The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope Read Free Book Online Page A

The Marshal smiled grimly. I had stolen some glances at his face, but he was too impassive to show me whether his sympathies were with me or not.
    â€œThe red rose for the Elphbergs, Marshal,” said I gaily, and he nodded.
    I have written “gaily,” and a strange word it must seem. But the truth is, that I was drunk with excitement. At that moment I believed—I almost believed—that I was in very truth the King; and, with a look of laughing triumph, I raised my eyes to the beauty-laden balconies again … and then I started. For, looking down on me, with her handsome face and proud smile, was the lady who had been my fellow traveller—Antoinette de Mauban; and I saw her also start, and her lips moved, and she leant forward and gazed at me. And I, collecting myself, met her eyes full and square, while again I felt my revolver. Suppose she had cried aloud, “That’s not the King!”
    Well, we went by; and then the Marshal, turning round in his saddle, waved his hand, and the Cuirassiers closed round us, so that the crowd could not come near me. We were leaving my quarter and entering Duke Michael’s, and this action of the Marshal’s showed me more clearly than words what the state of feeling in the town must be. But if Fate made me a King, the least I could do was to play the part handsomely.
    â€œWhy this change in our order, Marshal?” said I.
    The Marshal bit his white moustache.
    â€œIt is more prudent, sire,” he murmured.
    I drew rein.
    â€œLet those in front ride on,” said I, “till they are fifty yards ahead. But do you, Marshal, and Colonel Sapt and my friends, wait here till I have ridden fifty yards. And see that no one is nearer to me. I will have my people see that their King trusts them.”
    Sapt laid his hand on my arm. I shook him off. The Marshal hesitated.
    â€œAm I not understood?” said I; and, biting his moustache again, he gave the orders. I saw old Sapt smiling into his beard, but he shook his head at me. If I had been killed in open day in the streets of Strelsau, Sapt’s position would have been a difficult one.
    Perhaps I ought to say that I was dressed all in white, except my boots. I wore a silver helmet with gilt ornaments, and the broad ribbon of the Rose looked well across my chest. I should be paying a poor compliment to the King if I did not set modesty aside and admit that I made a very fine figure. So the people thought; for when I, riding alone, entered the dingy, sparsely decorated, sombre streets of the Old Town, there was first a murmur, then a cheer, and a woman, from a window above a cookshop, cried the old local saying:
    â€œIf he’s red, he’s right!” whereat I laughed and took off my helmet that she might see that I was of the right colour and they cheered me again at that.
    It was more interesting riding thus alone, for I heard the comments of the crowd.
    â€œHe looks paler than his wont,” said one.
    â€œYou’d look pale if you lived as he does,” was the highly disrespectful retort.
    â€œHe’s a bigger man than I thought,” said another.
    â€œSo he had a good jaw under that beard after all,” commented a third.
    â€œThe pictures of him aren’t handsome enough,” declared a pretty girl, taking great care that I should hear. No doubt it was mere flattery.
    But, in spite of these signs of approval and interest, the mass of the people received me in silence and with sullen looks, and my dear brother’s portrait ornamented most of the windows—which was an ironical sort of greeting to the King. I was quite glad that he had been spared the unpleasant sight. He was a man of quick temper, and perhaps he would not have taken it so placidly as I did.
    At last we were at the Cathedral. Its great grey front, embellished with hundreds of statues and boasting a pair of the finest oak doors in Europe, rose for the first time before me, and the sudden