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@@ -0,0 +1,11321 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Prince, by Frances Hodgson Burnett + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Lost Prince + +Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett + +Posting Date: August 12, 2008 [EBook #384] +Release Date: January, 1996 +[Last updated: December 9, 2011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST PRINCE *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Keller. HTML version by Al Haines + + + + + + + + +THE LOST PRINCE + +Francis Hodgson Burnett + + + +CONTENTS + + + I The New Lodgers at No. 7 Philibert Place + II A Young Citizen of the World + III The Legend of the Lost Prince + IV The Rat + V "Silence Is Still the Order" + VI The Drill and the Secret Party + VII "The Lamp Is Lighted!" + VIII An Exciting Game + IX "It Is Not a Game" + X The Rat--and Samavia + XI Come with Me + XII Only Two Boys + XIII Loristan Attends a Drill of the Squad + XIV Marco Does Not Answer + XV A Sound in a Dream + XVI The Rat to the Rescue + XVII "It Is a Very Bad Sign" + XVIII "Cities and Faces" + XIX "That Is One!" + XX Marco Goes to the Opera + XXI "Help!" + XXII A Night Vigil + XXIII The Silver Horn + XXIV "How Shall We Find Him?" + XXV A Voice in the Night + XXVI Across the Frontier + XXVII "It is the Lost Prince! It Is Ivor!" + XXVIII "Extra! Extra! Extra!" + XXIX 'Twixt Night and Morning + XXX The Game Is at an End + XXXI "The Son of Stefan Loristan" + + + + +THE LOST PRINCE + + + +I + +THE NEW LODGERS AT NO. 7 PHILIBERT PLACE + +There are many dreary and dingy rows of ugly houses in certain parts of +London, but there certainly could not be any row more ugly or dingier +than Philibert Place. There were stories that it had once been more +attractive, but that had been so long ago that no one remembered the +time. It stood back in its gloomy, narrow strips of uncared-for, smoky +gardens, whose broken iron railings were supposed to protect it from +the surging traffic of a road which was always roaring with the rattle +of busses, cabs, drays, and vans, and the passing of people who were +shabbily dressed and looked as if they were either going to hard work +or coming from it, or hurrying to see if they could find some of it to +do to keep themselves from going hungry. The brick fronts of the +houses were blackened with smoke, their windows were nearly all dirty +and hung with dingy curtains, or had no curtains at all; the strips of +ground, which had once been intended to grow flowers in, had been +trodden down into bare earth in which even weeds had forgotten to grow. +One of them was used as a stone-cutter's yard, and cheap monuments, +crosses, and slates were set out for sale, bearing inscriptions +beginning with "Sacred to the Memory of." Another had piles of old +lumber in it, another exhibited second-hand furniture, chairs with +unsteady legs, sofas with horsehair stuffing bulging out of holes in +their covering, mirrors with blotches or cracks in them. The insides +of the houses were as gloomy as the outside. They were all exactly +alike. In each a dark entrance passage led to narrow stairs going up +to bedrooms, and to narrow steps going down to a basement kitchen. The +back bedroom looked out on small, sooty, flagged yards, where thin cats +quarreled, or sat on the coping of the brick walls hoping that sometime +they might feel the sun; the front rooms looked over the noisy road, +and through their windows came the roar and rattle of it. It was +shabby and cheerless on the brightest days, and on foggy or rainy ones +it was the most forlorn place in London. + +At least that was what one boy thought as he stood near the iron +railings watching the passers-by on the morning on which this story +begins, which was also the morning after he had been brought by his +father to live as a lodger in the back sitting-room of the house No. 7. + +He was a boy about twelve years old, his name was Marco Loristan, and +he was the kind of boy people look at a second time when they have +looked at him once. In the first place, he was a very big boy--tall +for his years, and with a particularly strong frame. His shoulders were +broad and his arms and legs were long and powerful. He was quite used +to hearing people say, as they glanced at him, "What a fine, big lad!" +And then they always looked again at his face. It was not an English +face or an American one, and was very dark in coloring. His features +were strong, his black hair grew on his head like a mat, his eyes were +large and deep set, and looked out between thick, straight, black +lashes. He was as un-English a boy as one could imagine, and an +observing person would have been struck at once by a sort of SILENT +look expressed by his whole face, a look which suggested that he was +not a boy who talked much. + +This look was specially noticeable this morning as he stood before the +iron railings. The things he was thinking of were of a kind likely to +bring to the face of a twelve-year-old boy an unboyish expression. + +He was thinking of the long, hurried journey he and his father and +their old soldier servant, Lazarus, had made during the last few +days--the journey from Russia. Cramped in a close third-class railway +carriage, they had dashed across the Continent as if something +important or terrible were driving them, and here they were, settled in +London as if they were going to live forever at No. 7 Philibert Place. +He knew, however, that though they might stay a year, it was just as +probable that, in the middle of some night, his father or Lazarus might +waken him from his sleep and say, "Get up--dress yourself quickly. We +must go at once." A few days later, he might be in St. Petersburg, +Berlin, Vienna, or Budapest, huddled away in some poor little house as +shabby and comfortless as No. 7 Philibert Place. + +He passed his hand over his forehead as he thought of it and watched +the busses. His strange life and his close association with his father +had made him much older than his years, but he was only a boy, after +all, and the mystery of things sometimes weighed heavily upon him, and +set him to deep wondering. + +In not one of the many countries he knew had he ever met a boy whose +life was in the least like his own. Other boys had homes in which they +spent year after year; they went to school regularly, and played with +other boys, and talked openly of the things which happened to them, and +the journeys they made. When he remained in a place long enough to +make a few boy-friends, he knew he must never forget that his whole +existence was a sort of secret whose safety depended upon his own +silence and discretion. + +This was because of the promises he had made to his father, and they +had been the first thing he remembered. Not that he had ever regretted +anything connected with his father. He threw his black head up as he +thought of that. None of the other boys had such a father, not one of +them. His father was his idol and his chief. He had scarcely ever +seen him when his clothes had not been poor and shabby, but he had also +never seen him when, despite his worn coat and frayed linen, he had not +stood out among all others as more distinguished than the most +noticeable of them. When he walked down a street, people turned to +look at him even oftener than they turned to look at Marco, and the boy +felt as if it was not merely because he was a big man with a handsome, +dark face, but because he looked, somehow, as if he had been born to +command armies, and as if no one would think of disobeying him. Yet +Marco had never seen him command any one, and they had always been +poor, and shabbily dressed, and often enough ill-fed. But whether they +were in one country or another, and whatsoever dark place they seemed +to be hiding in, the few people they saw treated him with a sort of +deference, and nearly always stood when they were in his presence, +unless he bade them sit down. + +"It is because they know he is a patriot, and patriots are respected," +the boy had told himself. + +He himself wished to be a patriot, though he had never seen his own +country of Samavia. He knew it well, however. His father had talked +to him about it ever since that day when he had made the promises. He +had taught him to know it by helping him to study curious detailed maps +of it--maps of its cities, maps of its mountains, maps of its roads. +He had told him stories of the wrongs done its people, of their +sufferings and struggles for liberty, and, above all, of their +unconquerable courage. When they talked together of its history, +Marco's boy-blood burned and leaped in his veins, and he always knew, +by the look in his father's eyes, that his blood burned also. His +countrymen had been killed, they had been robbed, they had died by +thousands of cruelties and starvation, but their souls had never been +conquered, and, through all the years during which more powerful +nations crushed and enslaved them, they never ceased to struggle to +free themselves and stand unfettered as Samavians had stood centuries +before. + +"Why do we not live there," Marco had cried on the day the promises +were made. "Why do we not go back and fight? When I am a man, I will +be a soldier and die for Samavia." + +"We are of those who must LIVE for Samavia--working day and night," his +father had answered; "denying ourselves, training our bodies and souls, +using our brains, learning the things which are best to be done for our +people and our country. Even exiles may be Samavian soldiers--I am +one, you must be one." + +"Are we exiles?" asked Marco. + +"Yes," was the answer. "But even if we never set foot on Samavian +soil, we must give our lives to it. I have given mine since I was +sixteen. I shall give it until I die." + +"Have you never lived there?" said Marco. + +A strange look shot across his father's face. + +"No," he answered, and said no more. Marco watching him, knew he must +not ask the question again. + +The next words his father said were about the promises. Marco was +quite a little fellow at the time, but he understood the solemnity of +them, and felt that he was being honored as if he were a man. + +"When you are a man, you shall know all you wish to know," Loristan +said. "Now you are a child, and your mind must not be burdened. But +you must do your part. A child sometimes forgets that words may be +dangerous. You must promise never to forget this. Wheresoever you +are; if you have playmates, you must remember to be silent about many +things. You must not speak of what I do, or of the people who come to +see me. You must not mention the things in your life which make it +different from the lives of other boys. You must keep in your mind +that a secret exists which a chance foolish word might betray. You are +a Samavian, and there have been Samavians who have died a thousand +deaths rather than betray a secret. You must learn to obey without +question, as if you were a soldier. Now you must take your oath of +allegiance." + +He rose from his seat and went to a corner of the room. He knelt down, +turned back the carpet, lifted a plank, and took something from beneath +it. It was a sword, and, as he came back to Marco, he drew it out from +its sheath. The child's strong, little body stiffened and drew itself +up, his large, deep eyes flashed. He was to take his oath of +allegiance upon a sword as if he were a man. He did not know that his +small hand opened and shut with a fierce understanding grip because +those of his blood had for long centuries past carried swords and +fought with them. + +Loristan gave him the big bared weapon, and stood erect before him. + +"Repeat these words after me sentence by sentence!" he commanded. + +And as he spoke them Marco echoed each one loudly and clearly. + +"The sword in my hand--for Samavia! + +"The heart in my breast--for Samavia! + +"The swiftness of my sight, the thought of my brain, the life of my +life--for Samavia. + +"Here grows a man for Samavia. + +"God be thanked!" + +Then Loristan put his hand on the child's shoulder, and his dark face +looked almost fiercely proud. + +"From this hour," he said, "you and I are comrades at arms." + +And from that day to the one on which he stood beside the broken iron +railings of No. 7 Philibert Place, Marco had not forgotten for one hour. + + + +II + +A YOUNG CITIZEN OF THE WORLD + +He had been in London more than once before, but not to the lodgings in +Philibert Place. When he was brought a second or third time to a town +or city, he always knew that the house he was taken to would be in a +quarter new to him, and he should not see again the people he had seen +before. Such slight links of acquaintance as sometimes formed +themselves between him and other children as shabby and poor as himself +were easily broken. His father, however, had never forbidden him to +make chance acquaintances. He had, in fact, told him that he had +reasons for not wishing him to hold himself aloof from other boys. The +only barrier which must exist between them must be the barrier of +silence concerning his wanderings from country to country. Other boys +as poor as he was did not make constant journeys, therefore they would +miss nothing from his boyish talk when he omitted all mention of his. +When he was in Russia, he must speak only of Russian places and Russian +people and customs. When he was in France, Germany, Austria, or +England, he must do the same thing. When he had learned English, +French, German, Italian, and Russian he did not know. He had seemed to +grow up in the midst of changing tongues which all seemed familiar to +him, as languages are familiar to children who have lived with them +until one scarcely seems less familiar than another. He did remember, +however, that his father had always been unswerving in his attention to +his pronunciation and method of speaking the language of any country +they chanced to be living in. + +"You must not seem a foreigner in any country," he had said to him. +"It is necessary that you should not. But when you are in England, you +must not know French, or German, or anything but English." + +Once, when he was seven or eight years old, a boy had asked him what +his father's work was. + +"His own father is a carpenter, and he asked me if my father was one," +Marco brought the story to Loristan. "I said you were not. Then he +asked if you were a shoemaker, and another one said you might be a +bricklayer or a tailor--and I didn't know what to tell them." He had +been out playing in a London street, and he put a grubby little hand on +his father's arm, and clutched and almost fiercely shook it. "I wanted +to say that you were not like their fathers, not at all. I knew you +were not, though you were quite as poor. You are not a bricklayer or a +shoemaker, but a patriot--you could not be only a bricklayer--you!" He +said it grandly and with a queer indignation, his black head held up +and his eyes angry. + +Loristan laid his hand against his mouth. + +"Hush! hush!" he said. "Is it an insult to a man to think he may be a +carpenter or make a good suit of clothes? If I could make our clothes, +we should go better dressed. If I were a shoemaker, your toes would +not be making their way into the world as they are now." He was +smiling, but Marco saw his head held itself high, too, and his eyes +were glowing as he touched his shoulder. "I know you did not tell them +I was a patriot," he ended. "What was it you said to them?" + +"I remembered that you were nearly always writing and drawing maps, and +I said you were a writer, but I did not know what you wrote--and that +you said it was a poor trade. I heard you say that once to Lazarus. +Was that a right thing to tell them?" + +"Yes. You may always say it if you are asked. There are poor fellows +enough who write a thousand different things which bring them little +money. There is nothing strange in my being a writer." + +So Loristan answered him, and from that time if, by any chance, his +father's means of livelihood were inquired into, it was simple enough +and true enough to say that he wrote to earn his bread. + +In the first days of strangeness to a new place, Marco often walked a +great deal. He was strong and untiring, and it amused him to wander +through unknown streets, and look at shops, and houses, and people. He +did not confine himself to the great thoroughfares, but liked to branch +off into the side streets and odd, deserted-looking squares, and even +courts and alleyways. He often stopped to watch workmen and talk to +them if they were friendly. In this way he made stray acquaintances in +his strollings, and learned a good many things. He had a fondness for +wandering musicians, and, from an old Italian who had in his youth been +a singer in opera, he had learned to sing a number of songs in his +strong, musical boy-voice. He knew well many of the songs of the +people in several countries. + +It was very dull this first morning, and he wished that he had +something to do or some one to speak to. To do nothing whatever is a +depressing thing at all times, but perhaps it is more especially so +when one is a big, healthy boy twelve years old. London as he saw it in +the Marylebone Road seemed to him a hideous place. It was murky and +shabby-looking, and full of dreary-faced people. It was not the first +time he had seen the same things, and they always made him feel that he +wished he had something to do. + +Suddenly he turned away from the gate and went into the house to speak +to Lazarus. He found him in his dingy closet of a room on the fourth +floor at the back of the house. + +"I am going for a walk," he announced to him. "Please tell my father +if he asks for me. He is busy, and I must not disturb him." + +Lazarus was patching an old coat as he often patched things--even shoes +sometimes. When Marco spoke, he stood up at once to answer him. He +was very obstinate and particular about certain forms of manner. +Nothing would have obliged him to remain seated when Loristan or Marco +was near him. Marco thought it was because he had been so strictly +trained as a soldier. He knew that his father had had great trouble to +make him lay aside his habit of saluting when they spoke to him. + +"Perhaps," Marco had heard Loristan say to him almost severely, once +when he had forgotten himself and had stood at salute while his master +passed through a broken-down iron gate before an equally +broken-down-looking lodging-house--"perhaps you can force yourself to +remember when I tell you that it is not safe--IT IS NOT SAFE! You put +us in danger!" + +It was evident that this helped the good fellow to control himself. +Marco remembered that at the time he had actually turned pale, and had +struck his forehead and poured forth a torrent of Samavian dialect in +penitence and terror. But, though he no longer saluted them in public, +he omitted no other form of reverence and ceremony, and the boy had +become accustomed to being treated as if he were anything but the +shabby lad whose very coat was patched by the old soldier who stood "at +attention" before him. + +"Yes, sir," Lazarus answered. "Where was it your wish to go?" + +Marco knitted his black brows a little in trying to recall distinct +memories of the last time he had been in London. + +"I have been to so many places, and have seen so many things since I +was here before, that I must begin to learn again about the streets and +buildings I do not quite remember." + +"Yes, sir," said Lazarus. "There HAVE been so many. I also forget. +You were but eight years old when you were last here." + +"I think I will go and find the royal palace, and then I will walk +about and learn the names of the streets," Marco said. + +"Yes, sir," answered Lazarus, and this time he made his military salute. + +Marco lifted his right hand in recognition, as if he had been a young +officer. Most boys might have looked awkward or theatrical in making +the gesture, but he made it with naturalness and ease, because he had +been familiar with the form since his babyhood. He had seen officers +returning the salutes of their men when they encountered each other by +chance in the streets, he had seen princes passing sentries on their +way to their carriages, more august personages raising the quiet, +recognizing hand to their helmets as they rode through applauding +crowds. He had seen many royal persons and many royal pageants, but +always only as an ill-clad boy standing on the edge of the crowd of +common people. An energetic lad, however poor, cannot spend his days in +going from one country to another without, by mere every-day chance, +becoming familiar with the outer life of royalties and courts. Marco +had stood in continental thoroughfares when visiting emperors rode by +with glittering soldiery before and behind them, and a populace +shouting courteous welcomes. He knew where in various great capitals +the sentries stood before kingly or princely palaces. He had seen +certain royal faces often enough to know them well, and to be ready to +make his salute when particular quiet and unattended carriages passed +him by. + +"It is well to know them. It is well to observe everything and to +train one's self to remember faces and circumstances," his father had +said. "If you were a young prince or a young man training for a +diplomatic career, you would be taught to notice and remember people +and things as you would be taught to speak your own language with +elegance. Such observation would be your most practical accomplishment +and greatest power. It is as practical for one man as another--for a +poor lad in a patched coat as for one whose place is to be in courts. +As you cannot be educated in the ordinary way, you must learn from +travel and the world. You must lose nothing--forget nothing." + +It was his father who had taught him everything, and he had learned a +great deal. Loristan had the power of making all things interesting to +fascination. To Marco it seemed that he knew everything in the world. +They were not rich enough to buy many books, but Loristan knew the +treasures of all great cities, the resources of the smallest towns. +Together he and his boy walked through the endless galleries filled +with the wonders of the world, the pictures before which through +centuries an unbroken procession of almost worshiping eyes had passed +uplifted. Because his father made the pictures seem the glowing, +burning work of still-living men whom the centuries could not turn to +dust, because he could tell the stories of their living and laboring to +triumph, stories of what they felt and suffered and were, the boy +became as familiar with the old masters--Italian, German, French, +Dutch, English, Spanish--as he was with most of the countries they had +lived in. They were not merely old masters to him, but men who were +great, men who seemed to him to have wielded beautiful swords and held +high, splendid lights. His father could not go often with him, but he +always took him for the first time to the galleries, museums, +libraries, and historical places which were richest in treasures of +art, beauty, or story. Then, having seen them once through his eyes, +Marco went again and again alone, and so grew intimate with the wonders +of the world. He knew that he was gratifying a wish of his father's +when he tried to train himself to observe all things and forget +nothing. These palaces of marvels were his school-rooms, and his +strange but rich education was the most interesting part of his life. +In time, he knew exactly the places where the great Rembrandts, +Vandykes, Rubens, Raphaels, Tintorettos, or Frans Hals hung; he knew +whether this masterpiece or that was in Vienna, in Paris, in Venice, or +Munich, or Rome. He knew stories of splendid crown jewels, of old +armor, of ancient crafts, and of Roman relics dug up from beneath the +foundations of old German cities. Any boy wandering to amuse himself +through museums and palaces on "free days" could see what he saw, but +boys living fuller and less lonely lives would have been less likely to +concentrate their entire minds on what they looked at, and also less +likely to store away facts with the determination to be able to recall +at any moment the mental shelf on which they were laid. Having no +playmates and nothing to play with, he began when he was a very little +fellow to make a sort of game out of his rambles through +picture-galleries, and the places which, whether they called themselves +museums or not, were storehouses or relics of antiquity. There were +always the blessed "free days," when he could climb any marble steps, +and enter any great portal without paying an entrance fee. Once +inside, there were plenty of plainly and poorly dressed people to be +seen, but there were not often boys as young as himself who were not +attended by older companions. Quiet and orderly as he was, he often +found himself stared at. The game he had created for himself was as +simple as it was absorbing. It was to try how much he could remember +and clearly describe to his father when they sat together at night and +talked of what he had seen. These night talks filled his happiest +hours. He never felt lonely then, and when his father sat and watched +him with a certain curious and deep attention in his dark, reflective +eyes, the boy was utterly comforted and content. Sometimes he brought +back rough and crude sketches of objects he wished to ask questions +about, and Loristan could always relate to him the full, rich story of +the thing he wanted to know. They were stories made so splendid and +full of color in the telling that Marco could not forget