Page:Anthony Hope - Rupert of Hentzau.djvu/166



HE moment with its shock and tumult of feeling brings one judgment, later reflection another. Among the sins of Rupert of Hentzau I do not assign the first and greatest place to his killing of the King. It was indeed the act of a reckless man who stood at nothing and held nothing sacred; but when I consider Herbert's story, and trace how the deed came to be done and the impulsion of circumstances that led to it, it seems to have been in some sort thrust upon him by the same perverse fate that dogged our steps. He had meant the King no harm—indeed it may be argued that, from whatever motive, he had sought to serve him—and save under the sudden stress of self-defence he had done him none. The King's unlooked-for ignorance of his errand, Herbert's honest hasty zeal, the temper of Boris the hound, had forced on him an act unmeditated and utterly against his interest. His whole guilt lay in preferring the King's death to his own—a crime perhaps in most men, but hardly deserving a place in Rupert's