The metamorphosis had happened; and the King, wounded almost
to death by the attacks of the gaolers who guarded his friend, had
at last overcome them, and rested now, wounded but alive, in Black
Michael's own room in the Castle. There he had been carried, his face
covered with a cloak, from the cell; and thence orders issued, that if
his friend were found, he should be brought directly and privately to
the King, and that meanwhile messengers should ride at full speed to
Tarlenheim, to tell Marshall Strakencz to assure the princess of the
King's safety and to come himself with all speed to greet the King.
The princess was enjoined to remain at Tarlenheim, and there await her
cousin's coming or his further injunctions. Thus the King would come
to his own again, having wrought brave deeds, and escaped, almost by a
miracle, the treacherous assault of his unnatural brother.
This ingenious arrangement of my long-headed old friend prospered in
every way, save where it encountered a force that often defeats the most
cunning schemes. I mean nothing else than the pleasure of a woman. For,
let her cousin and sovereign send what command he chose (or Colonel
Sapt chose for him), and let Marshal Strakencz insist as he would, the
Princess Flavia was in no way minded to rest at Tarlenheim while her
lover lay wounded at Zenda; and when the Marshal, with a small suite,
rode forth from Tarlenheim on the way to Zenda, the princess's carriage
followed immediately behind, and in this order they passed through the
town, where the report was already rife that the King, going the night
before to remonstrate with his brother, in all friendliness, for that
he held one of the King's friends in confinement in the Castle, had been
most traitorously set upon; that there had been a desperate conflict;
that the duke was slain with several of his gentlemen; and that the
King, wounded as he was, had seized and held the Castle of Zenda.
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