them. + + + +III + +THE LEGEND OF THE LOST PRINCE + +As he walked through the streets, he was thinking of one of these +stories. It was one he had heard first when he was very young, and it +had so seized upon his imagination that he had asked often for it. It +was, indeed, a part of the long-past history of Samavia, and he had +loved it for that reason. Lazarus had often told it to him, sometimes +adding much detail, but he had always liked best his father's version, +which seemed a thrilling and living thing. On their journey from +Russia, during an hour when they had been forced to wait in a cold +wayside station and had found the time long, Loristan had discussed it +with him. He always found some such way of making hard and comfortless +hours easier to live through. + +"Fine, big lad--for a foreigner," Marco heard a man say to his +companion as he passed them this morning. "Looks like a Pole or a +Russian." + +It was this which had led his thoughts back to the story of the Lost +Prince. He knew that most of the people who looked at him and called +him a "foreigner" had not even heard of Samavia. Those who chanced to +recall its existence knew of it only as a small fierce country, so +placed upon the map that the larger countries which were its neighbors +felt they must control and keep it in order, and therefore made +incursions into it, and fought its people and each other for +possession. But it had not been always so. It was an old, old +country, and hundreds of years ago it had been as celebrated for its +peaceful happiness and wealth as for its beauty. It was often said +that it was one of the most beautiful places in the world. A favorite +Samavian legend was that it had been the site of the Garden of Eden. +In those past centuries, its people had been of such great stature, +physical beauty, and strength, that they had been like a race of noble +giants. They were in those days a pastoral people, whose rich crops +and splendid flocks and herds were the envy of less fertile countries. +Among the shepherds and herdsmen there were poets who sang their own +songs when they piped among their sheep upon the mountain sides and in +the flower-thick valleys. Their songs had been about patriotism and +bravery, and faithfulness to their chieftains and their country. The +simple courtesy of the poorest peasant was as stately as the manner of +a noble. But that, as Loristan had said with a tired smile, had been +before they had had time to outlive and forget the Garden of Eden. +Five hundred years ago, there had succeeded to the throne a king who +was bad and weak. His father had lived to be ninety years old, and his +son had grown tired of waiting in Samavia for his crown. He had gone +out into the world, and visited other countries and their courts. When +he returned and became king, he lived as no Samavian king had lived +before. He was an extravagant, vicious man of furious temper and +bitter jealousies. He was jealous of the larger courts and countries +he had seen, and tried to introduce their customs and their ambitions. +He ended by introducing their worst faults and vices. There arose +political quarrels and savage new factions. Money was squandered until +poverty began for the first time to stare the country in the face. The +big Samavians, after their first stupefaction, broke forth into furious +rage. There were mobs and riots, then bloody battles. Since it was +the king who had worked this wrong, they would have none of him. They +would depose him and make his son king in his place. It was at this +part of the story that Marco was always most deeply interested. The +young prince was totally unlike his father. He was a true royal +Samavian. He was bigger and stronger for his age than any man in the +country, and he was as handsome as a young Viking god. More than this, +he had a lion's heart, and before he was sixteen, the shepherds and +herdsmen had already begun to make songs about his young valor, and his +kingly courtesy, and generous kindness. Not only the shepherds and +herdsmen sang them, but the people in the streets. The king, his +father, had always been jealous of him, even when he was only a +beautiful, stately child whom the people roared with joy to see as he +rode through the streets. When he returned from his journeyings and +found him a splendid youth, he detested him. When the people began to +clamor and demand that he himself should abdicate, he became insane +with rage, and committed such cruelties that the people ran mad +themselves. One day they stormed the palace, killed and overpowered +the guards, and, rushing into the royal apartments, burst in upon the +king as he shuddered green with terror and fury in his private room. +He was king no more, and must leave the country, they vowed, as they +closed round him with bared weapons and shook them in his face. Where +was the prince? They must see him and tell him their ultimatum. It +was he whom they wanted for a king. They trusted him and would obey +him. They began to shout aloud his name, calling him in a sort of +chant in unison, "Prince Ivor--Prince Ivor--Prince Ivor!" But no +answer came. The people of the palace had hidden themselves, and the +place was utterly silent. + +The king, despite his terror, could not help but sneer. + +"Call him again," he said. "He is afraid to come out of his hole!" + +A savage fellow from the mountain fastnesses struck him on the mouth. + +"He afraid!" he shouted. "If he does not come, it is because thou hast +killed him--and thou art a dead man!" + +This set them aflame with hotter burning. They broke away, leaving +three on guard, and ran about the empty palace rooms shouting the +prince's name. But there was no answer. They sought him in a frenzy, +bursting open doors and flinging down every obstacle in their way. A +page, found hidden in a closet, owned that he had seen His Royal +Highness pass through a corridor early in the morning. He had been +softly singing to himself one of the shepherd's songs. + +And in this strange way out of the history of Samavia, five hundred +years before Marco's day, the young prince had walked--singing softly +to himself the old song of Samavia's beauty and happiness. For he was +never seen again. + +In every nook and cranny, high and low, they sought for him, believing +that the king himself had made him prisoner in some secret place, or +had privately had him killed. The fury of the people grew to frenzy. +There were new risings, and every few days the palace was attacked and +searched again. But no trace of the prince was found. He had vanished +as a star vanishes when it drops from its place in the sky. During a +riot in the palace, when a last fruitless search was made, the king +himself was killed. A powerful noble who headed one of the uprisings +made himself king in his place. From that time, the once splendid +little kingdom was like a bone fought for by dogs. Its pastoral peace +was forgotten. It was torn and worried and shaken by stronger +countries. It tore and worried itself with internal fights. It +assassinated kings and created new ones. No man was sure in his youth +what ruler his maturity would live under, or whether his children would +die in useless fights, or through stress of poverty and cruel, useless +laws. There were no more shepherds and herdsmen who were poets, but on +the mountain sides and in the valleys sometimes some of the old songs +were sung. Those most beloved were songs about a Lost Prince whose name +had been Ivor. If he had been king, he would have saved Samavia, the +verses said, and all brave hearts believed that he would still return. +In the modern cities, one of the jocular cynical sayings was, "Yes, +that will happen when Prince Ivor comes again." + +In his more childish days, Marco had been bitterly troubled by the +unsolved mystery. Where had he gone--the Lost Prince? Had he been +killed, or had he been hidden away in a dungeon? But he was so big and +brave, he would have broken out of any dungeon. The boy had invented +for himself a dozen endings to the story. + +"Did no one ever find his sword or his cap--or hear anything or guess +anything about him ever--ever--ever?" he would say restlessly again and +again. + +One winter's night, as they sat together before a small fire in a cold +room in a cold city in Austria, he had been so eager and asked so many +searching questions, that his father gave him an answer he had never +given him before, and which was a sort of ending to the story, though +not a satisfying one: + +"Everybody guessed as you are guessing. A few very old shepherds in +the mountains who like to believe ancient histories relate a story +which most people consider a kind of legend. It is that almost a +hundred years after the prince was lost, an old shepherd told a story +his long-dead father had confided to him in secret just before he died. +The father had said that, going out in the early morning on the +mountain side, he had found in the forest what he at first thought to +be the dead body of a beautiful, boyish, young huntsman. Some enemy +had plainly attacked him from behind and believed he had killed him. +He was, however, not quite dead, and the shepherd dragged him into a +cave where he himself often took refuge from storms with his flocks. +Since there was such riot and disorder in the city, he was afraid to +speak of what he had found; and, by the time he discovered that he was +harboring the prince, the king had already been killed, and an even +worse man had taken possession of his throne, and ruled Samavia with a +blood-stained, iron hand. To the terrified and simple peasant the +safest thing seemed to get the wounded youth out of the country before +there was any chance of his being discovered and murdered outright, as +he would surely be. The cave in which he was hidden was not far from +the frontier, and while he was still so weak that he was hardly +conscious of what befell him, he was smuggled across it in a cart +loaded with sheepskins, and left with some kind monks who did not know +his rank or name. The shepherd went back to his flocks and his +mountains, and lived and died among them, always in terror of the +changing rulers and their savage battles with each other. The +mountaineers said among themselves, as the generations succeeded each +other, that the Lost Prince must have died young, because otherwise he +would have come back to his country and tried to restore its good, +bygone days." + +"Yes, he would have come," Marco said. + +"He would have come if he had seen that he could help his people," +Loristan answered, as if he were not reflecting on a story which was +probably only a kind of legend. "But he was very young, and Samavia +was in the hands of the new dynasty, and filled with his enemies. He +could not have crossed the frontier without an army. Still, I think he +died young." + +It was of this story that Marco was thinking as he walked, and perhaps +the thoughts that filled his mind expressed themselves in his face in +some way which attracted attention. As he was nearing Buckingham +Palace, a distinguished-looking well-dressed man with clever eyes +caught sight of him, and, after looking at him keenly, slackened his +pace as he approached him from the opposite direction. An observer +might have thought he saw something which puzzled and surprised him. +Marco didn't see him at all, and still moved forward, thinking of the +shepherds and the prince. The well-dressed man began to walk still +more slowly. When he was quite close to Marco, he stopped and spoke to +him--in the Samavian language. + +"What is your name?" he asked. + +Marco's training from his earliest childhood had been an extraordinary +thing. His love for his father had made it simple and natural to him, +and he had never questioned the reason for it. As he had been taught to +keep silence, he had been taught to control the expression of his face +and the sound of his voice, and, above all, never to allow himself to +look startled. But for this he might have started at the extraordinary +sound of the Samavian words suddenly uttered in a London street by an +English gentleman. He might even have answered the question in +Samavian himself. But he did not. He courteously lifted his cap and +replied in English: + +"Excuse me?" + +The gentleman's clever eyes scrutinized him keenly. Then he also spoke +in English. + +"Perhaps you do not understand? I asked your name because you are very +like a Samavian I know," he said. + +"I am Marco Loristan," the boy answered him. + +The man looked straight into his eyes and smiled. + +"That is not the name," he said. "I beg your pardon, my boy." + +He was about to go on, and had indeed taken a couple of steps away, +when he paused and turned to him again. + +"You may tell your father that you are a very well-trained lad. I +wanted to find out for myself." And he went on. + +Marco felt that his heart beat a little quickly. This was one of +several incidents which had happened during the last three years, and +made him feel that he was living among things so mysterious that their +very mystery hinted at danger. But he himself had never before seemed +involved in them. Why should it matter that he was well-behaved? Then +he remembered something. The man had not said "well-behaved," he had +said "well-TRAINED." Well-trained in what way? He felt his forehead +prickle slightly as he thought of the smiling, keen look which set +itself so straight upon him. Had he spoken to him in Samavian for an +experiment, to see if he would be startled into forgetting that he had +been trained to seem to know only the language of the country he was +temporarily living in? But he had not forgotten. He had remembered +well, and was thankful that he had betrayed nothing. "Even exiles may +be Samavian soldiers. I am one. You must be one," his father had said +on that day long ago when he had made him take his oath. Perhaps +remembering his training was being a soldier. Never had Samavia needed +help as she needed it to-day. Two years before, a rival claimant to +the throne had assassinated the then reigning king and his sons, and +since then, bloody war and tumult had raged. The new king was a +powerful man, and had a great following of the worst and most +self-seeking of the people. Neighboring countries had interfered for +their own welfare's sake, and the newspapers had been full of stories +of savage fighting and atrocities, and of starving peasants. + +Marco had late one evening entered their lodgings to find Loristan +walking to and fro like a lion in a cage, a paper crushed and torn in +his hands, and his eyes blazing. He had been reading of cruelties +wrought upon innocent peasants and women and children. Lazarus was +standing staring at him with huge tears running down his cheeks. When +Marco opened the door, the old soldier strode over to him, turned him +about, and led him out of the room. + +"Pardon, sir, pardon!" he sobbed. "No one must see him, not even you. +He suffers so horribly." + +He stood by a chair in Marco's own small bedroom, where he half pushed, +half led him. He bent his grizzled head, and wept like a beaten child. + +"Dear God of those who are in pain, assuredly it is now the time to +give back to us our Lost Prince!" he said, and Marco knew the words +were a prayer, and wondered at the frenzied intensity of it, because it +seemed so wild a thing to pray for the return of a youth who had died +five hundred years before. + +When he reached the palace, he was still thinking of the man who had +spoken to him. He was thinking of him even as he looked at the +majestic gray stone building and counted the number of its stories and +windows. He walked round it that he might make a note in his memory of +its size and form and its entrances, and guess at the size of its +gardens. This he did because it was part of his game, and part of his +strange training. + +When he came back to the front, he saw that in the great entrance court +within the high iron railings an elegant but quiet-looking closed +carriage was drawing up before the doorway. Marco stood and watched +with interest to see who would come out and enter it. He knew that +kings and emperors who were not on parade looked merely like +well-dressed private gentlemen, and often chose to go out as simply and +quietly as other men. So he thought that, perhaps, if he waited, he +might see one of those well-known faces which represent the highest +rank and power in a monarchical country, and which in times gone by had +also represented the power over human life and death and liberty. + +"I should like to be able to tell my father that I have seen the King +and know his face, as I know the faces of the czar and the two +emperors." + +There was a little movement among the tall men-servants in the royal +scarlet liveries, and an elderly man descended the steps attended by +another who walked behind him. He entered the carriage, the other man +followed him, the door was closed, and the carriage drove through the +entrance gates, where the sentries saluted. + +Marco was near enough to see distinctly. The two men were talking as +if interested. The face of the one farthest from him was the face he +had often seen in shop-windows and newspapers. The boy made his quick, +formal salute. It was the King; and, as he smiled and acknowledged his +greeting, he spoke to his companion. + +"That fine lad salutes as if he belonged to the army," was what he +said, though Marco could not hear him. + +His companion leaned forward to look through the window. When he +caught sight of Marco, a singular expression crossed his face. + +"He does belong to an army, sir," he answered, "though he does not know +it. His name is Marco Loristan." + +Then Marco saw him plainly for the first time. He was the man with the +keen eyes who had spoken to him in Samavian. + + + +IV + +THE RAT + +Marco would have wondered very much if he had heard the words, but, as +he did not hear them, he turned toward home wondering at something +else. A man who was in intimate attendance on a king must be a person +of importance. He no doubt knew many things not only of his own +ruler's country, but of the countries of other kings. But so few had +really known anything of poor little Samavia until the newspapers had +begun to tell them of the horrors of its war--and who but a Samavian +could speak its language? It would be an interesting thing to tell his +father--that a man who knew the King had spoken to him in Samavian, and +had sent that curious message. + +Later he found himself passing a side street and looked up it. It was +so narrow, and on either side of it were such old, tall, and +sloping-walled houses that it attracted his attention. It looked as if +a bit of old London had been left to stand while newer places grew up +and hid it from view. This was the kind of street he liked to pass +through for curiosity's sake. He knew many of them in the old quarters +of many cities. He had lived in some of them. He could find his way +home from the other end of it. Another thing than its queerness +attracted him. He heard a clamor of boys' voices, and he wanted to see +what they were doing. Sometimes, when he had reached a new place and +had had that lonely feeling, he had followed some boyish clamor of play +or wrangling, and had found a temporary friend or so. + +Half-way to the street's end there was an arched brick passage. The +sound of the voices came from there--one of them high, and thinner and +shriller than the rest. Marco tramped up to the arch and looked down +through the passage. It opened on to a gray flagged space, shut in by +the railings of a black, deserted, and ancient graveyard behind a +venerable church which turned its face toward some other street. The +boys were not playing, but listening to one of their number who was +reading to them from a newspaper. + +Marco walked down the passage and listened also, standing in the dark +arched outlet at its end and watching the boy who read. He was a +strange little creature with a big forehead, and deep eyes which were +curiously sharp. But this was not all. He had a hunch back, his legs +seemed small and crooked. He sat with them crossed before him on a +rough wooden platform set on low wheels, on which he evidently pushed +himself about. Near him were a number of sticks stacked together as if +they were rifles. One of the first things that Marco noticed was that +he had a savage little face marked with lines as if he had been angry +all his life. + +"Hold your tongues, you fools!" he shrilled out to some boys who +interrupted him. "Don't you want to know anything, you ignorant swine?" + +He was as ill-dressed as the rest of them, but he did not speak in the +Cockney dialect. If he was of the riffraff of the streets, as his +companions were, he was somehow different. + +Then he, by chance, saw Marco, who was standing in the arched end of +the passage. + +"What are you doing there listening?" he shouted, and at once stooped +to pick up a stone and threw it at him. The stone hit Marco's +shoulder, but it did not hurt him much. What he did not like was that +another lad should want to throw something at him before they had even +exchanged boy-signs. He also did not like the fact that two other boys +promptly took the matter up by bending down to pick up stones also. + +He walked forward straight into the group and stopped close to the +hunchback. + +"What did you do that for?" he asked, in his rather deep young voice. + +He was big and strong-looking enough to suggest that he was not a boy +it would be easy to dispose of, but it was not that which made the +group stand still a moment to stare at him. It was something in +himself--half of it a kind of impartial lack of anything like +irritation at the stone-throwing. It was as if it had not mattered to +him in the least. It had not made him feel angry or insulted. He was +only rather curious about it. Because he was clean, and his hair and +his shabby clothes were brushed, the first impression given by his +appearance as he stood in the archway was that he was a young "toff" +poking his nose where it was not wanted; but, as he drew near, they saw +that the well-brushed clothes were worn, and there were patches on his +shoes. + +"What did you do that for?" he asked, and he asked it merely as if he +wanted to find out the reason. + +"I'm not going to have you swells dropping in to my club as if it was +your own," said the hunchback. + +"I'm not a swell, and I didn't know it was a club," Marco answered. "I +heard boys, and I thought I'd come and look. When I heard you reading +about Samavia, I wanted to hear." + +He looked at the reader with his silent-expressioned eyes. + +"You needn't have thrown a stone," he added. "They don't do it at +men's clubs. I'll go away." + +He turned about as if he were going, but, before he had taken three +steps, the hunchback hailed him unceremoniously. + +"Hi!" he called out. "Hi, you!" + +"What do you want?" said Marco. + +"I bet you don't know where Samavia is, or what they're fighting +about." The hunchback threw the words at him. + +"Yes, I do. It's north of Beltrazo and east of Jiardasia, and they are +fighting because one party has assassinated King Maran, and the other +will not let them crown Nicola Iarovitch. And why should they? He's a +brigand, and hasn't a drop of royal blood in him." + +"Oh!" reluctantly admitted the hunchback. "You do know that much, do +you? Come back here." + +Marco turned back, while the boys still stared. It was as if two +leaders or generals were meeting for the first time, and the rabble, +looking on, wondered what would come of their encounter. + +"The Samavians of the Iarovitch party are a bad lot and want only bad +things," said Marco, speaking first. "They care nothing for Samavia. +They only care for money and the power to make laws which will serve +them and crush everybody else. They know Nicola is a weak man, and +that, if they can crown him king, they can make him do what they like." + +The fact that he spoke first, and that, though he spoke in a steady +boyish voice without swagger, he somehow seemed to take it for granted +that they would listen, made his place for him at once. Boys are +impressionable creatures, and they know a leader when they see him. +The hunchback fixed glittering eyes on him. The rabble began to murmur. + +"Rat! Rat!" several voices cried at once in good strong Cockney. "Arst +'im some more, Rat!" + +"Is that what they call you?" Marco asked the hunchback. + +"It's what I called myself," he answered resentfully. "'The Rat.' +Look at me! Crawling round on the ground like this! Look at me!" + +He made a gesture ordering his followers to move aside, and began to +push himself rapidly, with queer darts this side and that round the +inclosure. He bent his head and body, and twisted his face, and made +strange animal-like movements. He even uttered sharp squeaks as he +rushed here and there--as a rat might have done when it was being +hunted. He did it as if he were displaying an accomplishment, and his +followers' laughter was applause. + +"Wasn't I like a rat?" he demanded, when he suddenly stopped. + +"You made yourself like one on purpose," Marco answered. "You do it +for fun." + +"Not so much fun," said The Rat. "I feel like one. Every one's my +enemy. I'm vermin. I can't fight or defend myself unless I bite. I +can bite, though." And he showed two rows of fierce, strong, white +teeth, sharper at the points than human teeth usually are. "I bite my +father when he gets drunk and beats me. I've bitten him till he's +learned to remember." He laughed a shrill, squeaking laugh. "He +hasn't tried it for three months--even