The doctor sacrifices himself, grappling with Detchard before being murdered, giving Rassendyll time to catch up to and kill Detchard, with the King's assistance. Rassendyll slays Bersonin, but Detchard hurries to murder the King. The King is guarded by Detchard and Bersonin. Rassendyll kills one of the Six and takes the key to the King's cell. Then, outnumbered by Michael's men, he dives into the moat. Rassendyll enters the castle by stealth before then, then watches as Rupert, caught trying to force himself on Antoinette, stabs the outraged Michael. Rassendyll offers Johann another large bribe to open the front door at two in the morning. More information is extracted from Johann, including the alarming news that the King is very ill, ill enough for Michael to send for a doctor. Rupert reveals a contributing motive he is attracted to Antoinette de Mauban. With them and Michael all dead (with Rupert's assistance), the two of them would have all the spoils to themselves. Rupert privately makes another proposal: Have Sapt and von Tarlenheim lead an assault on the castle. Later, they encounter Rupert again, this time accompanying the body of his friend, one of the Six killed earlier. Two of the Six are killed, at the cost of three of Sapt's men, but Rupert reaches the safety of the castle. However, they are discovered by three of the Six. He hears the King talking to one of his captors, then returns to his friends. Rassendyll swims the moat at night to reconnoiter. Michael would be no worse off than before, as Rassendyll could hardly accuse him of regicide.Ī few days pass.
At the first sign of an assault, the King is to be killed and his corpse dropped secretly into the water. They take captive Johann, a servant working at the castle, and bribe him into telling all he knows. Rassendyll is only wounded in the shoulder. When Rassendyll turns him down, Rupert flees after trying to kill him with a dagger. When that fails, Rupert Hentzau, one of the Six, pays Rassendyll a visit in order to present him Michael's offer: a million crowns to leave the country. An attempt is made on Rassendyll's life by three of the Six, Michael's most trusted henchmen. Rassendyll, Sapt, von Tarlenheim and ten picked men go "hunting" nearby. She confirms that the King is being held in the castle at Zenda. Antoinette de Mauban, Michael's mistress, does not want to lose him to Flavia. Despite himself, he falls in love with her, and she with him. He learns that everyone expects them to wed. While Sapt searches for the King, Rassendyll becomes acquainted with the beautiful Princess Flavia, who is beloved by the people. Rassendyll must continue his deception, but at least Michael cannot unmask him without incriminating himself.
However, when they go to retrieve the King, they find that he has been abducted. They hide the King in the cellar of the lodge and proceed to the capital. He persuades the Englishman to impersonate the King. Not showing up for the coronation would prove disastrous, but Sapt believes that Fate has sent Rassendyll to Ruritania. His friends cannot rouse him the next morning. However, his younger half-brother Michael, Duke of Strelsau, sees to it he is presented a bottle of drugged wine. The future king and his loyal attendants, Colonel Sapt and Fritz von Tarlenheim, wine and dine their new acquaintance at a hunting-lodge. On the eve of the coronation of Rudolf V of Ruritania, he encounters his distant relative, Englishman Rudolf Rassendyll, come to witness the festivities. The popularity of the novels inspired the Ruritanian romance genre of literature, film, and theatre that features stories set in a fictional country, usually in Central or Eastern Europe, for example Graustark from the novels of George Barr McCutcheon, and the neighbouring countries of Syldavia and Borduria in the Tintin comics. Fortuitously, an English gentleman on holiday in Ruritania who resembles the monarch is persuaded to act as his political decoy in an effort to save the unstable political situation of the interregnum.Ī sequel, Rupert of Hentzau, was published in 1898 and is included in some editions of The Prisoner of Zenda.
Political forces within the realm are such that, in order for the king to retain the crown, his coronation must proceed. The Prisoner of Zenda is an 1894 adventure novel by Anthony Hope, in which the King of Ruritania is drugged on the eve of his coronation and thus is unable to attend the ceremony. Frontispiece to the 1898 Macmillan Publishers edition, illustrated by Charles Dana Gibson
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