Page:The Prisoner of Zenda.djvu/190

 CHAPTER XIII. AN IMPROVEMENT ON JACOB'S LADDER.

the morning of the day after that on which I swore my oath against the Six I gave certain orders and then rested in greater contentment than I had known for some time. I was at work; and work, though it cannot cure love, is yet a narcotic to it. So that Sapt, who grew feverish, marveled to see me sprawling in an armchair in the sunshine, listening to one of my friends who sang me amorous songs in a mellow voice and induced in me a pleasing melancholy. Thus was I engaged when young Rupert Hentzau, who feared neither man nor devil, and rode through the demesne—where every tree might hide a marksman, for all he knew—as though it had been the park at Strelsau, cantered up to where I lay, bowing with burlesque deference, and craving private speech with me in order to deliver a message from the 172