Zenda Chapter 4

The Prisoner of Zenda Mr.
Mohamed El-Sheikh
Chapter 4 Maadi STEM School for Girls
Chapter 4
The King Keeps His Appointment
• The King is drugged:
- Rassendyll awoke with a start and a shiver; his face, hair and clothes
dripped water.
- Opposite him stood old Sapt, a sneering smile on his face and an empty
bucket in his hand.
- On the table by Sapt sat Fritz von Tarlenheim, very pale.
- Rassendyll leapt to his feet in anger and told Sapt that what he did was a
silly joke.
- Sapt told Rassendyll that they had no time for quarrelling and that
nothing else would rouse him.
- Fritz showed Rassendyll the king lying full length on the floor. His face
was red as his hair, and he breathed heavily.
- The King’s face and head were wet with water.
- Fritz told Rassendyll that they had spent half on the King, but they
couldn’t wake him up.
- Sapt told them that the King drank three times what either of them did.
- Rassendyll knelt down and felt the King’s pulse. It was alarmingly weak
and slow.
- Rassendyll asked if the last bottle was drugged and suggested getting a
doctor.
- Sapt told Rassendyll there was no doctor within ten miles, and a
thousand doctors wouldn't take him to Strelsau that day, and added that
he would not move for six or seven hours.
- Rassendyll asked about the coronation, and Fritz shrugged his
shoulders, as he did in most occasions.
- Fritz suggested sending a message to Strelsau that the King was ill.
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The Prisoner of Zenda Mr. Mohamed El-Sheikh
- Old Sapt said that if he was not crowned that day, he would never be
crowned because all the nation and half the army were there to meet
him. He added that they couldn’t send a message that the King was
drunk. Old Sapt knew that they wouldn’t believe that the King was ill;
they would know the he was drunk as usual.
- They thought that the King was drugged by Michael because Michael
wanted to prevent him from being crowned. Michael wanted the throne
for himself.
- Rassendyll suggested carrying the King to Strelsau, but Sapt told him
that was not possible or appropriate.
• Sapt’s plan (the impersonation plan)
- Sapt told Rassendyll that Fate sent him to Zenda and it would send him
to Strelsau.
- Rassendyll told him that was impossible and added that he would be
known.
- Sapt told him if he shaved, he would not be known.
▪ Sapt persuades Rassendyll:
- Sapt told Rasendyll that if he was known, not only Rassendyll’s life but
also Sapt’s and Fritz’s lives would be in danger.
- He also told him if he didn’t go, Black Michael would sit that night on the
throne, and the King would lie in prison or his grave.
- Rassendyll told Sapt that the King would never forgive it. (Rassendyll
now is experiencing internal conflict)
- Sapt told him they they were not women and that they shouldn’t care
for his forgiveness.
- After a while, Rassendyll told Sapt that he would go.
The following is Sapt’s initial plan to save the throne from Michael:
- Rassendyll would impersonate the King and be crowned instead of the
real King.
- After the coronation, Fritz would stay in the Palace to guard the King’s
room, and Sapt and Rassendyll would return to the hunting lodge in
Zenda. The King would be ready_ Josef would tell him. Sapt and the King
would go to Strelsau, and Rassendyll would leave for England.
2
▪ Getting ready:
- Sapt asked Rassendyll to sit in a chair and called Josef and asked him to
shave Rassendyll.
- Then, Fritz asked about the guard (Michael had promised the King to
send him his own men to guard him to the station, which was part of
Michael’s plan to kidnap or kill the king)
- Sapt told Fritz that they would not wait for the guard and that they
would leave for the station before they came.
- Then Fritz asked about the King, and Sapt told him that he would be
kept in the wine-cellar.
- Sapt told them that the guard would not find the King as Josef would tell
them that the King, Sapt, and Fritz had left for Strelsau.
- Then Sapt lifted the King in his hands. And as he did so, the old woman,
Johann the keeper's mother, stood in the doorway.
- Sapt said that he would shut her mouth.
- Then Sapt hurried Rassendyll into the King’s room, and Rassendyll got
dressed.
- To make sure that the woman wouldn’t tell the guard anything, Sapt tied
her legs together and put a handkerchief in her mouth and bound her
hands, and locked her up in the coal-cellar.
- Josef would look after the King and the woman both later on.
- The three of them got ready and left for the train station.
▪ Sapt instructs Rassendyll:
- On the way to the station, Fritz didn’t speak; he rode like a man asleep.
- But Sapt began at once to instruct Rassendyll most accurately in the
history of the King’s past life, of his family, of his tastes, pursuits,
weaknesses, friends, companions, and servants. He told him the
etiquette of the Ruritanian Court, promising to be constantly at his
elbow to point out everybody whom he ought to know, and give him
hints with what degree of favour to greet them.
- Sapt asked Rassendyll if he was a Catholic, to which Rassendyll replied
he wasn’t.
- Then, Sapt gave Rassendyll a basic lesson in the Romish Faith.
- Sapt told him luckily, he was not expected to know much about the
Romish faith as the King was careless about such matters.
3
- But he asked him to be civil (polite/kind) to the Cardinal as they wanted

to win him over. He told him the Cardinal and Michael had a quarrel
about their precedence (priority).
▪ At the station:
- When they reached the station, Fritz told the astonished station master
that the King had changed his plans.
▪ On the train to Strelsau:
- They got into a first-class carriage.
- Sapt went on in his lesson.
- Sapt told Rassendy that they would say that Fritz had caught a fever.
- They reached Strelsau an hour earlier.
- Sapt told Rassendyll that they had to send a message forward for the
King’s arrival as there would be no one at the station to meet them.
- Rassendyll told Sapt that the King (Rassendyll)wanted to have
breakfast.
- After breakfast, everything was ready.
- Rassendyll could hear the sound of the bells of the churches and the
sound of a military band.
- Men were shouting, "God save the King!"
- Sapt said, "God save 'em both!"
• Questions:
1. Why couldn’t the King go to his coronation?
2. What was Michael’s plan to prevent the King from being crowned?
3. What was Sapt’s plan when they discovered that the King was
crowned?
4. How did Sapt persuade Rassendyll to accept to impersonate the
King?
5. How did Sapt prepare Rassendyll for the coronation?
6. What did Sapt do to make sure that the woman wouldn’t tell the
guard anything?
7. What was Josef’s role in the Sapt’s plan?

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The Prisoner of Zenda Mr.

- But he asked him to be civil (polite/kind) to the Cardinal as they wanted

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