when he was drunk--and he's +always drunk." Then he laughed again still more shrilly. "He's a +gentleman," he said. "I'm a gentleman's son. He was a Master at a big +school until he was kicked out--that was when I was four and my mother +died. I'm thirteen now. How old are you?" + +"I'm twelve," answered Marco. + +The Rat twisted his face enviously. + +"I wish I was your size! Are you a gentleman's son? You look as if +you were." + +"I'm a very poor man's son," was Marco's answer. "My father is a +writer." + +"Then, ten to one, he's a sort of gentleman," said The Rat. Then quite +suddenly he threw another question at him. "What's the name of the +other Samavian party?" + +"The Maranovitch. The Maranovitch and the Iarovitch have been fighting +with each other for five hundred years. First one dynasty rules, and +then the other gets in when it has killed somebody as it killed King +Maran," Marco answered without hesitation. + +"What was the name of the dynasty that ruled before they began +fighting? The first Maranovitch assassinated the last of them," The +Rat asked him. + +"The Fedorovitch," said Marco. "The last one was a bad king." + +"His son was the one they never found again," said The Rat. "The one +they call the Lost Prince." + +Marco would have started but for his long training in exterior +self-control. It was so strange to hear his dream-hero spoken of in +this back alley in a slum, and just after he had been thinking of him. + +"What do you know about him?" he asked, and, as he did so, he saw the +group of vagabond lads draw nearer. + +"Not much. I only read something about him in a torn magazine I found +in the street," The Rat answered. "The man that wrote about him said +he was only part of a legend, and he laughed at people for believing in +him. He said it was about time that he should turn up again if he +intended to. I've invented things about him because these chaps like +to hear me tell them. They're only stories." + +"We likes 'im," a voice called out, "becos 'e wos the right sort; 'e'd +fight, 'e would, if 'e was in Samavia now." + +Marco rapidly asked himself how much he might say. He decided and +spoke to them all. + +"He is not part of a legend. He's part of Samavian history," he said. +"I know something about him too." + +"How did you find it out?" asked The Rat. + +"Because my father's a writer, he's obliged to have books and papers, +and he knows things. I like to read, and I go into the free libraries. +You can always get books and papers there. Then I ask my father +questions. All the newspapers are full of things about Samavia just +now." Marco felt that this was an explanation which betrayed nothing. +It was true that no one could open a newspaper at this period without +seeing news and stories of Samavia. + +The Rat saw possible vistas of information opening up before him. + +"Sit down here," he said, "and tell us what you know about him. Sit +down, you fellows." + +There was nothing to sit on but the broken flagged pavement, but that +was a small matter. Marco himself had sat on flags or bare ground +often enough before, and so had the rest of the lads. He took his +place near The Rat, and the others made a semicircle in front of them. +The two leaders had joined forces, so to speak, and the followers fell +into line at "attention." + +Then the new-comer began to talk. It was a good story, that of the +Lost Prince, and Marco told it in a way which gave it reality. How +could he help it? He knew, as they could not, that it was real. He +who had pored over maps of little Samavia since his seventh year, who +had studied them with his father, knew it as a country he could have +found his way to any part of if he had been dropped in any forest or +any mountain of it. He knew every highway and byway, and in the +capital city of Melzarr could almost have made his way blindfolded. He +knew the palaces and the forts, the churches, the poor streets and the +rich ones. His father had once shown him a plan of the royal palace +which they had studied together until the boy knew each apartment and +corridor in it by heart. But this he did not speak of. He knew it was +one of the things to be silent about. But of the mountains and the +emerald velvet meadows climbing their sides and only ending where huge +bare crags and peaks began, he could speak. He could make pictures of +the wide fertile plains where herds of wild horses fed, or raced and +sniffed the air; he could describe the fertile valleys where clear +rivers ran and flocks of sheep pastured on deep sweet grass. He could +speak of them because he could offer a good enough reason for his +knowledge of them. It was not the only reason he had for his +knowledge, but it was one which would serve well enough. + +"That torn magazine you found had more than one article about Samavia +in it," he said to The Rat. "The same man wrote four. I read them all +in a free library. He had been to Samavia, and knew a great deal about +it. He said it was one of the most beautiful countries he had ever +traveled in--and the most fertile. That's what they all say of it." + +The group before him knew nothing of fertility or open country. They +only knew London back streets and courts. Most of them had never +traveled as far as the public parks, and in fact scarcely believed in +their existence. They were a rough lot, and as they had stared at +Marco at first sight of him, so they continued to stare at him as he +talked. When he told of the tall Samavians who had been like giants +centuries ago, and who had hunted the wild horses and captured and +trained them to obedience by a sort of strong and gentle magic, their +mouths fell open. This was the sort of thing to allure any boy's +imagination. + +"Blimme, if I wouldn't 'ave liked ketchin' one o' them 'orses," broke +in one of the audience, and his exclamation was followed by a dozen of +like nature from the others. Who wouldn't have liked "ketchin' one"? + +When he told of the deep endless-seeming forests, and of the herdsmen +and shepherds who played on their pipes and made songs about high deeds +and bravery, they grinned with pleasure without knowing they were +grinning. They did not really know that in this neglected, +broken-flagged inclosure, shut in on one side by smoke-blackened, +poverty-stricken houses, and on the other by a deserted and forgotten +sunken graveyard, they heard the rustle of green forest boughs where +birds nested close, the swish of the summer wind in the river reeds, +and the tinkle and laughter and rush of brooks running. + +They heard more or less of it all through the Lost Prince story, +because Prince Ivor had loved lowland woods and mountain forests and +all out-of-door life. When Marco pictured him tall and strong-limbed +and young, winning all the people when he rode smiling among them, the +boys grinned again with unconscious pleasure. + +"Wisht 'e 'adn't got lost!" some one cried out. + +When they heard of the unrest and dissatisfaction of the Samavians, +they began to get restless themselves. When Marco reached the part of +the story in which the mob rushed into the palace and demanded their +prince from the king, they ejaculated scraps of bad language. "The old +geezer had got him hidden somewhere in some dungeon, or he'd killed him +out an' out--that's what he'd been up to!" they clamored. "Wisht the +lot of us had been there then--wisht we 'ad. We'd 'ave give' 'im wot +for, anyway!" + +"An' 'im walkin' out o' the place so early in the mornin' just singin' +like that! 'E 'ad 'im follered an' done for!" they decided with +various exclamations of boyish wrath. Somehow, the fact that the +handsome royal lad had strolled into the morning sunshine singing made +them more savage. Their language was extremely bad at this point. + +But if it was bad here, it became worse when the old shepherd found the +young huntsman's half-dead body in the forest. He HAD "bin 'done for' +IN THE BACK! 'E'd bin give' no charnst. G-r-r-r!" they groaned in +chorus. "Wisht THEY'D bin there when 'e'd bin 'it! They'd 'ave done +fur somebody" themselves. It was a story which had a queer effect on +them. It made them think they saw things; it fired their blood; it set +them wanting to fight for ideals they knew nothing about--adventurous +things, for instance, and high and noble young princes who were full of +the possibility of great and good deeds. Sitting upon the broken +flagstones of the bit of ground behind the deserted graveyard, they +were suddenly dragged into the world of romance, and noble young +princes and great and good deeds became as real as the sunken +gravestones, and far more interesting. + +And then the smuggling across the frontier of the unconscious prince in +the bullock cart loaded with sheepskins! They held their breaths. +Would the old shepherd get him past the line! Marco, who was lost in +the recital himself, told it as if he had been present. He felt as if +he had, and as this was the first time he had ever told it to thrilled +listeners, his imagination got him in its grip, and his heart jumped in +his breast as he was sure the old man's must have done when the guard +stopped his cart and asked him what he was carrying out of the country. +He knew he must have had to call up all his strength to force his voice +into steadiness. + +And then the good monks! He had to stop to explain what a monk was, +and when he described the solitude of the ancient monastery, and its +walled gardens full of flowers and old simples to be used for healing, +and the wise monks walking in the silence and the sun, the boys stared +a little helplessly, but still as if they were vaguely pleased by the +picture. + +And then there was no more to tell--no more. There it broke off, and +something like a low howl of dismay broke from the semicircle. + +"Aw!" they protested, "it 'adn't ought to stop there! Ain't there no +more? Is that all there is?" + +"It's all that was ever known really. And that last part might only be +a sort of story made up by somebody. But I believe it myself." + +The Rat had listened with burning eyes. He had sat biting his +finger-nails, as was a trick of his when he was excited or angry. + +"Tell you what!" he exclaimed suddenly. "This was what happened. It +was some of the Maranovitch fellows that tried to kill him. They meant +to kill his father and make their own man king, and they knew the +people wouldn't stand it if young Ivor was alive. They just stabbed +him in the back, the fiends! I dare say they heard the old shepherd +coming, and left him for dead and ran." + +"Right, oh! That was it!" the lads agreed. "Yer right there, Rat!" + +"When he got well," The Rat went on feverishly, still biting his nails, +"he couldn't go back. He was only a boy. The other fellow had been +crowned, and his followers felt strong because they'd just conquered +the country. He could have done nothing without an army, and he was +too young to raise one. Perhaps he thought he'd wait till he was old +enough to know what to do. I dare say he went away and had to work for +his living as if he'd never been a prince at all. Then perhaps +sometime he married somebody and had a son, and told him as a secret +who he was and all about Samavia." The Rat began to look vengeful. +"If I'd bin him I'd have told him not to forget what the Maranovitch +had done to me. I'd have told him that if I couldn't get back the +throne, he must see what he could do when he grew to be a man. And I'd +have made him swear, if he got it back, to take it out of them or their +children or their children's children in torture and killing. I'd have +made him swear not to leave a Maranovitch alive. And I'd have told him +that, if he couldn't do it in his life, he must pass the oath on to his +son and his son's son, as long as there was a Fedorovitch on earth. +Wouldn't you?" he demanded hotly of Marco. + +Marco's blood was also hot, but it was a different kind of blood, and +he had talked too much to a very sane man. + +"No," he said slowly. "What would have been the use? It wouldn't have +done Samavia any good, and it wouldn't have done him any good to +torture and kill people. Better keep them alive and make them do +things for the country. If you're a patriot, you think of the +country." He wanted to add "That's what my father says," but he did +not. + +"Torture 'em first and then attend to the country," snapped The Rat. +"What would you have told your son if you'd been Ivor?" + +"I'd have told him to learn everything about Samavia--and all the +things kings have to know--and study things about laws and other +countries--and about keeping silent--and about governing himself as if +he were a general commanding soldiers in battle--so that he would never +do anything he did not mean to do or could be ashamed of doing after it +was over. And I'd have asked him to tell his son's sons to tell their +sons to learn the same things. So, you see, however long the time was, +there would always be a king getting ready for Samavia--when Samavia +really wanted him. And he would be a real king." + +He stopped himself suddenly and looked at the staring semicircle. + +"I didn't make that up myself," he said. "I have heard a man who reads +and knows things say it. I believe the Lost Prince would have had the +same thoughts. If he had, and told them to his son, there has been a +line of kings in training for Samavia for five hundred years, and +perhaps one is walking about the streets of Vienna, or Budapest, or +Paris, or London now, and he'd be ready if the people found out about +him and called him." + +"Wisht they would!" some one yelled. + +"It would be a queer secret to know all the time when no one else knew +it," The Rat communed with himself as it were, "that you were a king +and you ought to be on a throne wearing a crown. I wonder if it would +make a chap look different?" + +He laughed his squeaky laugh, and then turned in his sudden way to +Marco: + +"But he'd be a fool to give up the vengeance. What is your name?" + +"Marco Loristan. What's yours? It isn't The Rat really." + +"It's Jem RATcliffe. That's pretty near. Where do you live?" + +"No. 7 Philibert Place." + +"This club is a soldiers' club," said The Rat. "It's called the Squad. +I'm the captain. 'Tention, you fellows! Let's show him." + +The semicircle sprang to its feet. There were about twelve lads +altogether, and, when they stood upright, Marco saw at once that for +some reason they were accustomed to obeying the word of command with +military precision. + +"Form in line!" ordered The Rat. + +They did it at once, and held their backs and legs straight and their +heads up amazingly well. Each had seized one of the sticks which had +been stacked together like guns. + +The Rat himself sat up straight on his platform. There was actually +something military in the bearing of his lean body. His voice lost its +squeak and its sharpness became commanding. + +He put the dozen lads through the drill as if he had been a smart young +officer. And the drill itself was prompt and smart enough to have done +credit to practiced soldiers in barracks. It made Marco involuntarily +stand very straight himself, and watch with surprised interest. + +"That's good!" he exclaimed when it was at an end. "How did you learn +that?" + +The Rat made a savage gesture. + +"If I'd had legs to stand on, I'd have been a soldier!" he said. "I'd +have enlisted in any regiment that would take me. I don't care for +anything else." + +Suddenly his face changed, and he shouted a command to his followers. + +"Turn your backs!" he ordered. + +And they did turn their backs and looked through the railings of the +old churchyard. Marco saw that they were obeying an order which was +not new to them. The Rat had thrown his arm up over his eyes and +covered them. He held it there for several moments, as if he did not +want to be seen. Marco turned his back as the rest had done. All at +once he understood that, though The Rat was not crying, yet he was +feeling something which another boy would possibly have broken down +under. + +"All right!" he shouted presently, and dropped his ragged-sleeved arm +and sat up straight again. + +"I want to go to war!" he said hoarsely. "I want to fight! I want to +lead a lot of men into battle! And I haven't got any legs. Sometimes +it takes the pluck out of me." + +"You've not grown up yet!" said Marco. "You might get strong. No one +knows what is going to happen. How did you learn to drill the club?" + +"I hang about barracks. I watch and listen. I follow soldiers. If I +could get books, I'd read about wars. I can't go to libraries as you +can. I can do nothing but scuffle about like a rat." + +"I can take you to some libraries," said Marco. "There are places +where boys can get in. And I can get some papers from my father." + +"Can you?" said The Rat. "Do you want to join the club?" + +"Yes!" Marco answered. "I'll speak to my father about it." + +He said it because the hungry longing for companionship in his own mind +had found a sort of response in the queer hungry look in The Rat's +eyes. He wanted to see him again. Strange creature as he was, there +was attraction in him. Scuffling about on his low wheeled platform, he +had drawn this group of rough lads to him and made himself their +commander. They obeyed him; they listened to his stories and harangues +about war and soldiering; they let him drill them and give them orders. +Marco knew that, when he told his father about him, he would be +interested. The boy wanted to hear what Loristan would say. + +"I'm going home now," he said. "If you're going to be here to-morrow, +I will try to come." + +"We shall be here," The Rat answered. "It's our barracks." + +Marco drew himself up smartly and made his salute as if to a superior +officer. Then he wheeled about and marched through the brick archway, +and the sound of his boyish tread was as regular and decided as if he +had been a man keeping time with his regiment. + +"He's been drilled himself," said The Rat. "He knows as much as I do." + +And he sat up and stared down the passage with new interest. + + + +V + +"SILENCE IS STILL THE ORDER" + +They were even poorer than usual just now, and the supper Marco and his +father sat down to was scant enough. Lazarus stood upright behind his +master's chair and served him with strictest ceremony. Their poor +lodgings were always kept with a soldierly cleanliness and order. When +an object could be polished it was forced to shine, no grain of dust +was allowed to lie undisturbed, and this perfection was not attained +through the ministrations of a lodging house slavey. Lazarus made +himself extremely popular by taking the work of caring for his master's +rooms entirely out of the hands of the overburdened maids of all work. +He had learned to do many things in his young days in barracks. He +carried about with him coarse bits of table-cloths and towels, which he +laundered as if they had been the finest linen. He mended, he patched, +he darned, and in the hardest fight the poor must face--the fight with +dirt and dinginess--he always held his own. They had nothing but dry +bread and coffee this evening, but Lazarus had made the coffee and the +bread was good. + +As Marco ate, he told his father the story of The Rat and his +followers. Loristan listened, as the boy had known he would, with the +far-off, intently-thinking smile in his dark eyes. It was a look which +always fascinated Marco because it meant that he was thinking so many +things. Perhaps he would tell some of them and perhaps he would not. +His spell over the boy lay in the fact that to him he seemed like a +wonderful book of which one had only glimpses. It was full of pictures +and adventures which were true, and one could not help continually +making guesses about them. Yes, the feeling that Marco had was that +his father's attraction for him was a sort of spell, and that others +felt the same thing. When he stood and talked to commoner people, he +held his tall body with singular quiet grace which was like power. He +never stirred or moved himself as if he were nervous or uncertain. He +could hold his hands (he had beautiful slender and strong hands) quite +still; he could stand on his fine arched feet without shuffling them. +He could sit without any ungrace or restlessness. His mind knew what +his body should do, and gave it orders without speaking, and his fine +limbs and muscles and nerves obeyed. So he could stand still and at +ease and look at the people he was talking to, and they always looked +at him and listened to what he said, and somehow, courteous and +uncondescending as his manner unfailingly was, it used always to seem +to Marco as if he were "giving an audience" as kings gave them. + +He had often seen people bow very low when they went away from him, and +more than once it had happened that some humble person had stepped out +of his presence backward, as people do when retiring before a +sovereign. And yet his bearing was the quietest and least assuming in +the world. + +"And they were talking about Samavia? And he knew the story of the +Lost Prince?" he said ponderingly. "Even in that place!" + +"He wants to hear about wars--he wants to talk about them," Marco +answered. "If he could stand and were old enough, he would go and +fight for Samavia himself." + +"It is a blood-drenched and sad place now!" said Loristan. "The people +are mad when they are not heartbroken and terrified." + +Suddenly Marco struck the table with a sounding slap of his boy's hand. +He did it before he realized any intention in his own mind. + +"Why should either one of the Iarovitch or one of the Maranovitch be +king!" he cried. "They were only savage peasants when they first +fought for the crown hundreds of years ago. The most savage one got +it, and they have been fighting ever since. Only the Fedorovitch were +born kings. There is only one man in the world who has the right to +the throne--and I don't know whether he is in the world or not. But I +believe he is! I do!" + +Loristan looked at his hot twelve-year-old face with a reflective +curiousness. He saw that the flame which had leaped up in him had +leaped without warning--just as a fierce heart-beat might have shaken +him. + +"You mean--?" he suggested softly. + +"Ivor Fedorovitch. King Ivor he ought to be. And the people would +obey him, and the good days would come again." + +"It is five hundred years since Ivor Fedorovitch left the good monks." +Loristan still spoke softly. + +"But, Father," Marco protested, "even The Rat said what you said--that +he was too young to be able to come back while the Maranovitch were in +power. And he would have to work and have a home, and perhaps he is as +poor as we are. But when he had a son he would call him Ivor and TELL +him--and his son would call HIS son Ivor and tell HIM--and it would go +on and on. They could never call their eldest sons anything but Ivor. +And what you said about the training would be true. There would always +be a king being trained for Samavia, and ready to be called." In the +fire of his feelings he sprang from his chair and stood upright. "Why! +There may be a king of Samavia in some city now who knows he is king, +and, when he reads about the fighting among his people, his blood gets +red-hot. They're his own people--his very own! He ought to go to +them--he ought to go and tell them who he is! Don't you think he +ought, Father?" + +"It would not be as easy as it seems to a boy," Loristan answered. +"There are many countries which would have something to say--Russia +would have her word, and Austria, and Germany; and England never is +silent. But, if he were a strong man and knew how to make strong +friends in silence, he might sometime be able to declare himself +openly." + +"But if he is anywhere, some one--some Samavian--ought to go and look +for him. It ought to be a Samavian who is very clever and a patriot--" +He stopped at a flash of recognition. "Father!" he cried out. +"Father! You--you are the one who could find him if any one in the +world could. But perhaps--" and he stopped a moment again because new +thoughts rushed through his mind. "Have YOU ever looked for him?" he +asked hesitating. + +Perhaps he had asked a stupid question--perhaps his father had always +been looking for him, perhaps that was his secret and his work. + +But Loristan did not look as if he thought him stupid. Quite the +contrary. He kept his handsome eyes fixed on him still in that curious +way, as if he were studying him--as if he were much more than twelve +years old, and he were deciding to tell him something. + +"Comrade at arms," he said, with the smile which always gladdened +Marco's heart, "you have kept your oath of allegiance like a man. You +were not seven years old when you took it. You are growing older. +Silence is still the order, but you are man enough to be told more." +He paused and looked down, and then looked up again, speaking in a low +tone. "I have not looked for him," he said, "because--I believe I +know where he is." + +Marco caught his breath. + +"Father!" He said only that word. He could say no more. He knew he +must not ask questions. "Silence is still the order." But as they +faced each other in their dingy room at the back of the shabby house on +the side of the roaring common road--as Lazarus stood stock-still +behind his father's chair and kept his eyes fixed on the empty coffee +cups and the dry bread plate, and everything looked as poor as things +always did--there was a king of Samavia--an Ivor Fedorovitch with the +blood of the Lost Prince in his veins--alive in some town or city this +moment! And Marco's own father knew where he was! + +He glanced at Lazarus, but, though the old soldier's face