked, as I should estimate, near two hundred yards along a narrow passage. Then we came to a stout oak door. Sapt unlocked it.
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.
It is my belief that, given the necessary physical likeness, it was far easier to pretend to be King of Ruritania than it would have been to personate my next-door neighbour. One day Sapt came into my room. He threw me a letter, saying: "That's for you a woman's hand, I think. But I've some news for you first." "What's that?" "The King's at the Castle of Zenda," said he. "How do you know?"
Old Sapt broke it by saying sadly, yet with an unmeant drollery that set Fritz and me laughing: "Why didn't old Rudolf the Third marry your great-grandmother, was it?" "Come," said I, "it is the King we are thinking about." "It is true," said Fritz.
Cowed as Rischenheim appeared, they dared not let him out of their sight. Rudolf could not leave the room into which Sapt had locked him; the king's absence was to be short, and before he came again Rudolf must be gone, Rischenheim safely disposed of, and measures taken against the original letter reaching the hands for which the intercepted copy had been destined. The room was a large one.
I regained strength, and darted across towards the inside room. Here too the light was dim, and I turned to beckon for the lamp. Sapt and James came together, and stood peering over my shoulder in the doorway. The king lay prone on the floor, face downwards, near the bed. He had crawled there, seeking for some place to rest, as we supposed. He did not move.
For it was the body of Josef, the little servant, slain in guarding the King. I felt a hand on my shoulders, and, turning, saw Sapt, eyes glaring and terror-struck, beside me. "The King? My God! the King?" he whispered hoarsely. I threw the candle's gleam over every inch of the cellar. "The King is not here," said I. His Majesty Sleeps in Strelsau
I took hold of the cloth and pulled. Boris held on even in death. Sapt drew his sword, and, inserting the point of it between the dog's teeth, parted them enough for me to draw out the piece of cloth. "You'd better put it in your pocket," said the constable.
The two were back in their little room now, past the door that hid the bodies of the king and his huntsman. James stood by the table, old Sapt roamed up and down, tugging his moustache, and now and again sawing the air with his sturdy hairy hand. "I daren't do it," he muttered: "I daren't do it. It's a thing a man can't set his hand to of his own will. But the fate'll do it the fate'll do it.
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