Chapter Chapter 21 · THE COMING OF THE DREAM

. THE COMING OF THE DREAM

THERE IS little need, and I have little heart, to dwell on what followed

the death of Mr. Rassendyll. The plans we had laid to secure his tenure

of the throne, in case he had accepted it, served well in the event

of his death. Bauer’s lips were for ever sealed; the old woman was too

scared and appalled to hint even to her gossips of the suspicions she

entertained. Rischenheim was loyal to the pledge he had given to the

queen. The ashes of the hunting-lodge held their secret fast, and none

suspected when the charred body which was called Rudolf Rassendyll’s was

laid to quiet rest in the graveyard of the town of Zenda, hard by the

tomb of Herbert the forester. For we had from the first rejected any

idea of bringing the king’s body to Strelsau and setting it in the place

of Mr. Rassendyll’s. The difficulties of such an undertaking were almost

insuperable; in our hearts we did not desire to conquer them. As a king

Rudolf Rassendyll had died, as a king let him lie. As a king he lay in

his palace at Strelsau, while the news of his murder at the hands of a

confederate of Rupert of Hentzau went forth to startle and appall the

world. At a mighty price our task had been made easy; many might have

doubted the living, none questioned the dead; suspicions which might

have gathered round a throne died away at the gate of a vault. The king

was dead. Who would ask if it were in truth the king who lay in state in

the great hall of the palace, or whether the humble grave at Zenda held

the bones of the last male Elphberg? In the silence of the grave all

murmurs and questionings were hushed.

Throughout the day people had been passing and repassing through the

great hall. There, on a stately bier surmounted by a crown and the

drooping folds of the royal banner, lay Rudolf Rassendyll. The highest

officer guarded him; in the cathedral the archbishop said a mass for his

soul. 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 gallery

in the hall, that looks down on the spot where the bier stood; here was

I on this evening, and with me Queen Flavia. We were alone together, and

together we saw beneath us the calm face of the dead man. He was clad

in the white uniform in which he had been crowned; the ribbon of the

Red Rose was across his breast. His hand held a true red rose, fresh and

fragrant; Flavia herself had set it there, that even in death he might

not miss the chosen token of her love. I had not spoken to her, nor

she to me, since we came there. We watched the pomp round him, and the

circles of people that came to bring a wreath for him or to look upon

his face. I saw a girl come and kneel long at the bier’s foot. She rose

and went away sobbing, leaving a little circlet of flowers. It was Rosa

Holf. I saw women come and go weeping, and men bite their lips as they

passed by. Rischenheim came, pale-faced and troubled; and while all came

and went, there, immovable, with drawn sword, in military stiffness, old

Sapt stood at the head of the bier, his eyes set steadily in front of

him, 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 my

arm.

“It is the dream, Fritz,” she said. “Hark! They speak of the king; they

speak in low voices and with grief, but they call him king. It’s what I

saw in the dream. But he does not hear nor heed. No, he can’t hear nor

heed 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 a

little.

“He didn’t tell me,” she answered, “and I didn’t think of it while he

spoke 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 than

a kingdom: it may be, if we could see truly, that it is more to him even

while he lives.

“Of nothing but his great love for me, Fritz,” she said again. “And my

love 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 hearing

and not heeding what she murmured, “My king! my king!” It was even as it

had been in the dream.

That night James, the servant, took leave of his dead master and of

us. He carried to England by word of mouth--for we dared write nothing

down--the truth concerning the King of Ruritania and Mr. Rassendyll.

It was to be told to the Earl of Burlesdon, Rudolf’s brother, under

a pledge of secrecy; and to this day the earl is the only man besides

ourselves who knows the story. His errand done, James returned in order

to enter the queen’s service, in which he still is; and he told us that

when 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 that

there 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 I

trust that the queen needs no further service than such as it is our

humble duty and dear delight to render her. It is our part to strive

to lighten the burden that she bears, and by our love to assuage her

undying grief. For she reigns now in Ruritania alone, the last of all

the Elphbergs; and her only joy is to talk of Mr. Rassendyll with those

few 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 of

Ruritania in the Cathedral of Strelsau. There he lies among the

princes of the House of Elphberg. I think that if there be indeed any

consciousness among the dead, or any knowledge of what passes in the

world they have left, they should be proud to call him brother. There

rises in memory of him a stately monument, and people point it out to

one another as the memorial of King Rudolf. I go often to the spot, and

recall 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 a

trusted leader and a loved comrade, and I should have asked no better

than to be allowed to serve him all my days. Yet I serve the queen, and

in that I do most truly serve her lover.

Times change for all of us. The roaring flood of youth goes by, and the

stream of life sinks to a quiet flow. Sapt is an old man now; soon my

sons will be grown up, men enough themselves to serve Queen Flavia. Yet

the 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 before

my eyes. It may be that some day the whole story shall be told, and men

shall judge of it for themselves. To me it seems now as though all had

ended well. I must not be misunderstood: my heart is still sore for the

loss of him. But we saved the queen’s fair fame, and to Rudolf himself

the fatal stroke came as a relief from a choice too difficult: on the

one side lay what impaired his own honor, on the other what threatened

hers. As I think on this my anger at his death is less, though my grief

cannot be. To this day I know not how he chose; no, and I don’t know

how he should have chosen. Yet he had chosen, for his face was calm and

clear.

Come, I have thought so much of him that I will go now and stand before

his 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 to

learn to love and reverence him who sleeps there in the vault and was in

his life the noblest gentleman I have known.

I will take the boy with me and tell him what I may of brave King

Rudolf, how he fought and how he loved, and how he held the queen’s

honor and his own above all things in this world. The boy is not too

young to learn such lessons from the life of Mr. Rassendyll. And while

we stand there I will turn again into his native tongue--for, alas,

the young rogue loves his toy soldiers better than his Latin!--the

inscription that the queen wrote with her own hand, directing that it

should be inscribed in that stately tongue over the tomb in which her

life lies buried.

“To Rudolf, who reigned lately in this city, and reigns for ever in her

heart.--QUEEN FLAVIA.”

I told him the meaning, and he spelt the big words over in his childish

voice; at first he stumbled, but the second time he had it right, and

recited with a little touch of awe in his fresh young tones:

RUDOLFO

Qui in hac civitate nuper regnavit In corde ipsius in aeternum regnat

FLAVIA REGINA.

I felt his hand tremble in mine, and he looked up in my face. “God save

the Queen, father,” said he.