"Don't leave him till
he sends you away."
"Very well, sir."
I raised myself in bed.
"Here's luck," I cried, catching up the lemonade James had
brought me, and taking a gulp of it.
"Please God," said Rudolf, with a shrug.
And he was gone to his work and his reward--to save the queen's
letter and to see the queen's face. Thus he went a second time to
Zenda.
CHAPTER IV. AN EDDY ON THE MOAT
On the evening of Thursday, the sixteenth of October, the
Constable of Zenda was very much out of humor; he has since
confessed as much. To risk the peace of a palace for the sake of
a lover's greeting had never been wisdom to his mind, and he had
been sorely impatient with "that fool Fritz's" yearly pilgrimage.
The letter of farewell had been an added folly, pregnant with
chances of disaster. Now disaster, or the danger of it, had come.
The curt, mysterious telegram from Wintenberg, which told him so
little, at least told him that. It ordered him--and he did not
know even whose the order was--to delay Rischenheim's audience,
or, if he could not, to get the king away from Zenda: why he was
to act thus was not disclosed to him. But he knew as well as I
that Rischenheim was completely in Rupert's hands, and he could
not fail to guess that something had gone wrong at Wintenberg,
and that Rischenheim came to tell the king some news that the
king must not hear.
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