looked as +expressionless as if it were cut out of wood, Marco realized that he +knew this thing and had always known it. He had been a comrade at arms +all his life. He continued to stare at the bread plate. + +Loristan spoke again and in an even lower voice. "The Samavians who +are patriots and thinkers," he said, "formed themselves into a secret +party about eighty years ago. They formed it when they had no reason +for hope, but they formed it because one of them discovered that an +Ivor Fedorovitch was living. He was head forester on a great estate in +the Austrian Alps. The nobleman he served had always thought him a +mystery because he had the bearing and speech of a man who had not been +born a servant, and his methods in caring for the forests and game were +those of a man who was educated and had studied his subject. But he +never was familiar or assuming, and never professed superiority over +any of his fellows. He was a man of great stature, and was +extraordinarily brave and silent. The nobleman who was his master made +a sort of companion of him when they hunted together. Once he took him +with him when he traveled to Samavia to hunt wild horses. He found +that he knew the country strangely well, and that he was familiar with +Samavian hunting and customs. Before he returned to Austria, the man +obtained permission to go to the mountains alone. He went among the +shepherds and made friends among them, asking many questions. + +"One night around a forest fire he heard the songs about the Lost +Prince which had not been forgotten even after nearly five hundred +years had passed. The shepherds and herdsmen talked about Prince Ivor, +and told old stories about him, and related the prophecy that he would +come back and bring again Samavia's good days. He might come only in +the body of one of his descendants, but it would be his spirit which +came, because his spirit would never cease to love Samavia. One very +old shepherd tottered to his feet and lifted his face to the myriad +stars bestrewn like jewels in the blue sky above the forest trees, and +he wept and prayed aloud that the great God would send their king to +them. And the stranger huntsman stood upright also and lifted his face +to the stars. And, though he said no word, the herdsman nearest to him +saw tears on his cheeks--great, heavy tears. The next day, the +stranger went to the monastery where the order of good monks lived who +had taken care of the Lost Prince. When he had left Samavia, the +secret society was formed, and the members of it knew that an Ivor +Fedorovitch had passed through his ancestors' country as the servant of +another man. But the secret society was only a small one, and, though +it has been growing ever since and it has done good deeds and good work +in secret, the huntsman died an old man before it was strong enough +even to dare to tell Samavia what it knew." + +"Had he a son?" cried Marco. "Had he a son?" + +"Yes. He had a son. His name was Ivor. And he was trained as I told +you. That part I knew to be true, though I should have believed it was +true even if I had not known. There has ALWAYS been a king ready for +Samavia--even when he has labored with his hands and served others. +Each one took the oath of allegiance." + +"As I did?" said Marco, breathless with excitement. When one is twelve +years old, to be so near a Lost Prince who might end wars is a +thrilling thing. + +"The same," answered Loristan. + +Marco threw up his hand in salute. + +"'Here grows a man for Samavia! God be thanked!'" he quoted. "And HE +is somewhere? And you know?" + +Loristan bent his head in acquiescence. + +"For years much secret work has been done, and the Fedorovitch party +has grown until it is much greater and more powerful than the other +parties dream. The larger countries are tired of the constant war and +disorder in Samavia. Their interests are disturbed by them, and they +are deciding that they must have peace and laws which can be counted +on. There have been Samavian patriots who have spent their lives in +trying to bring this about by making friends in the most powerful +capitals, and working secretly for the future good of their own land. +Because Samavia is so small and uninfluential, it has taken a long time +but when King Maran and his family were assassinated and the war broke +out, there were great powers which began to say that if some king of +good blood and reliable characteristics were given the crown, he should +be upheld." + +"HIS blood,"--Marco's intensity made his voice drop almost to a +whisper,--"HIS blood has been trained for five hundred years, Father! +If it comes true--" though he laughed a little, he was obliged to wink +his eyes hard because suddenly he felt tears rush into them, which no +boy likes--"the shepherds will have to make a new song--it will have to +be a shouting one about a prince going away and a king coming back!" + +"They are a devout people and observe many an ancient rite and +ceremony. They will chant prayers and burn altar-fires on their +mountain sides," Loristan said. "But the end is not yet--the end is +not yet. Sometimes it seems that perhaps it is near--but God knows!" + +Then there leaped back upon Marco the story he had to tell, but which +he had held back for the last--the story of the man who spoke Samavian +and drove in the carriage with the King. He knew now that it might +mean some important thing which he could not have before suspected. + +"There is something I must tell you," he said. + +He had learned to relate incidents in few but clear words when he +related them to his father. It had been part of his training. Loristan +had said that he might sometime have a story to tell when he had but +few moments to tell it in--some story which meant life or death to some +one. He told this one quickly and well. He made Loristan see the +well-dressed man with the deliberate manner and the keen eyes, and he +made him hear his voice when he said, "Tell your father that you are a +very well-trained lad." + +"I am glad he said that. He is a man who knows what training is," said +Loristan. "He is a person who knows what all Europe is doing, and +almost all that it will do. He is an ambassador from a powerful and +great country. If he saw that you are a well-trained and fine lad, it +might--it might even be good for Samavia." + +"Would it matter that _I_ was well-trained? COULD it matter to +Samavia?" Marco cried out. + +Loristan paused for a moment--watching him gravely--looking him +over--his big, well-built boy's frame, his shabby clothes, and his +eagerly burning eyes. + +He smiled one of his slow wonderful smiles. + +"Yes. It might even matter to Samavia!" he answered. + + + +VI + +THE DRILL AND THE SECRET PARTY + +Loristan did not forbid Marco to pursue his acquaintance with The Rat +and his followers. + +"You will find out for yourself whether they are friends for you or +not," he said. "You will know in a few days, and then you can make +your own decision. You have known lads in various countries, and you +are a good judge of them, I think. You will soon see whether they are +going to be MEN or mere rabble. The Rat now--how does he strike you?" + +And the handsome eyes held their keen look of questioning. + +"He'd be a brave soldier if he could stand," said Marco, thinking him +over. "But he might be cruel." + +"A lad who might make a brave soldier cannot be disdained, but a man +who is cruel is a fool. Tell him that from me," Loristan answered. +"He wastes force--his own and the force of the one he treats cruelly. +Only a fool wastes force." + +"May I speak of you sometimes?" asked Marco. + +"Yes. You will know how. You will remember the things about which +silence is the order." + +"I never forget them," said Marco. "I have been trying not to, for +such a long time." + +"You have succeeded well, Comrade!" returned Loristan, from his +writing-table, to which he had gone and where he was turning over +papers. + +A strong impulse overpowered the boy. He marched over to the table and +stood very straight, making his soldierly young salute, his whole body +glowing. + +"Father!" he said, "you don't know how I love you! I wish you were a +general and I might die in battle for you. When I look at you, I long +and long to do something for you a boy could not do. I would die of a +thousand wounds rather than disobey you--or Samavia!" + +He seized Loristan's hand, and knelt on one knee and kissed it. An +English or American boy could not have done such a thing from +unaffected natural impulse. But he was of warm Southern blood. + +"I took my oath of allegiance to you, Father, when I took it to +Samavia. It seems as if you were Samavia, too," he said, and kissed +his hand again. + +Loristan had turned toward him with one of the movements which were +full of dignity and grace. Marco, looking up at him, felt that there +was always a certain remote stateliness in him which made it seem quite +natural that any one should bend the knee and kiss his hand. + +A sudden great tenderness glowed in his father's face as he raised the +boy and put his hand on his shoulder. + +"Comrade," he said, "you don't know how much I love you--and what +reason there is that we should love each other! You don't know how I +have been watching you, and thanking God each year that here grew a man +for Samavia. That I know you are--a MAN, though you have lived but +twelve years. Twelve years may grow a man--or prove that a man will +never grow, though a human thing he may remain for ninety years. This +year may be full of strange things for both of us. We cannot know WHAT +I may have to ask you to do for me--and for Samavia. Perhaps such a +thing as no twelve-year-old boy has ever done before." + +"Every night and every morning," said Marco, "I shall pray that I may +be called to do it, and that I may do it well." + +"You will do it well, Comrade, if you are called. That I could make +oath," Loristan answered him. + + +The Squad had collected in the inclosure behind the church when Marco +appeared at the arched end of the passage. The boys were drawn up with +their rifles, but they all wore a rather dogged and sullen look. The +explanation which darted into Marco's mind was that this was because +The Rat was in a bad humor. He sat crouched together on his platform +biting his nails fiercely, his elbows on his updrawn knees, his face +twisted into a hideous scowl. He did not look around, or even look up +from the cracked flagstone of the pavement on which his eyes were fixed. + +Marco went forward with military step and stopped opposite to him with +prompt salute. + +"Sorry to be late, sir," he said, as if he had been a private speaking +to his colonel. + +"It's 'im, Rat! 'E's come, Rat!" the Squad shouted. "Look at 'im!" + +But The Rat would not look, and did not even move. + +"What's the matter?" said Marco, with less ceremony than a private +would have shown. "There's no use in my coming here if you don't want +me." + +"'E's got a grouch on 'cos you're late!" called out the head of the +line. "No doin' nothin' when 'e's got a grouch on." + +"I sha'n't try to do anything," said Marco, his boy-face setting itself +into good stubborn lines. "That's not what I came here for. I came to +drill. I've been with my father. He comes first. I can't join the +Squad if he doesn't come first. We're not on active service, and we're +not in barracks." + +Then The Rat moved sharply and turned to look at him. + +"I thought you weren't coming at all!" he snapped and growled at once. +"My father said you wouldn't. He said you were a young swell for all +your patched clothes. He said your father would think he was a swell, +even if he was only a penny-a-liner on newspapers, and he wouldn't let +you have anything to do with a vagabond and a nuisance. Nobody begged +you to join. Your father can go to blazes!" + +"Don't you speak in that way about my father," said Marco, quite +quietly, "because I can't knock you down." + +"I'll get up and let you!" began The Rat, immediately white and raging. +"I can stand up with two sticks. I'll get up and let you!" + +"No, you won't," said Marco. "If you want to know what my father said, +I can tell you. He said I could come as often as I liked--till I found +out whether we should be friends or not. He says I shall find that out +for myself." + +It was a strange thing The Rat did. It must always be remembered of +him that his wretched father, who had each year sunk lower and lower in +the under-world, had been a gentleman once, a man who had been familiar +with good manners and had been educated in the customs of good +breeding. Sometimes when he was drunk, and sometimes when he was +partly sober, he talked to The Rat of many things the boy would +otherwise never have heard of. That was why the lad was different from +the other vagabonds. This, also, was why he suddenly altered the whole +situation by doing this strange and unexpected thing. He utterly +changed his expression and voice, fixing his sharp eyes shrewdly on +Marco's. It was almost as if he were asking him a conundrum. He knew +it would have been one to most boys of the class he appeared outwardly +to belong to. He would either know the answer or he wouldn't. + +"I beg your pardon," The Rat said. + +That was the conundrum. It was what a gentleman and an officer would +have said, if he felt he had been mistaken or rude. He had heard that +from his drunken father. + +"I beg yours--for being late," said Marco. + +That was the right answer. It was the one another officer and +gentleman would have made. It settled the matter at once, and it +settled more than was apparent at the moment. It decided that Marco +was one of those who knew the things The Rat's father had once +known--the things gentlemen do and say and think. Not another word was +said. It was all right. Marco slipped into line with the Squad, and +The Rat sat erect with his military bearing and began his drill: + +"Squad! + +"'Tention! + +"Number! + +"Slope arms! + +"Form fours! + +"Right! + +"Quick march! + +"Halt! + +"Left turn! + +"Order arms! + +"Stand at ease! + +"Stand easy!" + +They did it so well that it was quite wonderful when one considered the +limited space at their disposal. They had evidently done it often, and +The Rat had been not only a smart, but a severe, officer. This morning +they repeated the exercise a number of times, and even varied it with +Review Drill, with which they seemed just as familiar. + +"Where did you learn it?" The Rat asked, when the arms were stacked +again and Marco was sitting by him as he had sat the previous day. + +"From an old soldier. And I like to watch it, as you do." + +"If you were a young swell in the Guards, you couldn't be smarter at +it," The Rat said. "The way you hold yourself! The way you stand! +You've got it! Wish I was you! It comes natural to you." + +"I've always liked to watch it and try to do it myself. I did when I +was a little fellow," answered Marco. + +"I've been trying to kick it into these chaps for more than a year," +said The Rat. "A nice job I had of it! It nearly made me sick at +first." + +The semicircle in front of him only giggled or laughed outright. The +members of it seemed to take very little offense at his cavalier +treatment of them. He had evidently something to give them which was +entertaining enough to make up for his tyranny and indifference. He +thrust his hand into one of the pockets of his ragged coat, and drew +out a piece of newspaper. + +"My father brought home this, wrapped round a loaf of bread," he said. +"See what it says there!" + +He handed it to Marco, pointing to some words printed in large letters +at the head of a column. Marco looked at it and sat very still. + +The words he read were: "The Lost Prince." + +"Silence is still the order," was the first thought which flashed +through his mind. "Silence is still the order." + +"What does it mean?" he said aloud. + +"There isn't much of it. I wish there was more," The Rat said +fretfully. "Read and see. Of course they say it mayn't be true--but I +believe it is. They say that people think some one knows where he +is--at least where one of his descendants is. It'd be the same thing. +He'd be the real king. If he'd just show himself, it might stop all +the fighting. Just read." + +Marco read, and his skin prickled as the blood went racing through his +body. But his face did not change. There was a sketch of the story of +the Lost Prince to begin with. It had been regarded by most people, +the article said, as a sort of legend. Now there was a definite rumor +that it was not a legend at all, but a part of the long past history of +Samavia. It was said that through the centuries there had always been +a party secretly loyal to the memory of this worshiped and lost +Fedorovitch. It was even said that from father to son, generation +after generation after generation, had descended the oath of fealty to +him and his descendants. The people had made a god of him, and now, +romantic as it seemed, it was beginning to be an open secret that some +persons believed that a descendant had been found--a Fedorovitch worthy +of his young ancestor--and that a certain Secret Party also held that, +if he were called back to the throne of Samavia, the interminable wars +and bloodshed would reach an end. + +The Rat had begun to bite his nails fast. + +"Do you believe he's found?" he asked feverishly. "DON'T YOU? I do!" + +"I wonder where he is, if it's true? I wonder! Where?" exclaimed +Marco. He could say that, and he might seem as eager as he felt. + +The Squad all began to jabber at once. "Yus, where wos'e? There is no +knowin'. It'd be likely to be in some o' these furrin places. +England'd be too far from Samavia. 'Ow far off wos Samavia? Wos it in +Roosha, or where the Frenchies were, or the Germans? But wherever 'e +wos, 'e'd be the right sort, an' 'e'd be the sort a chap'd turn and +look at in the street." + +The Rat continued to bite his nails. + +"He might be anywhere," he said, his small fierce face glowing. + +"That's what I like to think about. He might be passing in the street +outside there; he might be up in one of those houses," jerking his head +over his shoulder toward the backs of the inclosing dwellings. +"Perhaps he knows he's a king, and perhaps he doesn't. He'd know if +what you said yesterday was true--about the king always being made +ready for Samavia." + +"Yes, he'd know," put in Marco. + +"Well, it'd be finer if he did," went on The Rat. "However poor and +shabby he was, he'd know the secret all the time. And if people +sneered at him, he'd sneer at them and laugh to himself. I dare say +he'd walk tremendously straight and hold his head up. If I was him, +I'd like to make people suspect a bit that I wasn't like the common lot +o' them." He put out his hand and pushed Marco excitedly. "Let's work +out plots for him!" he said. "That'd be a splendid game! Let's +pretend we're the Secret Party!" + +He was tremendously excited. Out of the ragged pocket he fished a +piece of chalk. Then he leaned forward and began to draw something +quickly on the flagstones closest to his platform. The Squad leaned +forward also, quite breathlessly, and Marco leaned forward. The chalk +was sketching a roughly outlined map, and he knew what map it was, +before The Rat spoke. + +"That's a map of Samavia," he said. "It was in that piece of magazine +I told you about--the one where I read about Prince Ivor. I studied it +until it fell to pieces. But I could draw it myself by that time, so +it didn't matter. I could draw it with my eyes shut. That's the +capital city," pointing to a spot. "It's called Melzarr. The palace is +there. It's the place where the first of the Maranovitch killed the +last of the Fedorovitch--the bad chap that was Ivor's father. It's +the palace Ivor wandered out of singing the shepherds' song that early +morning. It's where the throne is that his descendant would sit upon +to be crowned--that he's GOING to sit upon. I believe he is! Let's +swear he shall!" He flung down his piece of chalk and sat up. "Give +me two sticks. Help me to get up." + +Two of the Squad sprang to their feet and came to him. Each snatched +one of the sticks from the stacked rifles, evidently knowing what he +wanted. Marco rose too, and watched with sudden, keen curiosity. He +had thought that The Rat could not stand up, but it seemed that he +could, in a fashion of his own, and he was going to do it. The boys +lifted him by his arms, set him against the stone coping of the iron +railings of the churchyard, and put a stick in each of his hands. They +stood at his side, but he supported himself. + +"'E could get about if 'e 'ad the money to buy crutches!" said one +whose name was Cad, and he said it quite proudly. The queer thing that +Marco had noticed was that the ragamuffins were proud of The Rat, and +regarded him as their lord and master. "--'E could get about an' stand +as well as any one," added the other, and he said it in the tone of one +who boasts. His name was Ben. + +"I'm going to stand now, and so are the rest of you," said The Rat. +"Squad! 'Tention! You at the head of the line," to Marco. They were +in line in a moment--straight, shoulders back, chins up. And Marco +stood at the head. + +"We're going to take an oath," said The Rat. "It's an oath of +allegiance. Allegiance means faithfulness to a thing--a king or a +country. Ours means allegiance to the King of Samavia. We don't know +where he is, but we swear to be faithful to him, to fight for him, to +plot for him, to DIE for him, and to bring him back to his throne!" +The way in which he flung up his head when he said the word "die" was +very fine indeed. "We are the Secret Party. We will work in the dark +and find out things--and run risks--and collect an army no one will +know anything about until it is strong enough to suddenly rise at a +secret signal, and overwhelm the Maranovitch and Iarovitch, and seize +their forts and citadels. No one even knows we are alive. We are a +silent, secret thing that never speaks aloud!" + +Silent and secret as they were, however, they spoke aloud at this +juncture. It was such a grand idea for a game, and so full of possible +larks, that the Squad broke into a howl of an exultant cheer. + +"Hooray!" they yelled. "Hooray for the oath of 'legiance! 'Ray! 