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The Prisoner of Zenda-Part16_Anthony Hope(1863-1933)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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"So hard," said he, shaking his grizzled head, "that as I think,

this time next year is like to find you still King of Ruritania!"



and he broke out into curses on Michael's cunning.

I lay back on my pillows.



"There seems to me," I observed, "to be two ways by which

the King can come out of Zenda alive. One is by treachery



in the duke's followers."

"You can leave that out," said Sapt.



"I hope not," I rejoined, "because the other I was about to mention is--

by a miracle from heaven!"



CHAPTER 14

A Night Outside the Castle



It would have surprised the good people of Ruritania to know

of the foregoing talk; for, according to the official reports,



I had suffered a grievous and dangerous hurt from an accidental

spear-thrust, received in the course of my sport. I caused the



bulletins to be of a very serious character, and created great

public excitement, whereby three things occurred: first, I gravely



offended the medicalfaculty of Strelsau by refusing to summon

to my bedside any of them, save a young man, a friend of Fritz's,



whom we could trust; secondly, I received word from Marshal Strakencz

that my orders seemed to have no more weight than his,



and that the Princess Flavia was leaving for Tarlenheim

under his unwillingescort (news whereat I strove not to be



glad and proud); and thirdly, my brother, the Duke of Strelsau,

although too well informed to believe the account of the origin



of my sickness, was yet persuaded by the reports and by my seeming

inactivity that I was in truth incapable of action, and that my life



was in some danger. This I learnt from the man Johann, whom I was compelled

to trust and send back to Zenda, where, by the way, Rupert Hentzau had him



soundly flogged for daring to smirch the morals of Zenda by staying out

all night in the pursuits of love. This, from Rupert, Johann deeply resented,



and the duke's approval of it did more to bind the keeper to my side

than all my promises.



On Flavia's arrival I cannot dwell. Her joy at finding me up

and well, instead of on my back and fighting with death,



makes a picture that even now dances before my eyes till they grow

too dim to see it; and her reproaches that I had not trusted even her



must excuse the means I took to quiet them. In truth, to have her

with me once more was like a taste of heaven to a damned soul,



the sweeter for the inevitable doom that was to follow;

and I rejoiced in being able to waste two whole days with her.



And when I had wasted two days, the Duke of Strelsau arranged

a hunting-party.



The stroke was near now. For Sapt and I, after anxious consultations,

had resolved that we must risk a blow, our resolution being clinched



by Johann's news that the King grew peaked, pale, and ill, and that

his health was breaking down under his rigorous confinement.



Now a man--be he king or no king--may as well die swiftly

and as becomes a gentleman, from bullet or thrust, as rot his life out



in a cellar! That thought made prompt action advisable in the interests

of the King; from my own point of view, it grew more and more necessary.



For Strakencz urged on me the need of a speedy marriage, and my own

inclinations seconded him with such terrible insistence that I feared



for my resolution. I do not believe that I should have done the deed

I dreamt of; but I might have come to flight, and my flight would have



ruined the cause. And--yes, I am no saint (ask my little sister-in-law),

and worse still might have happened.



It is perhaps as strange a thing as has ever been in the history

of a country that the King's brother and the King's personator,



in a time of profoundoutward peace, near a placid, undisturbed

country town, under semblance of amity, should wage a desperate



war for the person and life of the King. Yet such was the struggle

that began now between Zenda and Tarlenheim. When I look back on the time,



I seem to myself to have been half mad. Sapt has told me that I suffered




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