CHAPTER VII.
THE MESSAGE OF SIMON THE HUNTSMAN.
I RECEIVED the telegram sent to me by the Constable of Zenda at my own house in Strelsau about one o'clock. It is needless to say that I made immediate preparations to obey the summons. My wife indeed protested—and I must admit with some show of reason—that I was unfit to endure fatigues, and that my bed was the only proper place for me. I could not listen; and James, Mr. Rassendyll's servant, being informed of the message, was at my elbow with a card of the trains from Strelsau to Zenda, without waiting for any order from me. I had talked to this man in the course of our journey, and discovered that he had been in the service of Lord Topham, formerly British Ambassador to the Court of Ruritania. How far he was acquainted with the secrets of his present master I did not know, but his familiarity with the city and the country made him of great use to me. We discovered, to our annoyance, that no train left till four o'clock, and then only a slow one; the result being
