stand.

"The colonel and I," he explained, "leave here at six: we ride down to
Zenda and return with the guard of honour to fetch the King at eight,
and then we all ride together to the station."

"Hang that same guard!" growled Sapt.

"Oh! it's very civil of my brother to ask the honour for his regiment,"
said the King. "Come, cousin, you need not start early. Another bottle,
man!"

I had another bottle--or, rather, a part of one, for the larger half
travelled quickly down his Majesty's throat. Fritz gave up his attempts
at persuasion: from persuading, he fell to being persuaded, and soon we
were all of us as full of wine as we had any right to be. The King began
talking of what he would do in the future, old Sapt of what he had
done in the past, Fritz of some beautiful girl or other, and I of the
wonderful merits of the Elphberg dynasty. We all talked at once, and
followed to the letter Sapt's exhortation to let the morrow take care of
itself.

At last the King set down his glass and leant back in his chair.

"I have drunk enough," said he.

"Far be it from me to contradict the King," said I.

Indeed, his remark was most absolutely true--so far as it went.

While I yet spoke, Josef came and set before the King a marvellous old
wicker-covered flagon. It had lain so long in some darkened cellar that
it seemed to blink in the candlelight.

"His Highness the Duke of Strelsau bade me set this wine before the
King, when the King was weary of all other wines, and pray the King to
drink, for the love that he bears his brother."

"Well done, Black Michael!" said the King. "Out with the cork, Josef.
Hang him! Did he think I'd flinch from his bottle?"

The bottle was opened, and Josef filled the King's glass. The King
tasted it. Then, with a solemnity born of the hour and his own
condition, he looked round on us:

"Gentlemen, my friends--Rudolf, my cousin ('tis a scandalous story,
Rudolf, on my honour!), everything is yours to the half of Ruritania.
But ask me not for a single drop of this divine bottle, which I will
drink to the health of that--that sly knave, my brother, Black Michael."

And the King seized the bottle and turned it over his mouth, and drained
it and flung it from him, and laid his head on his arms on the table.

And we drank pleasant dreams to his Majesty--and that is all I remember
of the evening. Perhaps it is enough.

CHAPTER 4

The King Keeps His Appointment

Whether I had