'ray! +'ray!" + +"Shut up, you swine!" shouted The Rat. "Is that the way you keep +yourself secret? You'll call the police in, you fools! Look at HIM!" +pointing to Marco. "He's got some sense." + +Marco, in fact, had not made any sound. + +"Come here, you Cad and Ben, and put me back on my wheels," raged the +Squad's commander. "I'll not make up the game at all. It's no use with +a lot of fat-head, raw recruits like you." + +The line broke and surrounded him in a moment, pleading and urging. + +"Aw, Rat! We forgot. It's the primest game you've ever thought out! +Rat! Rat! Don't get a grouch on! We'll keep still, Rat! Primest lark +of all 'll be the sneakin' about an' keepin' quiet. Aw, Rat! Keep it +up!" + +"Keep it up yourselves!" snarled The Rat. + +"Not another cove of us could do it but you! Not one! There's no +other cove could think it out. You're the only chap that can think out +things. You thought out the Squad! That's why you're captain!" + +This was true. He was the one who could invent entertainment for them, +these street lads who had nothing. Out of that nothing he could create +what excited them, and give them something to fill empty, useless, +often cold or wet or foggy, hours. That made him their captain and +their pride. + +The Rat began to yield, though grudgingly. He pointed again to Marco, +who had not moved, but stood still at attention. + +"Look at HIM!" he said. "He knows enough to stand where he's put until +he's ordered to break line. He's a soldier, he is--not a raw recruit +that don't know the goose-step. He's been in barracks before." + +But after this outburst, he deigned to go on. + +"Here's the oath," he said. "We swear to stand any torture and submit +in silence to any death rather than betray our secret and our king. We +will obey in silence and in secret. We will swim through seas of blood +and fight our way through lakes of fire, if we are ordered. Nothing +shall bar our way. All we do and say and think is for our country and +our king. If any of you have anything to say, speak out before you +take the oath." + +He saw Marco move a little, and he made a sign to him. + +"You," he said. "Have you something to say?" + +Marco turned to him and saluted. + +"Here stand ten men for Samavia. God be thanked!" he said. He dared +say that much, and he felt as if his father himself would have told him +that they were the right words. + +The Rat thought they were. Somehow he felt that they struck home. He +reddened with a sudden emotion. + +"Squad!" he said. "I'll let you give three cheers on that. It's for +the last time. We'll begin to be quiet afterward." + +And to the Squad's exultant relief he led the cheer, and they were +allowed to make as much uproar as they liked. They liked to make a +great deal, and when it was at an end, it had done them good and made +them ready for business. + +The Rat opened the drama at once. Never surely had there ever before +been heard a conspirator's whisper as hollow as his. + +"Secret Ones," he said, "it is midnight. We meet in the depths of +darkness. We dare not meet by day. When we meet in the daytime, we +pretend not to know each other. We are meeting now in a Samavian city +where there is a fortress. We shall have to take it when the secret +sign is given and we make our rising. We are getting everything ready, +so that, when we find the king, the secret sign can be given." + +"What is the name of the city we are in?" whispered Cad. + +"It is called Larrina. It is an important seaport. We must take it as +soon as we rise. The next time we meet I will bring a dark lantern and +draw a map and show it to you." + +It would have been a great advantage to the game if Marco could have +drawn for them the map he could have made, a map which would have shown +every fortress--every stronghold and every weak place. Being a boy, he +knew what excitement would have thrilled each breast, how they would +lean forward and pile question on question, pointing to this place and +to that. He had learned to draw the map before he was ten, and he had +drawn it again and again because there had been times when his father +had told him that changes had taken place. Oh, yes! he could have +drawn a map which would have moved them to a frenzy of joy. But he sat +silent and listened, only speaking when he asked a question, as if he +knew nothing more about Samavia than The Rat did. What a Secret Party +they were! They drew themselves together in the closest of circles; +they spoke in unearthly whispers. + +"A sentinel ought to be posted at the end of the passage," Marco +whispered. + +"Ben, take your gun!" commanded The Rat. + +Ben rose stealthily, and, shouldering his weapon, crept on tiptoe to +the opening. There he stood on guard. + +"My father says there's been a Secret Party in Samavia for a hundred +years," The Rat whispered. + +"Who told him?" asked Marco. + +"A man who has been in Samavia," answered The Rat. "He said it was the +most wonderful Secret Party in the world, because it has worked and +waited so long, and never given up, though it has had no reason for +hoping. It began among some shepherds and charcoal-burners who bound +themselves by an oath to find the Lost Prince and bring him back to the +throne. There were too few of them to do anything against the +Maranovitch, and when the first lot found they were growing old, they +made their sons take the same oath. It has been passed on from +generation to generation, and in each generation the band has grown. +No one really knows how large it is now, but they say that there are +people in nearly all the countries in Europe who belong to it in dead +secret, and are sworn to help it when they are called. They are only +waiting. Some are rich people who will give money, and some are poor +ones who will slip across the frontier to fight or to help to smuggle +in arms. They even say that for all these years there have been arms +made in caves in the mountains, and hidden there year after year. +There are men who are called Forgers of the Sword, and they, and their +fathers, and grandfathers, and great-grandfathers have always made +swords and stored them in caverns no one knows of, hidden caverns +underground." + +Marco spoke aloud the thought which had come into his mind as he +listened, a thought which brought fear to him. "If the people in the +streets talk about it, they won't be hidden long." + +"It isn't common talk, my father says. Only very few have guessed, and +most of them think it is part of the Lost Prince legend," said The Rat. +"The Maranovitch and Iarovitch laugh at it. They have always been +great fools. They're too full of their own swagger to think anything +can interfere with them." + +"Do you talk much to your father?" Marco asked him. + +The Rat showed his sharp white teeth in a grin. + +"I know what you're thinking of," he said. "You're remembering that I +said he was always drunk. So he is, except when he's only HALF drunk. +And when he's HALF drunk, he's the most splendid talker in London. He +remembers everything he has ever learned or read or heard since he was +born. I get him going and listen. He wants to talk and I want to +hear. I found out almost everything I know in that way. He didn't +know he was teaching me, but he was. He goes back into being a +gentleman when he's half drunk." + +"If--if you care about the Samavians, you'd better ask him not to tell +people about the Secret Party and the Forgers of the Sword," suggested +Marco. + +The Rat started a little. + +"That's true!" he said. "You're sharper than I am. It oughtn't to be +blabbed about, or the Maranovitch might hear enough to make them stop +and listen. I'll get him to promise. There's one queer thing about +him," he added very slowly, as if he were thinking it over, "I suppose +it's part of the gentleman that's left in him. If he makes a promise, +he never breaks it, drunk or sober." + +"Ask him to make one," said Marco. The next moment he changed the +subject because it seemed the best thing to do. "Go on and tell us +what our own Secret Party is to do. We're forgetting," he whispered. + +The Rat took up his game with renewed keenness. It was a game which +attracted him immensely because it called upon his imagination and held +his audience spellbound, besides plunging him into war and strategy. + +"We're preparing for the rising," he said. "It must come soon. We've +waited so long. The caverns are stacked with arms. The Maranovitch and +the Iarovitch are fighting and using all their soldiers, and now is our +time." He stopped and thought, his elbows on his knees. He began to +bite his nails again. + +"The Secret Signal must be given," he said. Then he stopped again, and +the Squad held its breath and pressed nearer with a softly shuffling +sound. "Two of the Secret Ones must be chosen by lot and sent forth," +he went on; and the Squad almost brought ruin and disgrace upon itself +by wanting to cheer again, and only just stopping itself in time. +"Must be chosen BY LOT," The Rat repeated, looking from one face to +another. "Each one will take his life in his hand when he goes forth. +He may have to die a thousand deaths, but he must go. He must steal in +silence and disguise from one country to another. Wherever there is +one of the Secret Party, whether he is in a hovel or on a throne, the +messengers must go to him in darkness and stealth and give him the +sign. It will mean, 'The hour has come. God save Samavia!'" + +"God save Samavia!" whispered the Squad, excitedly. And, because they +saw Marco raise his hand to his forehead, every one of them saluted. + +They all began to whisper at once. + +"Let's draw lots now. Let's draw lots, Rat. Don't let's 'ave no +waitin'." + +The Rat began to look about him with dread anxiety. He seemed to be +examining the sky. + +"The darkness is not as thick as it was," he whispered. "Midnight has +passed. The dawn of day will be upon us. If any one has a piece of +paper or a string, we will draw the lots before we part." + +Cad had a piece of string, and Marco had a knife which could be used to +cut it into lengths. This The Rat did himself. Then, after shutting +his eyes and mixing them, he held them in his hand ready for the +drawing. + +"The Secret One who draws the longest lot is chosen. The Secret One +who draws the shortest is chosen," he said solemnly. + +The drawing was as solemn as his tone. Each boy wanted to draw either +the shortest lot or the longest one. The heart of each thumped +somewhat as he drew his piece of string. + +When the drawing was at an end, each showed his lot. The Rat had drawn +the shortest piece of string, and Marco had drawn the longest one. + +"Comrade!" said The Rat, taking his hand. "We will face death and +danger together!" + +"God save Samavia!" answered Marco. + +And the game was at an end for the day. The primest thing, the Squad +said, The Rat had ever made up for them. "'E wos a wonder, he wos!" + + + +VII + +"THE LAMP IS LIGHTED!" + +On his way home, Marco thought of nothing but the story he must tell +his father, the story the stranger who had been to Samavia had told The +Rat's father. He felt that it must be a true story and not merely an +invention. The Forgers of the Sword must be real men, and the hidden +subterranean caverns stacked through the centuries with arms must be +real, too. And if they were real, surely his father was one of those +who knew the secret. His thoughts ran very fast. The Rat's boyish +invention of the rising was only part of a game, but how natural it +would be that sometime--perhaps before long--there would be a real +rising! Surely there would be one if the Secret Party had grown so +strong, and if many weapons and secret friends in other countries were +ready and waiting. During all these years, hidden work and preparation +would have been going on continually, even though it was preparation +for an unknown day. A party which had lasted so long--which passed its +oath on from generation to generation--must be of a deadly +determination. + +What might it not have made ready in its caverns and secret +meeting-places! He longed to reach home and tell his father, at once, +all he had heard. He recalled to mind, word for word, all that The Rat +had been told, and even all he had added in his game, because--well, +because that seemed so real too, so real that it actually might be +useful. + +But when he reached No. 7 Philibert Place, he found Loristan and +Lazarus very much absorbed in work. The door of the back sitting-room +was locked when he first knocked on it, and locked again as soon as he +had entered. There were many papers on the table, and they were +evidently studying them. Several of them were maps. Some were road +maps, some maps of towns and cities, and some of fortifications; but +they were all maps of places in Samavia. They were usually kept in a +strong box, and when they were taken out to be studied, the door was +always kept locked. + +Before they had their evening meal, these were all returned to the +strong box, which was pushed into a corner and had newspapers piled +upon it. + +"When he arrives," Marco heard Loristan say to Lazarus, "we can show +him clearly what has been planned. He can see for himself." + +His father spoke scarcely at all during the meal, and, though it was +not the habit of Lazarus to speak at such times unless spoken to, this +evening it seemed to Marco that he LOOKED more silent than he had ever +seen him look before. They were plainly both thinking anxiously of +deeply serious things. The story of the stranger who had been to +Samavia must not be told yet. But it was one which would keep. + +Loristan did not say anything until Lazarus had removed the things from +the table and made the room as neat as possible. While that was being +done, he sat with his forehead resting on his hand, as if absorbed in +thought. Then he made a gesture to Marco. + +"Come here, Comrade," he said. + +Marco went to him. + +"To-night some one may come to talk with me about grave things," he +said. "I think he will come, but I cannot be quite sure. It is +important that he should know that, when he comes, he will find me +quite alone. He will come at a late hour, and Lazarus will open the +door quietly that no one may hear. It is important that no one should +see him. Some one must go and walk on the opposite side of the street +until he appears. Then the one who goes to give warning must cross the +pavement before him and say in a low voice, 'The Lamp is lighted!' and +at once turn quietly away." + +What boy's heart would not have leaped with joy at the mystery of it! +Even a common and dull boy who knew nothing of Samavia would have felt +jerky. Marco's voice almost shook with the thrill of his feeling. + +"How shall I know him?" he said at once. Without asking at all, he +knew he was the "some one" who was to go. + +"You have seen him before," Loristan answered. "He is the man who +drove in the carriage with the King." + +"I shall know him," said Marco. "When shall I go?" + +"Not until it is half-past one o'clock. Go to bed and sleep until +Lazarus calls you." Then he added, "Look well at his face before you +speak. He will probably not be dressed as well as he was when you saw +him first." + +Marco went up-stairs to his room and went to bed as he was told, but it +was hard to go to sleep. The rattle and roaring of the road did not +usually keep him awake, because he had lived in the poorer quarter of +too many big capital cities not to be accustomed to noise. But +to-night it seemed to him that, as he lay and looked out at the +lamplight, he heard every bus and cab which went past. He could not +help thinking of the people who were in them, and on top of them, and +of the people who were hurrying along on the pavement outside the +broken iron railings. He was wondering what they would think if they +knew that things connected with the battles they read of in the daily +papers were going on in one of the shabby houses they scarcely gave a +glance to as they went by them. It must be something connected with +the war, if a man who was a great diplomat and the companion of kings +came in secret to talk alone with a patriot who was a Samavian. +Whatever his father was doing was for the good of Samavia, and perhaps +the Secret Party knew he was doing it. His heart almost beat aloud +under his shirt as he lay on the lumpy mattress thinking it over. He +must indeed look well at the stranger before he even moved toward him. +He must be sure he was the right man. The game he had amused himself +with so long--the game of trying to remember pictures and people and +places clearly and in detail--had been a wonderful training. If he +could draw, he knew he could have made a sketch of the keen-eyed, +clever, aquiline face with the well-cut and delicately close mouth, +which looked as if it had been shut upon secrets always--always. If he +could draw, he found himself saying again. He COULD draw, though +perhaps only roughly. He had often amused himself by making sketches +of things he wanted to ask questions about. He had even drawn people's +faces in his untrained way, and his father had said that he had a crude +gift for catching a likeness. Perhaps he could make a sketch of this +face which would show his father that he knew and would recognize it. + +He jumped out of bed and went to a table near the window. There was +paper and a pencil lying on it. A street lamp exactly opposite threw +into the room quite light enough for him to see by. He half knelt by +the table and began to draw. He worked for about twenty minutes +steadily, and he tore up two or three unsatisfactory sketches. The +poor drawing would not matter if he could catch that subtle look which +was not slyness but something more dignified and important. It was not +difficult to get the marked, aristocratic outline of the features. A +common-looking man with less pronounced profile would have been less +easy to draw in one sense. He gave his mind wholly to the recalling of +every detail which had photographed itself on his memory through its +trained habit. Gradually he saw that the likeness was becoming +clearer. It was not long before it was clear enough to be a striking +one. Any one who knew the man would recognize it. He got up, drawing a +long and joyful breath. + +He did not put on his shoes, but crossed his room as noiselessly as +possible, and as noiselessly opened the door. He made no ghost of a +sound when he went down the stairs. The woman who kept the +lodging-house had gone to bed, and so had the other lodgers and the +maid of all work. All the lights were out except the one he saw a +glimmer of under the door of his father's room. When he had been a mere +baby, he had been taught to make a special sign on the door when he +wished to speak to Loristan. He stood still outside the back +sitting-room and made it now. It was a low scratching sound--two +scratches and a soft tap. Lazarus opened the door and looked troubled. + +"It is not yet time, sir," he said very low. + +"I know," Marco answered. "But I must show something to my father." +Lazarus let him in, and Loristan turned round from his writing-table +questioningly. + +Marco went forward and laid the sketch down before him. + +"Look at it," he said. "I remember him well enough to draw that. I +thought of it all at once--that I could make a sort of picture. Do you +think it is like him?" Loristan examined it closely. + +"It is very like him," he answered. "You have made me feel entirely +safe. Thanks, Comrade. It was a good idea." + +There was relief in the grip he gave the boy's hand, and Marco turned +away with an exultant feeling. Just as he reached the door, Loristan +said to him: + +"Make the most of this gift. It is a gift. And it is true your mind +has had good training. The more you draw, the better. Draw everything +you can." + +Neither the street lamps, nor the noises, nor his thoughts kept Marco +awake when he went back to bed. But before he settled himself upon his +pillow he gave himself certain orders. He had both read, and heard +Loristan say, that the mind can control the body when people once find +out that it can do so. He had tried experiments himself, and had found +out some curious things. One was that if he told himself to remember a +certain thing at a certain time, he usually found that he DID remember +it. Something in his brain seemed to remind him. He had often tried +the experiment of telling himself to awaken at a particular hour, and +had awakened almost exactly at the moment by the clock. + +"I will sleep until one o'clock," he said as he shut his eyes. "Then I +will awaken and feel quite fresh. I shall not be sleepy at all." + +He slept as soundly as a boy can sleep. And at one o'clock exactly he +awakened, and found the street lamp still throwing its light through +the window. He knew it was one o'clock, because there was a cheap +little round clock on the table, and he could see the time. He was +quite fresh and not at all sleepy. His experiment had succeeded again. + +He got up and dressed. Then he went down-stairs as noiselessly as +before. He carried his shoes in his hands, as he meant to put them on +only when he reached the street. He made his sign at his father's +door, and it was Loristan who opened it. + +"Shall I go now?" Marco asked. + +"Yes. Walk slowly to the other side of the street. Look in every +direction. We do not know where he will come from. After you have +given him the sign, then come in and go to bed again." + +Marco saluted as a soldier would have done on receiving an order. + +Then, without a second's delay, he passed noiselessly out of the house. + +Loristan turned back into the room and stood silently in the center of +it. The long lines of his handsome body looked particularly erect and +stately, and his eyes were glowing as if something deeply moved him. + +"There grows a man for Samavia," he said to Lazarus, who watched him. +"God be thanked!" + +Lazarus's voice was low and hoarse, and he saluted quite reverently. + +"Your--sir!" he said. "God save the Prince!" + +"Yes," Loristan answered, after a moment's hesitation,--"when he is +found." And he went back to his table smiling his beautiful smile. + + +The wonder of silence in the deserted streets of a great city, after +midnight has hushed all the roar and tumult to rest, is an almost +unbelievable thing. The stillness in the depths of a forest or on a +mountain top is not so strange. A few hours ago, the tumult was +rushing past; in a few hours more, it will be rushing past again. + +But now the street is a naked thing; a distant policeman's tramp on the +bare pavement has a hollow and almost fearsome sound. It seemed +especially so to Marco as he crossed the road. Had it ever been so +empty and deadly silent before? Was it so every night? Perhaps it +was, when he was fast asleep on his lumpy mattress with the light from +a street lamp streaming into the room. He listened for the step of the +policeman on night-watch, because he did not wish to be seen. There +was a jutting wall where he could stand in the shadow while the man +passed. A policeman would stop to look questioningly at a boy who +walked up and down the pavement at half-past one in the morning. Marco +could wait until he had gone by, and then come out into the light and +look up and down the road and the cross streets. + +He heard his approaching footsteps in a few minutes, and was safely in +the shadows before he could be seen. When the policeman passed, he +came out and walked slowly down the road, looking on each side, and now +and then looking back. At first no one was in sight. Then a late +hansom-cab came tinkling along. But the people in it were returning +from some festivity, and were laughing and talking, and noticed nothing +but their own joking. Then there was silence again, and for a long +time, as it seemed to Marco, no one was to be seen. It was not really +so long as it appeared, because he was anxious. Then a very early +vegetable-wagon on the way from the country to Covent Garden Market +came slowly lumbering by with its driver almost asleep on his piles of +potatoes and cabbages. After it had passed, there was stillness and +emptiness once more, until the policeman showed himself again on his +beat, and Marco slipped into the shadow of the wall as he had done +before. + +When he came out into the light, he had begun to hope that the time +would not seem long to his father. It had not really been long, he +told himself, it had only seemed so. But his father's anxiousness +would be greater than his own could be. Loristan knew all that +depended on the coming of this great man who sat side by side with a +king in his carriage and talked to him as if he knew him well. + +"It might be something which all Samavia is waiting to know--at least +all the Secret Party," Marco thought. "The Secret Party is +Samavia,"--he started at the sound of footsteps. "Some one is coming!" +he said. "It is a man." + +It was a man who was walking up the road on the same side of the +pavement as his own. Marco began to walk toward him quietly but rather +rapidly. He thought it might be best to appear as if he were some boy +sent on a midnight errand--perhaps to call a doctor. Then, if it was a +stranger he passed, no suspicion would be aroused. Was this man as +tall as the one who had driven with the King? Yes, he was about the +same height, but he was too far away to be recognizable otherwise. He +drew nearer, and Marco noticed that he also seemed slightly to hasten +his footsteps. Marco went on. A little nearer, and he would be able to +make sure. Yes, now he was near enough. Yes, this man was the same +height and not unlike in figure, but he was much younger. He was not +the one who had been in the carriage with His Majesty. He was not more +than thirty years old. He began swinging his cane and whistling a +music-hall song softly as Marco passed him without changing his pace. + +It was after the policeman had walked round his beat and disappeared +for the third time, that Marco heard footsteps echoing at some distance +down a cross street. After listening to make sure that they were +approaching instead of receding in another direction, he placed himself +at a point where he could watch the length of the thoroughfare. Yes, +some one was coming. It was a man's figure again. He was able to place +himself rather in the shadow so that the person approaching would not +see that he was being watched. The solitary walker reached a +recognizable distance in about two minutes' time. He was dressed in an +ordinary shop-made suit of clothes which was rather shabby and quite +unnoticeable in its appearance. His common hat was worn so that it +rather shaded his face. But even before he had crossed to Marco's side +of the road, the boy had clearly recognized him. It was the man who had +driven with the King! + +Chance was with Marco. The man crossed at exactly the place which made +it easy for the boy to step lightly from behind him, walk a few paces +by his side, and then pass directly before him across the pavement, +glancing quietly up into his face as he said in a low voice but +distinctly, the words "The Lamp is lighted," and without pausing a +second walk on his way down the road. He did not slacken his pace or +look back until he was some distance away. Then he glanced over his +shoulder, and saw that the figure had crossed the street and was inside +the railings. It was all right. His father would not be disappointed. +The great man had come. + +He walked for about ten minutes, and then went home and to bed. But he +was obliged to tell himself to go to sleep several times before his +eyes closed for the rest of the night. + + + +VIII + +AN EXCITING GAME + +Loristan referred only once during the next day to what had happened. + +"You did your errand well. You were not hurried or nervous," he said. +"The Prince was pleased with your calmness." + +No more was said. Marco knew that the quiet mention of the stranger's +title had been made merely as a designation. If it was necessary to +mention him again in the future, he could be referred to as "the +Prince." In various Continental countries there were many princes who +were not royal or even serene highnesses--who were merely princes as +other nobles were dukes or barons. Nothing special was revealed when a +man was spoken of as a prince. But though nothing was said on the +subject of the incident, it was plain that much work was being done by +Loristan and Lazarus. The sitting-room door was locked, and the maps +and documents, usually kept in the iron box, were being used. + +Marco went to the Tower of London and spent part of the day in living +again the stories which, centuries past, had been inclosed within its +massive and ancient stone walls. In this way, he had throughout +boyhood become intimate with people who to most boys seemed only the +unreal creatures who professed to be alive in school-books of history. +He had learned to know them as men and women because he had stood in +the palaces they had been born in and had played in as children, had +died in at the end. He had seen the dungeons they had been imprisoned +in, the blocks on which they had laid their heads, the battlements on +which they had fought to defend their fortressed towers, the thrones +they had sat upon, the crowns they had worn, and the jeweled scepters +they had held. He had stood before their portraits and had gazed +curiously at their "Robes of Investiture," sewn with tens of thousands +of seed-pearls. To look at a man's face and feel his pictured eyes +follow you as you move away from him, to see the strangely splendid +garments he once warmed with his living flesh, is to realize that +history is not a mere lesson in a school-book, but is a relation of the +life stories of men and women who saw strange and splendid days, and +sometimes suffered strange and terrible things. + +There were only a few people who were being led about sight-seeing. The +man in the ancient Beef-eaters' costume, who was their guide, was +good-natured, and evidently fond of talking. He was a big and stout +man, with a large face and a small, merry eye. He was rather like +pictures of Henry the Eighth, himself, which Marco remembered having +seen. He was specially talkative when he stood by the tablet that +marks the spot where stood the block on which Lady Jane Grey had laid +her young head. One of the sightseers who knew little of English +history had asked some questions about the reasons for her execution. + +"If her father-in-law, the Duke of Northumberland, had left that young +couple alone--her and her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley--they'd have +kept their heads on. He was bound to make her a queen, and Mary Tudor +was bound to be queen herself. The duke wasn't clever enough to manage +a conspiracy and work up the people. These Samavians we're reading +about in the papers would have done it better. And they're +half-savages." + +"They had a big battle outside Melzarr yesterday," the sight-seer +standing next to Marco said to the young woman who was his companion. +"Thousands of 'em killed. I saw it in big letters on the boards as I +rode on the top of the bus. They're just slaughtering each other, +that's what they're doing." + +The talkative Beef-eater heard him. + +"They can't even bury their dead fast enough," he said. "There'll be +some sort of plague breaking out and sweeping into the countries +nearest them. It'll end by spreading all over Europe as it did in the +Middle Ages. What the civilized countries have got to do is to make +them choose a decent king and begin to behave themselves." + +"I'll tell my father that too," Marco thought. "It shows that +everybody is thinking and talking of Samavia, and that even the common +people know it must have a real king. This must be THE TIME!" And +what he meant was that this must be the time for which the Secret Party +had waited and worked so long--the time for the Rising. But his father +was out when he went back to Philibert Place, and Lazarus looked more +silent than ever as he stood behind his chair and waited on him through +his insignificant meal. However plain and scant the food they had to +eat, it was always served with as much care and ceremony as if it had +been a banquet. + +"A man can eat dry bread and drink cold water as if he were a +gentleman," his father had said long ago. "And it is easy to form +careless habits. Even if one is hungry enough to feel ravenous, a man +who has been well bred will not allow himself to look so. A dog may, a +man may not. Just as a dog may howl when he is angry or in pain and a +man may not." + +It was only one of the small parts of the training which had quietly +made the boy, even as a child, self-controlled and courteous, had +taught him ease and grace of boyish carriage, the habit of holding his +body well and his head erect, and had given him a certain look of young +distinction which, though it assumed nothing, set him apart from boys +of carelessly awkward bearing. + +"Is there a newspaper here which tells of the battle, Lazarus?" he +asked, after he had left the table. + +"Yes, sir," was the answer. "Your father said that you might read it. +It is a black tale!" he added, as he handed him the paper. + +It was a black tale. As he read, Marco felt as if he could scarcely +bear it. It was as if Samavia swam in blood, and as if the other +countries must stand aghast before such furious cruelties. + +"Lazarus," he said, springing to his feet at last, his eyes burning, +"something must stop it! There must be something strong enough. The +time has come. The time has come." And he walked up and down the room +because he was too excited to stand still. + +How Lazarus watched him! What a strong and glowing feeling there was +in his own restrained face! + +"Yes, sir. Surely the time has come," he answered. But that was all +he said, and he turned and went out of the shabby back sitting-room at +once. It was as if he felt it were wiser to go before he lost power +over himself and said more. + +Marco made his way to the meeting-place of the Squad, to which The Rat +had in the past given the name of the Barracks. The Rat was sitting +among his followers, and he had been reading the morning paper to them, +the one which contained the account of the battle of Melzarr. The +Squad had become the Secret Party, and each member of it was thrilled +with the spirit of dark plot and adventure. They all whispered when +they spoke. + +"This is not the Barracks now," The Rat said. "It is a subterranean +cavern. Under the floor of it thousands of swords and guns are buried, +and it is piled to the roof with them. There is only a small place left +for us to sit and plot in. We crawl in through a hole, and the hole is +hidden by bushes." + +To the rest of the boys this was only an exciting game, but Marco knew +that to The Rat it was more. Though The Rat knew none of the things he +knew, he saw that the whole story seemed to him a real thing. The +struggles of Samavia, as he had heard and read of them in the +newspapers, had taken possession of him. His passion for soldiering +and warfare and his curiously mature brain had led him into following +every detail he could lay hold of. He had listened to all he had heard +with remarkable results. He remembered things older people forgot +after they had mentioned them. He forgot nothing. He had drawn on the +flagstones a map of Samavia which Marco saw was actually correct, and +he had made a rough sketch of Melzarr and the battle which had had such +disastrous results. + +"The Maranovitch had possession of Melzarr," he explained with feverish +eagerness. "And the Iarovitch attacked them from here," pointing with +his finger. "That was a mistake. I should have attacked them from a +place where they would not have been expecting it. They expected +attack on their fortifications, and they were ready to defend them. I +believe the enemy could have stolen up in the night and rushed in +here," pointing again. Marco thought he was right. The Rat had argued +it all out, and had studied Melzarr as he might have studied a puzzle +or an arithmetical problem. He was very clever, and as sharp as his +queer face looked. + +"I believe you would make a good general if you were grown up," said +Marco. "I'd like to show your maps to my father and ask him if he +doesn't think your stratagem would have been a good one." + +"Does he know much about Samavia?" asked The Rat. + +"He has to read the newspapers because he writes things," Marco +answered. "And every one is thinking about the war. No one can help +it." + +The Rat drew a dingy, folded paper out of his pocket and looked it over +with an air of reflection. + +"I'll make a clean one," he said. "I'd like a grown-up man to look at +it and see if it's all right. My father was more than half-drunk when +I was drawing this, so I couldn't ask him questions. He'll kill +himself before long. He had a sort of fit last night." + +"Tell us, Rat, wot you an' Marco'll 'ave ter do. Let's 'ear wot you've +made up," suggested Cad. He drew closer, and so did the rest of the +circle, hugging their knees with their arms. + +"This is what we shall have to do," began The Rat, in the hollow +whisper of a Secret Party. "THE HOUR HAS COME. To all the Secret Ones +in Samavia, and to the friends of the Secret Party in every country, +the sign must be carried. It must be carried by some one who could not +be suspected. Who would suspect two boys--and one of them a cripple? +The best thing of all for us is that I am a cripple. Who would suspect +a cripple? When my father is drunk and beats me, he does it because I +won't go out and beg in the streets and bring him the money I get. He +says that people will nearly always give money to a cripple. I won't +be a beggar for him--the swine--but I will be one for Samavia and the +Lost Prince. Marco shall pretend to be my brother and take care of me. +I say," speaking to Marco with a sudden change of voice, "can you sing +anything? It doesn't matter how you do it." + +"Yes, I can sing," Marco replied. + +"Then Marco will pretend he is singing to make people give him money. +I'll get a pair of crutches somewhere, and part of the time I will go +on crutches and part of the time on my platform. We'll live like +beggars and go wherever we want to. I can whiz past a man and give the +sign and no one will know. Some times Marco can give it when people +are dropping money into his cap. We can pass from one country to +another and rouse everybody who is of the Secret Party. We'll work our +way into Samavia, and we'll be only two boys--and one a cripple--and +nobody will think we could be doing anything. We'll beg in great +cities and on the highroad." + +"Where'll you get the money to travel?" said Cad. + +"The Secret Party will give it to us, and we sha'n't need much. We +could beg enough, for that matter. We'll sleep under the stars, or +under bridges, or archways, or in dark corners of streets. I've done +it myself many a time when my father drove me out of doors. If it's +cold weather, it's bad enough but if it's fine weather, it's better +than sleeping in the kind of place I'm used to. Comrade," to Marco, +"are you ready?" + +He said "Comrade" as Loristan did, and somehow Marco did not resent it, +because he was ready to labor for Samavia. It was only a game, but it +made them comrades--and was it really only a game, after all? His +excited voice and his strange, lined face made it singularly unlike one. + +"Yes, Comrade, I am ready," Marco answered him. + +"We shall be in Samavia when the fighting for the Lost Prince begins." +The Rat carried on his story with fire. "We may see a battle. We +might do something to help. We might carry messages under a rain of +bullets--a rain of bullets!" The thought so elated him that he forgot +his whisper and his voice rang out fiercely. "Boys have been in +battles before. We might find the Lost King--no, the Found King--and +ask him to let us be his servants. He could send us where he couldn't +send bigger people. I could say to him, 'Your Majesty, I am called +"The Rat," because I can creep through holes and into corners and dart +about. Order me into any danger and I will obey you. Let me die like +a soldier if I can't live like one.'" + +Suddenly he threw his ragged coat sleeve up across his eyes. He had +wrought himself up tremendously with the picture of the rain of +bullets. And he felt as if he saw the King who had at last been found. +The next moment he uncovered his face. + +"That's what we've got to do," he said. "Just that, if you want to +know. And a lot more. There's no end to it!" + +Marco's thoughts were in a whirl. It ought not to be nothing but a +game. He grew quite hot all over. If the Secret Party wanted to send +messengers no one would think of suspecting, who could be more +harmless-looking than two vagabond boys wandering about picking up +their living as best they could, not seeming to belong to any one? And +one a cripple. It was true--yes, it was true, as The Rat said, that +his being a cripple made him look safer than any one else. Marco +actually put his forehead in his hands and pressed his temples. + +"What's the matter?" exclaimed The Rat. "What are you thinking about?" + +"I'm thinking what a general you would make. I'm thinking that it +might all be real--every word of it. It mightn't be a game at all," +said Marco. + +"No, it mightn't," The Rat answered. "If I knew where the Secret +Party was, I'd like to go and tell them about it. What's that!" he +said, suddenly turning his head toward the street. "What are they +calling out?" + +Some newsboy with a particularly shrill voice was shouting out +something at the topmost of his lungs. + +Tense and excited, no member of the circle stirred or spoke for a few +seconds. The Rat listened, Marco listened, the whole Squad listened, +pricking up their ears. + +"Startling news from Samavia," the newsboy was shrilling out. "Amazing +story! Descendant of the Lost Prince found! Descendant of the Lost +Prince found!" + +"Any chap got a penny?" snapped The Rat, beginning to shuffle toward +the arched passage. + +"I have!" answered Marco, following him. + +"Come on!" The Rat yelled. "Let's go and get a paper!" And he whizzed +down the passage with his swiftest rat-like dart, while the Squad +followed him, shouting and tumbling over each other. + + + +IX + +"IT IS NOT A GAME" + +Loristan walked slowly up and down the back sitting-room and listened +to Marco, who sat by the small fire and talked. + +"Go on," he said, whenever the boy stopped. "I want to hear it all. +He's a strange lad, and it's a splendid game." + +Marco was telling him the story of his second and third visits to the +inclosure behind the deserted church-yard. He had begun at the +beginning, and his father had listened with a deep interest. + +A year later, Marco recalled this evening as a thrilling memory, and as +one which would never pass away from him throughout his life. He would +always be able to call it all back. The small and dingy back room, the +dimness of the one poor gas-burner, which was all they could afford to +light, the iron box pushed into the corner with its maps and plans +locked safely in it, the erect bearing and actual beauty of the tall +form, which the shabbiness of worn and mended clothes could not hide or +dim. Not even rags and tatters could have made Loristan seem +insignificant or undistinguished. He was always the same. His eyes +seemed darker and more wonderful than ever in their remote +thoughtfulness and interest as he spoke. + +"Go on," he said. "It is a splendid game. And it is curious. He has +thought it out well. The lad is a born soldier." + +"It is not a game to him," Marco said. "And it is not a game to me. +The Squad is only playing, but with him it's quite different. He knows +he'll never really get what he wants, but he feels as if this was +something near it. He said I might show you the map he made. Father, +look at it." + +He gave Loristan the clean copy of The Rat's map of Samavia. The city +of Melzarr was marked with certain signs. They were to show at what +points The Rat--if he had been a Samavian general--would have attacked +the capital. As Marco pointed them out, he explained The Rat's reasons +for his planning. + +Loristan held the paper for some minutes. He fixed his eyes on it +curiously, and his black brows drew themselves together. + +"This is very wonderful!" he said at last. "He is quite right. They +might have got in there, and for the very reasons he hit on. How did +he learn all this?" + +"He thinks of nothing else now," answered Marco. "He has always +thought of wars and made plans for battles. He's not like the rest of +the Squad. His father is nearly always drunk, but he is very well +educated, and, when he is only half drunk, he likes to talk." + +The Rat asks him questions then, and leads him on until he finds out a +great deal. Then he begs old newspapers, and he hides himself in +corners and listens to what people are saying. He says he lies awake +at night thinking it out, and he thinks about it all the day. That was +why he got up the Squad. + +Loristan had continued examining the paper. + +"Tell him," he said, when he refolded and handed it back, "that I +studied his map, and he may be proud of it. You may also tell him--" +and he smiled quietly as he spoke--"that in my opinion he is right. +The Iarovitch would have held Melzarr to-day if he had led them." + +Marco was full of exultation. + +"I thought you would say he was right. I felt sure you would. That is +what makes me want to tell you the rest," he hurried on. + +"If you think he is right about the rest too--" He stopped awkwardly +because of a sudden wild thought which rushed upon him. "I don't know +what you will think," he stammered. "Perhaps it will seem to you as if +the game--as if that part of it could--could only be a game." + +He was so fervent in spite of his hesitation that Loristan began to +watch him with sympathetic respect, as he always did when the boy was +trying to express something he was not sure of. One of the great bonds +between them was that Loristan was always interested in his boyish +mental processes--in the way in which his thoughts led him to any +conclusion. + +"Go on," he said again. "I am like The Rat and I am like you. It has +not seemed quite like a game to me, so far." + +He sat down at the writing-table and Marco, in his eagerness, drew +nearer and leaned against it, resting on his arms and lowering his +voice, though it was always their habit to speak at such a pitch that +no one outside the room they were in could distinguish what they said. + +"It is The Rat's plan for giving the signal for a Rising," he said. + +Loristan made a slight movement. + +"Does he think there will be a Rising?" he asked. + +"He says that must be what the Secret Party has been preparing for all +these years. And it must come soon. The other nations see that the +fighting must be put an end to even if they have to stop it themselves. +And if the real King is found--but when The Rat bought the newspaper +there was nothing in it about where he was. It was only a sort of +rumor. Nobody seemed to know anything." He stopped a few seconds, but +he did not utter the words which were in his mind. He did not say: +"But YOU know." + +"And The Rat has a plan for giving the signal?" Loristan said. + +Marco forgot his first feeling of hesitation. He began to see the plan +again as he had seen it when The Rat talked. He began to speak as The +Rat had spoken, forgetting that it was a game. He made even a clearer +picture than The Rat had made of the two vagabond boys--one of them a +cripple--making their way from one place to another, quite free to +carry messages or warnings where they chose, because they were so +insignificant and poor-looking that no one could think of them as +anything but waifs and strays, belonging to nobody and blown about by +the wind of poverty and chance. He felt as if he wanted to convince +his father that the plan was a possible one. He did not quite know why +he felt so anxious to win his approval of the scheme--as if it were +real--as if it could actually be done. But this feeling was what +inspired him to enter into new details and suggest possibilities. + +"A boy who was a cripple and one who was only a street singer and a +sort of beggar could get almost anywhere," he said. "Soldiers would +listen to a singer if he sang good songs--and they might not be afraid +to talk before him. A strolling singer and a cripple would perhaps +hear a great many things it might be useful for the Secret Party to +know. They might even hear important things. Don't you think so?" + +Before he had gone far with his story, the faraway look had fallen upon +Loristan's face--the look Marco had known so well all his life. He sat +turned a little sidewise from the boy, his elbow resting on the table +and his forehead on his hand. He looked down at the worn carpet at his +feet, and so he looked as he listened to the end. It was as if some +new thought were slowly growing in his mind as Marco went on talking +and enlarging on The Rat's plan. He did not even look up or change his +position as he answered, "Yes. I think so." + +But, because of the deep and growing thought in his face, Marco's +courage increased. His first fear that this part of the planning might +seem so bold and reckless that it would only appear to belong to a +boyish game, gradually faded away for some strange reason. His father +had said that the first part of The Rat's imaginings had not seemed +quite like a game to him, and now--even now--he was not listening as if +he were listening to the details of mere exaggerated fancies. It was +as if the thing he was hearing was not wildly impossible. Marco's +knowledge of Continental countries and of methods of journeying helped +him to enter into much detail and give realism to his plans. + +"Sometimes we could pretend we knew nothing but English," he said. +"Then, though The Rat could not understand, I could. I should always +understand in each country. I know the cities and the places we should +want to go to. I know how boys like us live, and so we should not do +anything which would make the police angry or make people notice us. +If any one asked questions, I would let them believe that I had met The +Rat by chance, and we had made up our minds to travel together because +people gave more money to a boy who sang if he was with a cripple. +There was a boy who used to play the guitar in the streets of Rome, and +he always had a lame girl with him, and every one knew it was for that +reason. When he played, people looked at the girl and were sorry for +her and gave her soldi. You remember." + +"Yes, I remember. And what you say is true," Loristan answered. + +Marco leaned forward across the table so that he came closer to him. +The tone in which the words were said made his courage leap like a +flame. To be allowed to go on with this boldness was to feel that he +was being treated almost as if he were a man. If his father had wished +to stop him, he could have done it with one quiet glance, without +uttering a word. For some wonderful reason he did not wish him to +cease talking. He was willing to hear what he had to say--he was even +interested. + +"You are growing older," he had said the night he had revealed the +marvelous secret. "Silence is still the order, but you are man enough +to be told more." + +Was he man enough to be thought worthy to help Samavia in any small +way--even with boyish fancies which might contain a germ of some +thought which older and wiser minds might make useful? Was he being +listened to because the plan, made as part of a game, was not an +impossible one--if two boys who could be trusted could be found? He +caught a deep breath as he went on, drawing still nearer and speaking +so low that his tone was almost a whisper. + +"If the men of the Secret Party have been working and thinking for so +many years--they have prepared everything. They know by this time +exactly what must be done by the messengers who are to give the signal. +They can tell them where to go and how to know the secret friends who +must be warned. If the orders could be written and given to--to some +one who has--who has learned to remember things!" He had begun to +breathe so quickly that he stopped for a moment. + +Loristan looked up. He looked directly into his eyes. + +"Some one who has been TRAINED to remember things?" he said. + +"Some one who has been trained," Marco went on, catching his breath +again. "Some one who does not forget--who would never forget--never! +That one, even if he were only twelve--even if he were only ten--could +go and do as he was told." + +Loristan put his hand on his shoulder. + +"Comrade," he said, "you are speaking as if you were ready to go +yourself." + +Marco's eyes looked bravely straight into his, but he said not one word. + +"Do you know what it would mean, Comrade?" his father went on. "You are +right. It is not a game. And you are not thinking of it as one. But +have you thought how it would be if something betrayed you--and you +were set up against a wall to be SHOT?" + +Marco stood up quite straight. He tried to believe he felt the wall +against his back. + +"If I were shot, I should be shot for Samavia," he said. "And for YOU, +Father." + +Even as he was speaking, the front door-bell rang and Lazarus evidently +opened it. He spoke to some one, and then they heard his footsteps +approaching the back sitting-room. + +"Open the door," said Loristan, and Marco opened it. + +"There is a boy who is a cripple here, sir," the old soldier said. "He +asked to see Master Marco." + +"If it is The Rat," said Loristan, "bring him in here. I wish to see +him." + +Marco went down the passage to the front door. The Rat was there, but +he was not upon his platform. He was leaning upon an old pair of +crutches, and Marco thought he looked wild and strange. He was white, +and somehow the lines of his face seemed twisted in a new way. Marco +wondered if something had frightened him, or if he felt ill. + +"Rat," he began, "my father--" + +"I've come to tell you about MY father," The Rat broke in without +waiting to hear the rest, and his voice was as strange as his pale +face. "I don't know why I've come, but I--I just wanted to. He's +dead!" + +"Your father?" Marco stammered. "He's--" + +"He's dead," The Rat answered shakily. "I told you he'd kill himself. +He had another fit and he died in it. I knew he would, one of these +days. I told him so. He knew he would himself. I stayed with him +till he was dead--and then I got a bursting headache and I felt +sick--and I thought about you." + +Marco made a jump at him because