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Updated: June 2, 2025
Rudolf had spent some time once in Strelsau; but a king learns little of back streets, and he was soon fairly puzzled as to his whereabouts. Day was dawning, and he began to meet people here and there.
I exclaimed. "Upon my honour, I'm not the only man who's had a trying day! What did he think, Sapt?" "What does that matter? What does he think, lad, now?" I rose to my feet. "We must get back," I said, "and rouse every soldier in Strelsau. We ought to be in pursuit of Michael before midday." Old Sapt pulled out his pipe and carefully lit it from the candle which guttered on the table.
The numbers of the houses in the Konigstrasse begin, as anybody familiar with Strelsau will remember, at the end adjoining the station.
So alarmed were they, that they had sent for a physician from Strelsau; and the physician having been introduced into the King's cell, had come forth pale and trembling, and urgently prayed the duke to let him go back and meddle no more in the affair; but the duke would not, and held him there a prisoner, telling him his life was safe if the King lived while the duke desired and died when the duke desired not otherwise.
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.
There rises often before my mind the picture of young Rupert, standing where Rischenheim left him, awaiting the return of his messenger and watching for some sign that should declare to Strelsau the death of its king which his own hand had wrought.
And he was here in Strelsau, known as the king to half a dozen people or more, protected only by their promises, liable at any moment to be exposed by the coming of the king himself, or even by a message from him. Yet, in face of all perplexities, perhaps even the more because of the darkness in which he was enveloped, Rudolf held firm to his purpose. There were two things that seemed plain.
I fear he thought the baker's rolling-pin was in my mind, but at any rate I extorted a consent from him, and was on my way home from Wintenberg not much more than twelve hours after Rudolf Rassendyll left me. Thus I arrived at my own house in Strelsau on the same Friday morning that witnessed the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim's two-fold interview with the king at the Castle of Zenda.
A man who has lived in the world, marking how every act, although in itself perhaps light and insignificant, may become the source of consequences that spread far and wide, and flow for years or centuries, could scarcely feel secure in reckoning that with the death of the Duke of Strelsau and the restoration of King Rudolf to liberty and his throne, there would end, for good and all, the troubles born of Black Michael's daring conspiracy.
On she rode, with her cheeks aflame and her heart beating, until she came to Strelsau, and having arrived at the palace, ran to her own bedroom and flung herself on the bed. Here for an hour she lay; then, it being about six o'clock, she sat up, pushing her disordered hair back from her hot, aching brow.
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