Adventure stories; Love -- Fiction; Princesses -- Fiction; Short stories
"By your bounty, madame, I have money, and he who has money can get
knowledge. So I know that the Prince is there. For fifty crowns I gained
a servant of his, and he told me."
"I do not know why you should spy on the Prince," said Osra, "and I do
not care to know where the Prince is;" and she touched her horse with
the spur and cantered forward fast, leaving the little house behind. But
Christian persisted, partly in a foolish grudge against any man who
should win what was above his reach, partly in an honest anger that she,
whom he worshipped, should be treated lightly by another; and he forced
her to hear what he had learnt from the gossip of the Prince's groom,
telling it to her in hints and half-spoken sentences, yet so plainly
that she could not miss the gist of it.
She rode the faster towards Strelsau, at first answering nothing; but at
last she turned on him fiercely, saying that he told a lie, and that she
knew it was a lie, since she knew where the Prince was, and what
business had taken him away; and she commanded Christian to be silent
and to speak neither to her nor to any one else of his false suspicions;
and she bade him very harshly to fall back and ride behind her again,
which he did, sullen yet satisfied. For he knew that his arrow had gone
home. On she rode, with her cheeks aflame and her heart beating, until
she came to Strelsau; having arrived at the Palace, she ran to her own
bedroom and flung herself on the bed.
Here for an hour she lay; then, it being about six o'clock, she sat up,
pushing her disordered hair back from her hot aching brow. An agony of
humiliation had come upon her, and a fury of resentment against the
Prince, whose coldness seemed now to need no more explanation. Yet she
could hardly believe what she had been told of him, for though she had
not loved him, she had accorded to him her full trust. Rising, she paced
in pain about the room. She could not rest; she cried out in longing
that her brother were there, to aid her and find out the truth for her.
But he was away, and she had none to whom she could turn. So she strove
to master her anger and endure her suspense till the next day, but they
were too strong for her, and she cried:
"I will go myself, I cannot sleep till I know. But I cannot go alone.
Who will go with me?" But she knew of none, for she would not take
Christian with her, and she shrank from speaking of the matter to any
gentlemen of the Court. Yet she must know. At last she sprang from the
chair into which she had sunk despondent, exclaiming:
"He is a gentleman and my friend. He will go with me." And she sent
hastily for the Bishop of Modenstein, who was then in Strelsau, bidding
him come dressed for riding, with a sword, and on the best horse in his
stables. The Bishop came equipped as she bade him, and in very great
wonder. But when she told what she wanted, and what Christian had made
known to her, he grew grave, saying that they must wait and consult the
King, when he returned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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