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Updated: May 5, 2025
Sapt was still smiling in grim amusement when the messenger came up and, leaning from his home, handed him a telegram. "Special and urgent, sir," said he. Sapt tore it open and read. It was the message that I sent in obedience to Mr. Rassendyll's orders. He would not trust my cipher, but, indeed, none was necessary.
He told me that the King was doing well, that he had seen the princess; that she and he, Sapt and Fritz, had been long together. Marshal Strakencz was gone to Strelsau; Black Michael lay in his coffin, and Antoinette de Mauban watched by him; had I not heard, from the chapel, priests singing mass for him? Outside there were strange rumours afloat.
The cause of his wound is not known, but it is suspected that he has fought a duel, probably incidental to a love affair." "That is remotely true," I observed, very well pleased to find that I had left my mark on the fellow. "Then we come to this," pursued Sapt: "'Madame de Mauban, whose movements have been watched according to instructions, left by train at midday.
When I look back on the time, I seem to myself to have been half mad. Sapt has told me that I suffered no interference and listened to no remonstrances; and if ever a King of Ruritania ruled like a despot, I was, in those days, the man. Look where I would, I saw nothing that made life sweet to me, and I took my life in my hand and carried it carelessly as a man dangles an old glove.
We looked at one another; the noise did not produce any answering stir in the house; then came the sharp little explosion of a match struck on its box; next we heard Sapt raising himself, his scabbard scraping along the stones; his footsteps came towards us, and in a second he appeared at the door. "What was it?" I whispered. "I fell," said Sapt. "Over what?" "Come and see. James, stay here."
At last, at three in the morning, when the cold light of dawning day began to steal in, I was in my dressing-room, and Sapt alone was with me. I sat like a man dazed, staring into the fire; he puffed at his pipe; Fritz was gone to bed, having almost refused to speak to me. On the table by me lay a rose; it had been in Flavia's dress, and, as we parted, she had kissed it and given it to me.
"I think, my lord, that the message is an address." "An address! I never thought of that. But I know no Holf." "I don't think it's Holf's address." "Whose, then?" asked Rischenheim, biting his nail, and looking furtively at the constable. "Why," said Sapt, "the present address of Count Rupert of Hentzau." As he spoke, he fixed his eyes on the eyes of Rischenheim.
The service seemed so great and the honor so high, that he almost wished he could die in the performing of his role. It would be a finer death than his soldier's dreams had dared to picture. At one o'clock Colonel Sapt came out. "Go to bed till six," said he to Bernenstein. "I'm not sleepy." "No, but you will be at eight if you don't sleep now." "Is the queen coming out, Colonel?"
Then I heard a well-known, loud, strident voice: "Make way, you rascals, make way." I turned round again, full of excitement. "It's Sapt himself!" I said. "He's riding like mad through the crowd, and your servant's just behind him." "My God, what's happened? Why have they left the lodge?" cried Bernenstein.
They dug up the buried dog, Sapt chuckling convulsively, James grave as the mute whose grim doings he seemed to travesty: they carried the shot-pierced, earth-grimed thing in, and laid it in the king's room. Then they made their piles of wood, pouring the store of oil over them, and setting bottles of spirit near, that the flames having cracked the bottles, might gain fresh fuel.
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