he saw he was suddenly shaking as if +he were going to fall. He was just in time, and Lazarus, who had been +looking on from the back of the passage, came forward. Together they +held him up. + +"I'm not going to faint," he said weakly, "but I felt as if I was. It +was a bad fit, and I had to try and hold him. I was all by myself. +The people in the other attic thought he was only drunk, and they +wouldn't come in. He's lying on the floor there, dead." + +"Come and see my father," Marco said. "He'll tell us what do do. +Lazarus, help him." + +"I can get on by myself," said The Rat. "Do you see my crutches? I +did something for a pawnbroker last night, and he gave them to me for +pay." + +But though he tried to speak carelessly, he had plainly been horribly +shaken and overwrought. His queer face was yellowish white still, and +he was trembling a little. + +Marco led the way into the back sitting-room. In the midst of its +shabby gloom and under the dim light Loristan was standing in one of +his still, attentive attitudes. He was waiting for them. + +"Father, this is The Rat," the boy began. The Rat stopped short and +rested on his crutches, staring at the tall, reposeful figure with +widened eyes. + +"Is that your father?" he said to Marco. And then added, with a jerky +half-laugh, "He's not much like mine, is he?" + + + +X + +THE RAT--AND SAMAVIA + +What The Rat thought when Loristan began to speak to him, Marco +wondered. Suddenly he stood in an unknown world, and it was Loristan +who made it so because its poverty and shabbiness had no power to touch +him. He looked at the boy with calm and clear eyes, he asked him +practical questions gently, and it was plain that he understood many +things without asking questions at all. Marco thought that perhaps he +had, at some time, seen drunken men die, in his life in strange places. +He seemed to know the terribleness of the night through which The Rat +had passed. He made him sit down, and he ordered Lazarus to bring him +some hot coffee and simple food. + +"Haven't had a bite since yesterday," The Rat said, still staring at +him. "How did you know I hadn't?" + +"You have not had time," Loristan answered. + +Afterward he made him lie down on the sofa. + +"Look at my clothes," said The Rat. + +"Lie down and sleep," Loristan replied, putting his hand on his +shoulder and gently forcing him toward the sofa. "You will sleep a +long time. You must tell me how to find the place where your father +died, and I will see that the proper authorities are notified." + +"What are you doing it for?" The Rat asked, and then he added, "sir." + +"Because I am a man and you are a boy. And this is a terrible thing," +Loristan answered him. + +He went away without saying more, and The Rat lay on the sofa staring +at the wall and thinking about it until he fell asleep. But, before +this happened, Marco had quietly left him alone. So, as Loristan had +told him he would, he slept deeply and long; in fact, he slept through +all the night. + + +When he awakened it was morning, and Lazarus was standing by the side +of the sofa looking down at him. + +"You will want to make yourself clean," he said. "It must be done." + +"Clean!" said The Rat, with his squeaky laugh. "I couldn't keep clean +when I had a room to live in, and now where am I to wash myself?" He +sat up and looked about him. + +"Give me my crutches," he said. "I've got to go. They've let me sleep +here all night. They didn't turn me into the street. I don't know why +they didn't. Marco's father--he's the right sort. He looks like a +swell." + +"The Master," said Lazarus, with a rigid manner, "the Master is a great +gentleman. He would turn no tired creature into the street. He and +his son are poor, but they are of those who give. He desires to see and +talk to you again. You are to have bread and coffee with him and the +young Master. But it is I who tell you that you cannot sit at table +with them until you are clean. Come with me," and he handed him his +crutches. His manner was authoritative, but it was the manner of a +soldier; his somewhat stiff and erect movements were those of a +soldier, also, and The Rat liked them because they made him feel as if +he were in barracks. He did not know what was going to happen, but he +got up and followed him on his crutches. + +Lazarus took him to a closet under the stairs where a battered tin bath +was already full of hot water, which the old soldier himself had +brought in pails. There were soap and coarse, clean towels on a wooden +chair, and also there was a much worn but clean suit of clothes. + +"Put these on when you have bathed," Lazarus ordered, pointing to them. +"They belong to the young Master and will be large for you, but they +will be better than your own." And then he went out of the closet and +shut the door. + +It was a new experience for The Rat. So long as he remembered, he had +washed his face and hands--when he had washed them at all--at an iron +tap set in the wall of a back street or court in some slum. His father +and himself had long ago sunk into the world where to wash one's self +is not a part of every-day life. They had lived amid dirt and foulness, +and when his father had been in a maudlin state, he had sometimes cried +and talked of the long-past days when he had shaved every morning and +put on a clean shirt. + +To stand even in the most battered of tin baths full of clean hot water +and to splash and scrub with a big piece of flannel and plenty of soap +was a marvelous thing. The Rat's tired body responded to the novelty +with a curious feeling of freshness and comfort. + +"I dare say swells do this every day," he muttered. "I'd do it myself +if I was a swell. Soldiers have to keep themselves so clean they +shine." + +When, after making the most of his soap and water, he came out of the +closet under the stairs, he was as fresh as Marco himself; and, though +his clothes had been built for a more stalwart body, his recognition of +their cleanliness filled him with pleasure. He wondered if by any +effort he could keep himself clean when he went out into the world +again and had to sleep in any hole the police did not order him out of. + +He wanted to see Marco again, but he wanted more to see the tall man +with the soft dark eyes and that queer look of being a swell in spite +of his shabby clothes and the dingy place he lived in. There was +something about him which made you keep on looking at him, and wanting +to know what he was thinking of, and why you felt as if you'd take +orders from him as you'd take orders from your general, if you were a +soldier. He looked, somehow, like a soldier, but as if he were +something more--as if people had taken orders from him all his life, +and always would take orders from him. And yet he had that quiet voice +and those fine, easy movements, and he was not a soldier at all, but +only a poor man who wrote things for papers which did not pay him well +enough to give him and his son a comfortable living. Through all the +time of his seclusion with the battered bath and the soap and water, +The Rat thought of him, and longed to have another look at him and hear +him speak again. He did not see any reason why he should have let him +sleep on his sofa or why he should give him a breakfast before he +turned him out to face the world. It was first-rate of him to do it. +The Rat felt that when he was turned out, after he had had the coffee, +he should want to hang about the neighborhood just on the chance of +seeing him pass by sometimes. He did not know what he was going to do. +The parish officials would by this time have taken his dead father, and +he would not see him again. He did not want to see him again. He had +never seemed like a father. They had never cared anything for each +other. He had only been a wretched outcast whose best hours had been +when he had drunk too much to be violent and brutal. Perhaps, The Rat +thought, he would be driven to going about on his platform on the +pavements and begging, as his father had tried to force him to do. +Could he sell newspapers? What could a crippled lad do unless he +begged or sold papers? + +Lazarus was waiting for him in the passage. The Rat held back a little. + +"Perhaps they'd rather not eat their breakfast with me," he hesitated. +"I'm not--I'm not the kind they are. I could swallow the coffee out +here and carry the bread away with me. And you could thank him for me. +I'd want him to know I thanked him." + +Lazarus also had a steady eye. The Rat realized that he was looking +him over as if he were summing him up. + +"You may not be the kind they are, but you may be of a kind the Master +sees good in. If he did not see something, he would not ask you to sit +at his table. You are to come with me." + +The Squad had seen good in The Rat, but no one else had. Policemen had +moved him on whenever they set eyes on him, the wretched women of the +slums had regarded him as they regarded his darting, thieving namesake; +loafing or busy men had seen in him a young nuisance to be kicked or +pushed out of the way. The Squad had not called "good" what they saw +in him. They would have yelled with laughter if they had heard any one +else call it so. "Goodness" was not considered an attraction in their +world. + +The Rat grinned a little and wondered what was meant, as he followed +Lazarus into the back sitting-room. + +It was as dingy and gloomy as it had looked the night before, but by +the daylight The Rat saw how rigidly neat it was, how well swept and +free from any speck of dust, how the poor windows had been cleaned and +polished, and how everything was set in order. The coarse linen cloth +on the table was fresh and spotless, so was the cheap crockery, the +spoons shone with brightness. + +Loristan was standing on the hearth and Marco was near him. They were +waiting for their vagabond guest as if he had been a gentleman. + +The Rat hesitated and shuffled at the door for a moment, and then it +suddenly occurred to him to stand as straight as he could and salute. +When he found himself in the presence of Loristan, he felt as if he +ought to do something, but he did not know what. + +Loristan's recognition of his gesture and his expression as he moved +forward lifted from The Rat's shoulders a load which he himself had not +known lay there. Somehow he felt as if something new had happened to +him, as if he were not mere "vermin," after all, as if he need not be +on the defensive--even as if he need not feel so much in the dark, and +like a thing there was no place in the world for. The mere straight +and far-seeing look of this man's eyes seemed to make a place somewhere +for what he looked at. And yet what he said was quite simple. + +"This is well," he said. "You have rested. We will have some food, +and then we will talk together." He made a slight gesture in the +direction of the chair at the right hand of his own place. + +The Rat hesitated again. What a swell he was! With that wave of the +hand he made you feel as if you were a fellow like himself, and he was +doing you some honor. + +"I'm not--" The Rat broke off and jerked his head toward Marco. "He +knows--" he ended, "I've never sat at a table like this before." + +"There is not much on it." Loristan made the slight gesture toward the +right-hand seat again and smiled. "Let us sit down." + +The Rat obeyed him and the meal began. There were only bread and +coffee and a little butter before them. But Lazarus presented the cups +and plates on a small japanned tray as if it were a golden salver. +When he was not serving, he stood upright behind his master's chair, as +though he wore royal livery of scarlet and gold. To the boy who had +gnawed a bone or munched a crust wheresoever he found them, and with no +thought but of the appeasing of his own wolfish hunger, to watch the +two with whom he sat eat their simple food was a new thing. He knew +nothing of the every-day decencies of civilized people. The Rat liked +to look at them, and he found himself trying to hold his cup as +Loristan did, and to sit and move as Marco was sitting and +moving--taking his bread or butter, when it was held at his side by +Lazarus, as if it were a simple thing to be waited upon. Marco had had +things handed to him all his life, and it did not make him feel +awkward. The Rat knew that his own father had once lived like this. +He himself would have been at ease if chance had treated him fairly. +It made him scowl to think of it. But in a few minutes Loristan began +to talk about the copy of the map of Samavia. Then The Rat forgot +everything else and was ill at ease no more. He did not know that +Loristan was leading him on to explain his theories about the country +and the people and the war. He found himself telling all that he had +read, or overheard, or THOUGHT as he lay awake in his garret. He had +thought out a great many things in a way not at all like a boy's. His +strangely concentrated and over-mature mind had been full of military +schemes which Loristan listened to with curiosity and also with +amazement. He had become extraordinarily clever in one direction +because he had fixed all his mental powers on one thing. It seemed +scarcely natural that an untaught vagabond lad should know so much and +reason so clearly. It was at least extraordinarily interesting. There +had been no skirmish, no attack, no battle which he had not led and +fought in his own imagination, and he had made scores of rough queer +plans of all that had been or should have been done. Lazarus listened +as attentively as his master, and once Marco saw him exchange a +startled, rapid glance with Loristan. It was at a moment when The Rat +was sketching with his finger on the cloth an attack which OUGHT to +have been made but was not. And Marco knew at once that the quickly +exchanged look meant "He is right! If it had been done, there would +have been victory instead of disaster!" + +It was a wonderful meal, though it was only of bread and coffee. The +Rat knew he should never be able to forget it. + +Afterward, Loristan told him of what he had done the night before. He +had seen the parish authorities and all had been done which a city +government provides in the case of a pauper's death. + +His father would be buried in the usual manner. "We will follow him," +Loristan said in the end. "You and I and Marco and Lazarus." + +The Rat's mouth fell open. + +"You--and Marco--and Lazarus!" he exclaimed, staring. "And me! Why +should any of us go? I don't want to. He wouldn't have followed me if +I'd been the one." + +Loristan remained silent for a few moments. + +"When a life has counted for nothing, the end of it is a lonely thing," +he said at last. "If it has forgotten all respect for itself, pity is +all that one has left to give. One would like to give SOMETHING to +anything so lonely." He said the last brief sentence after a pause. + +"Let us go," Marco said suddenly; and he caught The Rat's hand. + +The Rat's own movement was sudden. He slipped from his crutches to a +chair, and sat and gazed at the worn carpet as if he were not looking +at it at all, but at something a long way off. After a while he looked +up at Loristan. + +"Do you know what I thought of, all at once?" he said in a shaky voice. +"I thought of that 'Lost Prince' one. He only lived once. Perhaps he +didn't live a long time. Nobody knows. But it's five hundred years +ago, and, just because he was the kind he was, every one that remembers +him thinks of something fine. It's queer, but it does you good just to +hear his name. And if he has been training kings for Samavia all these +centuries--they may have been poor and nobody may have known about +them, but they've been KINGS. That's what HE did--just by being alive +a few years. When I think of him and then think of--the other--there's +such an awful difference that--yes--I'm sorry. For the first time. +I'm his son and I can't care about him; but he's too lonely--I want to +go." + + * * * * * + +So it was that when the forlorn derelict was carried to the graveyard +where nameless burdens on the city were given to the earth, a curious +funeral procession followed him. There were two tall and soldierly +looking men and two boys, one of whom walked on crutches, and behind +them were ten other boys who walked two by two. These ten were a +queer, ragged lot; but they had respectfully sober faces, held their +heads and their shoulders well, and walked with a remarkably regular +marching step. + +It was the Squad; but they had left their "rifles" at home. + + + +XI + +"COME WITH ME" + +When they came back from the graveyard, The Rat was silent all the way. +He was thinking of what had happened and of what lay before him. He +was, in fact, thinking chiefly that nothing lay before him--nothing. +The certainty of that gave his sharp, lined face new lines and +sharpness which made it look pinched and hard. + +He had nothing before but a corner in a bare garret in which he could +find little more than a leaking roof over his head--when he was not +turned out into the street. But, if policemen asked him where he +lived, he could say he lived in Bone Court with his father. Now he +couldn't say it. + +He got along very well on his crutches, but he was rather tired when +they reached the turn in the street which led in the direction of his +old haunts. At any rate, they were haunts he knew, and he belonged to +them more than he belonged elsewhere. The Squad stopped at this +particular corner because it led to such homes as they possessed. They +stopped in a body and looked at The Rat, and The Rat stopped also. He +swung himself to Loristan's side, touching his hand to his forehead. + +"Thank you, sir," he said. "Line and salute, you chaps!" And the Squad +stood in line and raised their hands also. "Thank you, sir. Thank +you, Marco. Good-by." + +"Where are you going?" Loristan asked. + +"I don't know yet," The Rat answered, biting his lips. + +He and Loristan looked at each other a few moments in silence. Both of +them were thinking very hard. In The Rat's eyes there was a kind of +desperate adoration. He did not know what he should do when this man +turned and walked away from him. It would be as if the sun itself had +dropped out of the heavens--and The Rat had not thought of what the sun +meant before. + +But Loristan did not turn and walk away. He looked deep into the lad's +eyes as if he were searching to find some certainty. Then he said in a +low voice, "You know how poor I am." + +"I--I don't care!" said The Rat. "You--you're like a king to me. I'd +stand up and be shot to bits if you told me to do it." + +"I am so poor that I am not sure I can give you enough dry bread to +eat--always. Marco and Lazarus and I are often hungry. Sometimes you +might have nothing to sleep on but the floor. But I can find a PLACE +for you if I take you with me," said Loristan. "Do you know what I +mean by a PLACE?" + +"Yes, I do," answered The Rat. "It's what I've never had before--sir." + +What he knew was that it meant some bit of space, out of all the world, +where he would have a sort of right to stand, howsoever poor and bare +it might be. + +"I'm not used to beds or to food enough," he said. But he did not dare +to insist too much on that "place." It seemed too great a thing to be +true. + +Loristan took his arm. + +"Come with me," he said. "We won't part. I believe you are to be +trusted." + +The Rat turned quite white in a sort of anguish of joy. He had never +cared for any one in his life. He had been a sort of young Cain, his +hand against every man and every man's hand against him. And during +the last twelve hours he had plunged into a tumultuous ocean of boyish +hero-worship. This man seemed like a sort of god to him. What he had +said and done the day before, in what had been really The Rat's hours +of extremity, after that appalling night--the way he had looked into +his face and understood it all, the talk at the table when he had +listened to him seriously, comprehending and actually respecting his +plans and rough maps; his silent companionship as they followed the +pauper hearse together--these things were enough to make the lad +longingly ready to be any sort of servant or slave to him if he might +see and be spoken to by him even once or twice a day. + +The Squad wore a look of dismay for a moment, and Loristan saw it. + +"I am going to take your captain with me," he said. "But he will come +back to Barracks. So will Marco." + +"Will yer go on with the game?" asked Cad, as eager spokesman. "We want +to go on being the 'Secret Party.'" + +"Yes, I'll go on," The Rat answered. "I won't give it up. There's a +lot in the papers to-day." + +So they were pacified and went on their way, and Loristan and Lazarus +and Marco and The Rat went on theirs also. + +"Queer thing is," The Rat thought as they walked together, "I'm a bit +afraid to speak to him unless he speaks to me first. Never felt that +way before with any one." + +He had jeered at policemen and had impudently chaffed "swells," but he +felt a sort of secret awe of this man, and actually liked the feeling. + +"It's as if I was a private and he was commander-in-chief," he thought. +"That's it." + +Loristan talked to him as they went. He was simple enough in his +statements of the situation. There was an old sofa in Marco's bedroom. +It was narrow and hard, as Marco's bed itself was, but The Rat could +sleep upon it. They would share what food they had. There were +newspapers and magazines to be read. There were papers and pencils to +draw new maps and plans of battles. There was even an old map of +Samavia of Marco's which the two boys could study together as an aid to +their game. The Rat's eyes began to have points of fire in them. + +"If I could see the papers every morning, I could fight the battles on +paper by night," he said, quite panting at the incredible vision of +splendor. Were all the kingdoms of the earth going to be given to him? +Was he going to sleep without a drunken father near him? + +Was he going to have a chance to wash himself and to sit at a table and +hear people say "Thank you," and "I beg pardon," as if they were using +the most ordinary fashion of speech? His own father, before he had +sunk into the depths, had lived and spoken in this way. + +"When I have time, we will see who can draw up the best plans," +Loristan said. + +"Do you mean that you'll look at mine then--when you have time?" asked +The Rat, hesitatingly. "I wasn't expecting that." + +"Yes," answered Loristan, "I'll look at them, and we'll talk them over." + +As they went on, he told him that he and Marco could do many things +together. They could go to museums and galleries, and Marco could show +him what he himself was familiar with. + +"My father said you wouldn't let him come back to Barracks when you +found out about it," The Rat said, hesitating again and growing hot +because he remembered so many ugly past days. "But--but I swear I won't +do him any harm, sir. I won't!" + +"When I said I believed you could be trusted, I meant several things," +Loristan answered him. "That was one of them. You're a new recruit. +You and Marco are both under a commanding officer." He said the words +because he knew they would elate him and stir his blood. + + + +XII + +"ONLY TWO BOYS" + +The words did elate him, and his blood was stirred by them every time +they returned to his mind. He remembered them through the days and +nights that followed. He sometimes, indeed, awakened from his deep +sleep on the hard and narrow sofa in Marco's room, and found that he +was saying them half aloud to himself. The hardness of the sofa did +not prevent his resting as he had never rested before in his life. By +contrast with the past he had known, this poor existence was comfort +which verged on luxury. He got into the battered tin bath every +morning, he sat at the clean table, and could look at Loristan and +speak to him and hear his voice. His chief trouble was that he could +hardly keep his eyes off him, and he was a little afraid he might be +annoyed. But he could not bear to lose a look or a movement. + +At the end of the second day, he found his way, at some trouble, to +Lazarus's small back room at the top of the house. + +"Will you let me come in and talk a bit?" he said. + +When he went in, he was obliged to sit on the top of Lazarus's wooden +box because there was nothing else for him. + +"I want to ask you," he plunged into his talk at once, "do you think he +minds me looking at him so much? I can't help it--but if he hates +it--well--I'll try and keep my eyes on the table." + +"The Master is used to being looked at," Lazarus made answer. "But it +would be well to ask himself. He likes open speech." + +"I want to find out everything he likes and everything he doesn't +like," The Rat said. "I want--isn't there anything--anything you'd let +me do for him? It wouldn't matter what it was. And he needn't know +you are not doing it. I know you wouldn't be willing to give up +anything particular. But you wait on him night and day. Couldn't you +give up something to me?" + +Lazarus pierced him with keen eyes. He did not answer for several +seconds. + +"Now and then," he said gruffly at last, "I'll let you brush his boots. +But not every day--perhaps once a week." + +"When will you let me have my first turn?" The Rat asked. + +Lazarus reflected. His shaggy eyebrows drew themselves down over his +eyes as if this were a question of state. + +"Next Saturday," he conceded. "Not before. I'll tell him when you +brush them." + +"You needn't," said The Rat. "It's not that I want him to know. I +want to know myself that I'm doing something for him. I'll find out +things that I can do without