Page:Anthony Hope - Rupert of Hentzau.djvu/167

Rh catalogue. All this I can admit now, but on that night, with the dead body lying there before us, with the story piteously told by Herbert's faltering voice fresh in our ears, it was hard to allow any such extenuation. Our hearts cried out for vengeance, although we ourselves served the King no more. Nay, it may well be that we hoped to stifle some reproach of our own consciences by a louder clamour against another's sin, or longed to offer some fancied empty atonement to our dead master by executing swift justice on the man who had killed him. I cannot tell fully what the others felt, but in me at least the dominant impulse was to waste not a moment in proclaiming the crime and raising the whole country in pursuit of Rupert, so that every man in Ruritania should quit his work, his pleasure, or his bed, and make it his concern to take the Count of Hentzau, alive or dead. I remember that I walked over to where Sapt was sitting, and caught him by the arm, saying:

"We must raise the alarm. If you'll go to Zenda, I'll start for Strelsau."

"The alarm?" said he, looking up at me and tugging his moustache.

"Yes: when the news is known, every man in the kingdom will be on the look-out for him, and he can't escape."

"So that he'd be taken?" asked the Constable.