' But if any asks who the prisoner is, do not answer. For all my
promises will not save you if any man here learns from you the truth as
to the prisoner of Zenda. I'll kill you like a dog if the thing be so
much as breathed within the house!"
Then, when he was gone, I looked at Sapt.
"It's a hard nut!" said I.
"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 medical faculty 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 unwilling
escort (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.
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