Rupert of Hentzau by Anthony Hope

Author:Anthony Hope [Hope, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Impostors and imposture -- Fiction, Adventure stories, British -- Foreign countries -- Fiction
Published: 1997-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII. BEFORE THEM ALL!

GREAT as was the risk and immense as were the difficulties created by the course which Mr. Rassendyll adopted, I cannot doubt that he acted for the best in the light of the information which he possessed. His plan was to disclose himself in the character of the king to Helsing, to bind him to secrecy, and make him impose the same obligation on his wife, daughter, and servants. The chancellor was to be quieted with the excuse of urgent business, and conciliated by a promise that he should know its nature in the course of a few hours; meanwhile an appeal to his loyalty must suffice to insure obedience. If all went well in the day that had now dawned, by the evening of it the letter would be destroyed, the queen's peril past, and Rudolf once more far away from Strelsau. Then enough of the truth—no more—must be disclosed. Helsing would be told the story of Rudolf Rassendyll and persuaded to hold his tongue about the harum-scarum Englishman (we are ready to believe much of an Englishman) having been audacious enough again to play the king in Strelsau. The old chancellor was a very good fellow, and I do not think that Rudolf did wrong in relying upon him. Where he miscalculated was, of course, just where he was ignorant. The whole of what the queen's friends, ay, and the queen herself, did in Strelsau, became useless and mischievous by reason of the king's death; their action must have been utterly different, had they been aware of that catastrophe; but their wisdom must be judged only according to their knowledge.

In the first place, the chancellor himself showed much good sense. Even before he obeyed the king's summons he sent for the two servants and charged them, on pain of instant dismissal and worse things to follow, to say nothing of what they had seen. His commands to his wife and daughter were more polite, doubtless, but no less peremptory. He may well have supposed that the king's business was private as well as important when it led his Majesty to be roaming the streets of Strelsau at a moment when he was supposed to be at the Castle of Zenda, and to enter a friend's house by the window at such untimely hours. The mere facts were eloquent of secrecy. Moreover, the king had shaved his beard—the ladies were sure of it—and this, again, though it might be merely an accidental coincidence, was also capable of signifying a very urgent desire to be unknown. So the chancellor, having given his orders, and being himself aflame with the liveliest curiosity, lost no time in obeying the king's commands, and arrived at my house before six o'clock.

When the visitor was announced Rudolf was upstairs, having a bath and some breakfast. Helga had learnt her lesson well enough to entertain the visitor until Rudolf appeared. She was full of apologies for my absence, protesting that she could

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