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Rh laid there await her cousin's coming or his further injunctions. Thus the king would come to his own again, having wrought brave deeds, and escaped, almost by a miracle, the treacherous assault of his unnatural brother.

This ingenious arrangement of my long-headed old friend prospered in every way, save where it encountered a force that often defeats the most cunning schemes. I mean nothing else than the pleasure of a woman. For let her cousin and sovereign send what command he chose (or Colonel Sapt chose for him), and let Marshal Strakencz insist as he would, the Princess Flavia was in no way minded to rest at Tarlenheim while her lover lay wounded at Zenda; and when the marshal, with a small suite, rode forth from Tarlenheim on the way to Zenda the princess' carriage followed immediately behind, and in this order they passed through the town, where the report was already rife that the king, going the night before to remonstrate with his brother, in all friendliness, for that he held one of the king's friends in confinement in the castle, had been most traitorously set upon; that