It may be that I ought to have preserved my composure. But I am not Sapt nor Rudolf Rassendyll.
"The King here?" I gasped, clutching him by the arm.
"Of course. You didn't know? Yes, he's in town."
But I heeded him no more. For a moment I could not speak, then I cried to the cabman:
"To the Palace. And drive like the devil!"
We shot away, leaving Anton open-mouthed in wonder. I sank back on the cushions, fairly aghast. The King lay dead in the hunting-lodge, but the King was in his capital!
Of course the truth soon flashed through my mind, but it brought no comfort. Rudolf Rassendyll was in Strelsau. He had been seen by somebody and taken for the King. But comfort? What comfort was there, now that the King was dead and could never come to the rescue of his counterfeit?
In fact the truth was worse than I conceived. Had I known it all, I might well have yielded to despair. For not by the chance uncertain sight of a passer-by, not by mere rumour which might have been sturdily denied, not by the evidence of one only or of two, was the King's presence in the city known. That day, by the witness of a crowd of people, by his own claim and his own voice, aye, and by the assent of the Queen herself, Mr. Rassendyll was
