what we must do. But I was terribly hampered by the publicity
which attended my movements. Michael must know by now of my expedition;
and I knew Michael too well to suppose that his eyes would be blinded by
the feint of the boar-hunt. He would understand very well what the real
quarry was. That, however, must be risked--that and all it might mean;
for Sapt, no less than myself, recognized that the present state of
things had become unendurable. And there was one thing that I dared to
calculate on--not, as I now know, without warrant. It was this--that
Black Michael would not believe that I meant well by the King. He could
not appreciate--I will not say an honest man, for the thoughts of my
own heart have been revealed--but a man acting honestly. He saw
my opportunity as I had seen it, as Sapt had seen it; he knew the
princess--nay (and I declare that a sneaking sort of pity for him
invaded me), in his way he loved her; he would think that Sapt and Fritz
could be bribed, so the bribe was large enough. Thinking thus, would he
kill the King, my rival and my danger? Ay, verily, that he would, with
as little compunction as he would kill a rat. But he would kill Rudolf
Rassendyll first, if he could; and nothing but the certainty of being
utterly damned by the release of the King alive and his restoration to
the throne would drive him to throw away the trump card which he held in
reserve to baulk the supposed game of the impudent impostor Rassendyll.
Musing on all this as I rode along, I took courage.

Michael knew of my coming, sure enough. I had not been in the house an
hour, when an imposing Embassy arrived from him. He did not quite reach
the impudence of sending my would-be assassins, but he sent the other
three of his famous Six--the three Ruritanian gentlemen--Lauengram,
Krafstein, and Rupert Hentzau. A fine, strapping trio they were,
splendidly horsed and admirably equipped. Young Rupert, who looked
a dare-devil, and could not have been more than twenty-two or
twenty-three, took the lead, and made us the neatest speech, wherein
my devoted subject and loving brother Michael of Strelsau, prayed me to
pardon him for not paying his addresses in person, and, further, for not
putting his Castle at my disposal; the reason for both of these apparent
derelictions being that he and several of his servants lay sick of
scarlet fever, and were in a very sad, and also a very infectious state.
So declared young Rupert with an insolent