CHAPTER XXI. THE COMING OF THE DREAM
THERE IS little need, and I have little heart, to dwell on what followedthe death of Mr. Rassendyll. The plans we had laid to secure his tenureof the throne, in case he had accepted it, served well in the eventof his death. Bauer's lips were for ever sealed; the old woman was tooscared and appalled to hint even to her gossips of the suspicions sheentertained. Rischenheim was loyal to the pledge he had given to thequeen. The ashes of the hunting-lodge held their secret fast, and nonesuspected when the charred body which was called Rudolf Rassendyll's waslaid to quiet rest in the graveyard of the town of Zenda, hard by thetomb of Herbert the forester. For we had from the first rejected anyidea of bringing the king's body to Strelsau and setting it in the placeof Mr. Rassendyll's. The difficulties of such an undertaking were almostinsuperable; in our hearts we did not desire to conquer them. As a kingRudolf Rassendyll had died, as a king let him lie. As a king he lay inhis palace at Strelsau, while the news of his murder at the hands of aconfederate of Rupert of Hentzau went forth to startle and appall theworld. At a mighty price our task had been made easy; many might havedoubted the living, none questioned the dead; suspicions which mighthave gathered round a throne died away at the gate of a vault. The kingwas dead. Who would ask if it were in truth the king who lay in state inthe great hall of the palace, or whether the humble grave at Zenda heldthe bones of the last male Elphberg? In the silence of the grave allmurmurs and questionings were hushed.
Throughout the day people had been passing and repassing through thegreat hall. There, on a stately bier surmounted by a crown and thedrooping folds of the royal banner, lay Rudolf Rassendyll. The highestofficer guarded him; in the cathedral the archbishop said a mass for hissoul. He had lain there three days; the evening of the third had come,and early on the morrow he was to be buried. There is a little galleryin the hall, that looks down on the spot where the bier stood; here wasI on this evening, and with me Queen Flavia. We were alone together, andtogether we saw beneath us the calm face of the dead man. He was cladin the white uniform in which he had been crowned; the ribbon of theRed Rose was across his breast. His hand held a true red rose, fresh andfragrant; Flavia herself had set it there, that even in death he mightnot miss the chosen token of her love. I had not spoken to her, norshe to me, since we came there. We watched the pomp round him, and thecircles of people that came to bring a wreath for him or to look uponhis face. I saw a girl come and kneel long at the bier's foot. She roseand went away sobbing, leaving a little circlet of flowers. It was RosaHolf. I saw women come and go weeping, and men bite their lips as theypassed by. Rischenheim came, pale-faced and troubled; and while all cameand went, there, immovable, with drawn sword, in military stiffness, oldSapt stood at the head of the bier, his eyes set steadily in front ofhim, and his body never stirring from hour to hour through the long day.
A distant faint hum of voices reached us. The queen laid her hand on myarm.
"It is the dream, Fritz," she said. "Hark! They speak of the king; theyspeak in low voices and with grief, but they call him king. It's what Isaw in the dream. But he does not hear nor heed. No, he can't hear norheed even when I call him my king."
A sudden impulse came on me, and I turned to her, asking:
"What had he decided, madam? Would he have been king?" She started alittle.
"He didn't tell me," she answered, "and I didn't think of it while hespoke to me."
"Of what then did he speak, madam?"
"Only of his love--of nothing but his love, Fritz," she answered.
Well, I take it that when a man comes to die, love is more to him thana kingdom: it may be, if we could see truly, that it is more to him evenwhile he lives.
"Of nothing but his great love for me, Fritz," she said again. "And mylove brought him to his death."
"He wouldn't have had it otherwise," said I.
"No," she whispered; and she leant over the parapet of the gallery,stretching out her arms to him. But he lay still and quiet, not hearingand not heeding what she murmured, "My king! my king!" It was even as ithad been in the dream.
That night James, the servant, took leave of his dead master and ofus. He carried to England by word of mouth--for we dared write nothingdown--the truth concerning the King of Ruritania and Mr. Rassendyll.It was to be told to the Earl of Burlesdon, Rudolf's brother, undera pledge of secrecy; and to this day the earl is the only man besidesourselves who knows the story. His errand done, James returned in orderto enter the queen's service, in which he still is; and he told us thatwhen Lord Burlesdon had heard the story he sat silent for a great while,and then said:
"He did well. Some day I will visit his grave. Tell her Majesty thatthere is still a Rassendyll, if she has need of one."
The offer was such as should come from a man of Rudolf's name, yet Itrust that the queen needs no further service than such as it is ourhumble duty and dear delight to render her. It is our part to striveto lighten the burden that she bears, and by our love to assuage herundying grief. For she reigns now in Ruritania alone, the last of allthe Elphbergs; and her only joy is to talk of Mr. Rassendyll with thosefew who knew him, her only hope that she may some day be with him again.
In great pomp we laid him to his rest in the vault of the kings ofRuritania in the Cathedral of Strelsau. There he lies among theprinces of the House of Elphberg. I think that if there be indeed anyconsciousness among the dead, or any knowledge of what passes in theworld they have left, they should be proud to call him brother. Thererises in memory of him a stately monument, and people point it out toone another as the memorial of King Rudolf. I go often to the spot, andrecall in thought all that passed when he came the first time to Zenda,and again on his second coming. For I mourn him as a man mourns atrusted leader and a loved comrade, and I should have asked no betterthan to be allowed to serve him all my days. Yet I serve the queen, andin that I do most truly serve her lover.
Times change for all of us. The roaring flood of youth goes by, and thestream of life sinks to a quiet flow. Sapt is an old man now; soon mysons will be grown up, men enough themselves to serve Queen Flavia. Yetthe memory of Rudolf Rassendyll is fresh to me as on the day he died,and the vision of the death of Rupert of Hentzau dances often beforemy eyes. It may be that some day the whole story shall be told, and menshall judge of it for themselves. To me it seems now as though all hadended well. I must not be misunderstood: my heart is still sore for theloss of him. But we saved the queen's fair fame, and to Rudolf himselfthe fatal stroke came as a relief from a choice too difficult: on theone side lay what impaired his own honor, on the other what threatenedhers. As I think on this my anger at his death is less, though my griefcannot be. To this day I know not how he chose; no, and I don't knowhow he should have chosen. Yet he had chosen, for his face was calm andclear.
Come, I have thought so much of him that I will go now and stand beforehis monument, taking with me my last-born son, a little lad of ten.He is not too young to desire to serve the queen, and not too young tolearn to love and reverence him who sleeps there in the vault and was inhis life the noblest gentleman I have known.
I will take the boy with me and tell him what I may of brave KingRudolf, how he fought and how he loved, and how he held the queen'shonor and his own above all things in this world. The boy is not tooyoung to learn such lessons from the life of Mr. Rassendyll. And whilewe stand there I will turn again into his native tongue--for, alas,the young rogue loves his toy soldiers better than his Latin!--theinscription that the queen wrote with her own hand, directing that itshould be inscribed in that stately tongue over the tomb in which herlife lies buried.
"To Rudolf, who reigned lately in this city, and reigns for ever in herheart.--QUEEN FLAVIA."
I told him the meaning, and he spelt the big words over in his childishvoice; at first he stumbled, but the second time he had it right, andrecited with a little touch of awe in his fresh young tones:
RUDOLFO
Qui in hac civitate nuper regnavit In corde i
psius in aeternum regnat
FLAVIA REGINA.
I felt his hand tremble in mine, and he looked up in my face. "God savethe Queen, father," said he.
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