interfering with you. I'll think them out." + +"Anything any one else did for him would be interfering with me," said +Lazarus. + +It was The Rat's turn to reflect now, and his face twisted itself into +new lines and wrinkles. + +"I'll tell you before I do anything," he said, after he had thought it +over. "You served him first." + +"I have served him ever since he was born," said Lazarus. + +"He's--he's yours," said The Rat, still thinking deeply. + +"I am his," was Lazarus's stern answer. "I am his--and the young +Master's." + +"That's it," The Rat said. Then a squeak of a half-laugh broke from +him. "I've never been anybody's," he added. + +His sharp eyes caught a passing look on Lazarus's face. Such a queer, +disturbed, sudden look. Could he be rather sorry for him? + +Perhaps the look meant something like that. + +"If you stay near him long enough--and it needn't be long--you will be +his too. Everybody is." + +The Rat sat up as straight as he could. "When it comes to that," he +blurted out, "I'm his now, in my way. I was his two minutes after he +looked at me with his queer, handsome eyes. They're queer because they +get you, and you want to follow him. I'm going to follow." + +That night Lazarus recounted to his master the story of the scene. He +simply repeated word for word what had been said, and Loristan listened +gravely. + +"We have not had time to learn much of him yet," he commented. "But +that is a faithful soul, I think." + +A few days later, Marco missed The Rat soon after their breakfast hour. +He had gone out without saying anything to the household. He did not +return for several hours, and when he came back he looked tired. In +the afternoon he fell asleep on his sofa in Marco's room and slept +heavily. No one asked him any questions as he volunteered no +explanation. The next day he went out again in the same mysterious +manner, and the next and the next. For an entire week he went out and +returned with the tired look; but he did not explain until one morning, +as he lay on his sofa before getting up, he said to Marco: + +"I'm practicing walking with my crutches. I don't want to go about +like a rat any more. I mean to be as near like other people as I can. +I walk farther every morning. I began with two miles. If I practice +every day, my crutches will be like legs." + +"Shall I walk with you?" asked Marco. + +"Wouldn't you mind walking with a cripple?" + +"Don't call yourself that," said Marco. "We can talk together, and try +to remember everything we see as we go along." + +"I want to learn to remember things. I'd like to train myself in that +way too," The Rat answered. "I'd give anything to know some of the +things your father taught you. I've got a good memory. I remember a +lot of things I don't want to remember. Will you go this morning?" + +That morning they went, and Loristan was told the reason for their +walk. But though he knew one reason, he did not know all about it. +When The Rat was allowed his "turn" of the boot-brushing, he told more +to Lazarus. + +"What I want to do," he said, "is not only walk as fast as other people +do, but faster. Acrobats train themselves to do anything. It's +training that does it. There might come a time when he might need some +one to go on an errand quickly, and I'm going to be ready. I'm going +to train myself until he needn't think of me as if I were only a +cripple who can't do things and has to be taken care of. I want him to +know that I'm really as strong as Marco, and where Marco can go I can +go." + +"He" was what he always said, and Lazarus always understood without +explanation. + +"'The Master' is your name for him," he had explained at the beginning. +"And I can't call him just 'Mister' Loristan. It sounds like cheek. +If he was called 'General' or 'Colonel' I could stand it--though it +wouldn't be quite right. Some day I shall find a name. When I speak +to him, I say 'Sir.'" + +The walks were taken every day, and each day were longer. Marco found +himself silently watching The Rat with amazement at his determination +and endurance. He knew that he must not speak of what he could not +fail to see as they walked. He must not tell him that he looked tired +and pale and sometimes desperately fatigued. He had inherited from his +father the tact which sees what people do not wish to be reminded of. +He knew that for some reason of his own The Rat had determined to do +this thing at any cost to himself. Sometimes his face grew white and +worn and he breathed hard, but he never rested more than a few +minutes, and never turned back or shortened a walk they had planned. + +"Tell me something about Samavia, something to remember," he would say, +when he looked his worst. "When I begin to try to remember, I +forget--other things." + +So, as they went on their way, they talked, and The Rat committed +things to memory. He was quick at it, and grew quicker every day. +They invented a game of remembering faces they passed. Both would learn +them by heart, and on their return home Marco would draw them. They +went to the museums and galleries and learned things there, making from +memory lists and descriptions which at night they showed to Loristan, +when he was not too busy to talk to them. + +As the days passed, Marco saw that The Rat was gaining strength. This +exhilarated him greatly. They often went to Hampstead Heath and walked +in the wind and sun. There The Rat would go through curious exercises +which he believed would develop his muscles. He began to look less +tired during and after his journey. There were even fewer wrinkles on +his face, and his sharp eyes looked less fierce. The talks between the +two boys were long and curious. Marco soon realized that The Rat +wanted to learn--learn--learn. + +"Your father can talk to you almost as if you were twenty years old," +he said once. "He knows you can understand what he's saying. If he +were to talk to me, he'd always have to remember that I was only a rat +that had lived in gutters and seen nothing else." + +They were talking in their room, as they nearly always did after they +went to bed and the street lamp shone in and lighted their bare little +room. They often sat up clasping their knees, Marco on his poor bed, +The Rat on his hard sofa, but neither of them conscious either of the +poorness or hardness, because to each one the long unknown sense of +companionship was such a satisfying thing. Neither of them had ever +talked intimately to another boy, and now they were together day and +night. They revealed their thoughts to each other; they told each +other things it had never before occurred to either to think of telling +any one. In fact, they found out about themselves, as they talked, +things they had not quite known before. Marco had gradually +discovered that the admiration The Rat had for his father was an +impassioned and curious feeling which possessed him entirely. It +seemed to Marco that it was beginning to be like a sort of religion. +He evidently thought of him every moment. So when he spoke of +Loristan's knowing him to be only a rat of the gutter, Marco felt he +himself was fortunate in remembering something he could say. + +"My father said yesterday that you had a big brain and a strong will," +he answered from his bed. "He said that you had a wonderful memory +which only needed exercising. He said it after he looked over the list +you made of the things you had seen in the Tower." + +The Rat shuffled on his sofa and clasped his knees tighter. + +"Did he? Did he?" he said. + +He rested his chin upon his knees for a few minutes and stared straight +before him. Then he turned to the bed. + +"Marco," he said, in a rather hoarse voice, a queer voice; "are you +jealous?" + +"Jealous," said Marco; "why?" + +"I mean, have you ever been jealous? Do you know what it is like?" + +"I don't think I do," answered Marco, staring a little. + +"Are you ever jealous of Lazarus because he's always with your +father--because he's with him oftener than you are--and knows about his +work--and can do things for him you can't? I mean, are you jealous +of--your father?" + +Marco loosed his arms from his knees and lay down flat on his pillow. + +"No, I'm not. The more people love and serve him, the better," he +said. "The only thing I care for is--is him. I just care for HIM. +Lazarus does too. Don't you?" + +The Rat was greatly excited internally. He had been thinking of this +thing a great deal. The thought had sometimes terrified him. He might +as well have it out now if he could. If he could get at the truth, +everything would be easier. But would Marco really tell him? + +"Don't you mind?" he said, still hoarse and eager--"don't you mind how +much I care for him? Could it ever make you feel savage? Could it +ever set you thinking I was nothing but--what I am--and that it was +cheek of me to push myself in and fasten on to a gentleman who only +took me up for charity? Here's the living truth," he ended in an +outburst; "if I were you and you were me, that's what I should be +thinking. I know it is. I couldn't help it. I should see every low +thing there was in you, in your manners and your voice and your looks. +I should see nothing but the contrast between you and me and between +you and him. I should be so jealous that I should just rage. I should +HATE you--and I should DESPISE you!" + +He had wrought himself up to such a passion of feeling that he set +Marco thinking that what he was hearing meant strange and strong +emotions such as he himself had never experienced. The Rat had been +thinking over all this in secret for some time, it was evident. Marco +lay still a few minutes and thought it over. Then he found something to +say, just as he had found something before. + +"You might, if you were with other people who thought in the same way," +he said, "and if you hadn't found out that it is such a mistake to +think in that way, that it's even stupid. But, you see, if you were I, +you would have lived with my father, and he'd have told you what he +knows--what he's been finding out all his life." + +"What's he found out?" + +"Oh!" Marco answered, quite casually, "just that you can't set savage +thoughts loose in the world, any more than you can let loose savage +beasts with hydrophobia. They spread a sort of rabies, and they always +tear and worry you first of all." + +"What do you mean?" The Rat gasped out. + +"It's like this," said Marco, lying flat and cool on his hard pillow +and looking at the reflection of the street lamp on the ceiling. "That +day I turned into your Barracks, without knowing that you'd think I was +spying, it made you feel savage, and you threw the stone at me. If it +had made me feel savage and I'd rushed in and fought, what would have +happened to all of us?" + +The Rat's spirit of generalship gave the answer. + +"I should have called on the Squad to charge with fixed bayonets. +They'd have half killed you. You're a strong chap, and you'd have hurt +a lot of them." + +A note of terror broke into his voice. "What a fool I should have +been!" he cried out. "I should never have come here! I should never +have known HIM!" Even by the light of the street lamp Marco could see +him begin to look almost ghastly. + +"The Squad could easily have half killed me," Marco added. "They could +have quite killed me, if they had wanted to do it. And who would have +got any good out of it? It would only have been a street-lads' +row--with the police and prison at the end of it." + +"But because you'd lived with him," The Rat pondered, "you walked in as +if you didn't mind, and just asked why we did it, and looked like a +stronger chap than any of us--and different--different. I wondered +what was the matter with you, you were so cool and steady. I know now. +It was because you were like him. He'd taught you. He's like a +wizard." + +"He knows things that wizards think they know, but he knows them +better," Marco said. "He says they're not queer and unnatural. They're +just simple laws of nature. You have to be either on one side or the +other, like an army. You choose your side. You either build up or +tear down. You either keep in the light where you can see, or you +stand in the dark and fight everything that comes near you, because you +can't see and you think it's an enemy. No, you wouldn't have been +jealous if you'd been I and I'd been you." + +"And you're NOT?" The Rat's sharp voice was almost hollow. "You'll +swear you're not?" + +"I'm not," said Marco. + +The Rat's excitement even increased a shade as he poured forth his +confession. + +"I was afraid," he said. "I've been afraid every day since I came +here. I'll tell you straight out. It seemed just natural that you and +Lazarus wouldn't stand me, just as I wouldn't have stood you. It +seemed just natural that you'd work together to throw me out. I knew +how I should have worked myself. Marco--I said I'd tell you straight +out--I'm jealous of you. I'm jealous of Lazarus. It makes me wild +when I see you both knowing all about him, and fit and ready to do +anything he wants done. I'm not ready and I'm not fit." + +"You'd do anything he wanted done, whether you were fit and ready or +not," said Marco. "He knows that." + +"Does he? Do you think he does?" cried The Rat. "I wish he'd try me. +I wish he would." + +Marco turned over on his bed and rose up on his elbow so that he faced +The Rat on his sofa. + +"Let us WAIT," he said in a whisper. "Let us WAIT." + +There was a pause, and then The Rat whispered also. + +"For what?" + +"For him to find out that we're fit to be tried. Don't you see what +fools we should be if we spent our time in being jealous, either of us. +We're only two boys. Suppose he saw we were only two silly fools. +When you are jealous of me or of Lazarus, just go and sit down in a +still place and think of HIM. Don't think about yourself or about us. +He's so quiet that to think about him makes you quiet yourself. When +things go wrong or when I'm lonely, he's taught me to sit down and make +myself think of things I like--pictures, books, monuments, splendid +places. It pushes the other things out and sets your mind going +properly. He doesn't know I nearly always think of him. He's the best +thought himself. You try it. You're not really jealous. You only +THINK you are. You'll find that out if you always stop yourself in +time. Any one can be such a fool if he lets himself. And he can always +stop it if he makes up his mind. I'm not jealous. You must let that +thought alone. You're not jealous yourself. Kick that thought into +the street." + +The Rat caught his breath and threw his arms up over his eyes. "Oh, +Lord! Oh, Lord!" he said; "if I'd lived near him always as you have. +If I just had." + +"We're both living near him now," said Marco. "And here's something to +think of," leaning more forward on his elbow. "The kings who were being +made ready for Samavia have waited all these years; WE can make +ourselves ready and wait so that, if just two boys are wanted to do +something--just two boys--we can step out of the ranks when the call +comes and say 'Here!' Now let's lie down and think of it until we go +to sleep." + + + +XIII + +LORISTAN ATTENDS A DRILL OF THE SQUAD, AND MARCO MEETS A SAMAVIAN + +The Squad was not forgotten. It found that Loristan himself would have +regarded neglect as a breach of military duty. + +"You must remember your men," he said, two or three days after The Rat +became a member of his household. "You must keep up their drill. +Marco tells me it was very smart. Don't let them get slack." + +"His men!" The Rat felt what he could not have put into words. + +He knew he had worked, and that the Squad had worked, in their hidden +holes and corners. Only hidden holes and corners had been possible for +them because they had existed in spite of the protest of their world +and the vigilance of its policemen. They had tried many refuges +before they found the Barracks. No one but resented the existence of a +troop of noisy vagabonds. But somehow this man knew that there had +evolved from it something more than mere noisy play, that he, The Rat, +had MEANT order and discipline. + +"His men!" It made him feel as if he had had the Victoria Cross +fastened on his coat. He had brain enough to see many things, and he +knew that it was in this way that Loristan was finding him his "place." +He knew how. + +When they went to the Barracks, the Squad greeted them with a +tumultuous welcome which expressed a great sense of relief. Privately +the members had been filled with fears which they had talked over +together in deep gloom. Marco's father, they decided, was too big a +swell to let the two come back after he had seen the sort the Squad was +made up of. He might be poor just now, toffs sometimes lost their +money for a bit, but you could see what he was, and fathers like him +weren't going to let their sons make friends with "such as us." He'd +stop the drill and the "Secret Society" game. That's what he'd do! + +But The Rat came swinging in on his secondhand crutches looking as if +he had been made a general, and Marco came with him; and the drill the +Squad was put through was stricter and finer than any drill they had +ever known. + +"I wish my father could have seen that," Marco said to The Rat. + +The Rat turned red and white and then red again, but he said not a +single word. The mere thought was like a flash of fire passing through +him. But no fellow could hope for a thing as big as that. The Secret +Party, in its subterranean cavern, surrounded by its piled arms, sat +down to read the morning paper. + +The war news was bad to read. The Maranovitch held the day for the +moment, and while they suffered and wrought cruelties in the capital +city, the Iarovitch suffered and wrought cruelties in the country +outside. So fierce and dark was the record that Europe stood aghast. + +The Rat folded his paper when he had finished, and sat biting his +nails. Having done this for a few minutes, he began to speak in his +dramatic and hollow Secret Party whisper. + +"The hour has come," he said to his followers. "The messengers must go +forth. They know nothing of what they go for; they only know that they +must obey. If they were caught and tortured, they could betray nothing +because they know nothing but that, at certain places, they must utter +a certain word. They carry no papers. All commands they must learn by +heart. When the sign is given, the Secret Party will know what to +do--where to meet and where to attack." + +He drew plans of the battle on the flagstones, and he sketched an +imaginary route which the two messengers were to follow. But his +knowledge of the map of Europe was not worth much, and he turned to +Marco. + +"You know more about geography that I do. You know more about +everything," he said. "I only know Italy is at the bottom and Russia +is at one side and England's at the other. How would the Secret +Messengers go to Samavia? Can you draw the countries they'd have to +pass through?" + +Because any school-boy who knew the map could have done the same thing, +Marco drew them. He also knew the stations the Secret Two would arrive +at and leave by when they entered a city, the streets they would walk +through and the very uniforms they would see; but of these things he +said nothing. The reality his knowledge gave to the game was, however, +a thrilling thing. He wished he could have been free to explain to The +Rat the things he knew. Together they could have worked out so many +details of travel and possible adventure that it would have been almost +as if they had set out on their journey in fact. + +As it was, the mere sketching of the route fired The Rat's imagination. +He forged ahead with the story of adventure, and filled it with such +mysterious purport and design that the Squad at times gasped for +breath. In his glowing version the Secret Two entered cities by +midnight and sang and begged at palace gates where kings driving +outward paused to listen and were given the Sign. + +"Though it would not always be kings," he said. "Sometimes it would be +the poorest people. Sometimes they might seem to be beggars like +ourselves, when they were only Secret Ones disguised. A great lord +might wear poor clothes and pretend to be a workman, and we should only +know him by the signs we had learned by heart. When we were sent to +Samavia, we should be obliged to creep in through some back part of the +country where no fighting was being done and where no one would attack. +Their generals are not clever enough to protect the parts which are +joined to friendly countries, and they have not forces enough. Two boys +could find a way in if they thought it out." + +He became possessed by the idea of thinking it out on the spot. He drew +his rough map of Samavia on the flagstones with his chalk. + +"Look here," he said to Marco, who, with the elated and thrilled Squad, +bent over it in a close circle of heads. "Beltrazo is here and +Carnolitz is here--and here is Jiardasia. Beltrazo and Jiardasia are +friendly, though they don't take sides. All the fighting is going on +in the country about Melzarr. There is no reason why they should +prevent single travelers from coming in across the frontiers of +friendly neighbors. They're not fighting with the countries outside, +they are fighting with themselves." He paused a moment and thought. + +"The article in that magazine said something about a huge forest on the +eastern frontier. That's here. We could wander into a forest and stay +there until we'd planned all we wanted to do. Even the people who had +seen us would forget about us. What we have to do is to make people +feel as if we were nothing--nothing." + +They were in the very midst of it, crowded together, leaning over, +stretching necks and breathing quickly with excitement, when Marco +lifted his head. Some mysterious impulse made him do it in spite of +himself. + +"There's my father!" he said. + +The chalk dropped, everything dropped, even Samavia. The Rat was up +and on his crutches as if some magic force had swung him there. How he +gave the command, or if he gave it at all, not even he himself knew. +But the Squad stood at salute. + +Loristan was standing at the opening of the archway as Marco had stood +that first day. He raised his right hand in return salute and came +forward. + +"I was passing the end of the street and remembered the Barracks was +here," he explained. "I thought I should like to look at your men, +Captain." + +He smiled, but it was not a smile which made his words really a joke. +He looked down at the chalk map drawn on the flagstones. + +"You know that map well," he said. "Even I can see that it is Samavia. +What is the Secret Party doing?" + +"The messengers are trying to find a way in," answered Marco. + +"We can get in there," said The Rat, pointing with a crutch. "There's a +forest where we could hide and find out things." + +"Reconnoiter," said Loristan, looking down. "Yes. Two stray boys +could be very safe in a forest. It's a good game." + +That he should be there! That he should, in his own wonderful way, +have given them such a thing as this. That he should have cared enough +even to look up the Barracks, was what The Rat was thinking. A batch +of ragamuffins they were and nothing else, and he standing looking at +them with his fine smile. There was something about him which made him +seem even splendid. The Rat's heart thumped with startled joy. + +"Father," said Marco, "will you watch The Rat drill us? I want you to +see how well it is done." + +"Captain, will you do me that honor?" Loristan said to The Rat, and to +even these words he gave the right tone, neither jesting nor too +serious. Because it was so right a tone, The Rat's pulses beat only +with exultation. This god of his had looked at his maps, he had talked +of his plans, he had come to see the soldiers who were his work! The +Rat began his drill as if he had been reviewing an army. + +What Loristan saw done was wonderful in its mechanical exactness. + +The Squad moved like the perfect parts of a perfect machine. That they +could so do it in such space, and that they should have accomplished +such precision, was an extraordinary testimonial to the military +efficiency and curious qualities of this one hunchbacked, vagabond +officer. + +"That is magnificent!" the spectator said, when it was over. "It could +not be better done. Allow me to congratulate you." + +He shook The Rat's hand as if it had been a man's, and, after he had +shaken it, he put his own hand lightly on the boy's shoulder and let it +rest there as he talked a few minutes to them all. + +He kept his talk within the game, and his clear comprehension of it +added a flavor which even the dullest member of the Squad was elated +by. Sometimes you couldn't understand toffs when they made a shy at +being friendly, but you could understand him, and he stirred up your +spirits. He didn't make jokes with you, either, as if a chap had to be +kept grinning. After the few minutes were over, he went away. Then +they sat down again in their circle and talked about him, because they +could talk and think about nothing else. They stared at Marco +furtively, feeling as if he were a creature of another world because he +had lived with this man. They stared at The Rat in a new way also. The +wonderful-looking hand had rested on his shoulder, and he had been told +that what he had done was magnificent. + +"When you said you wished your father could have seen the drill," said +The Rat, "you took my breath away. I'd never have had the cheek to +think of it myself--and I'd never have dared to let you ask him, even +if you wanted to do it. And he came himself! It struck me dumb." + +"If he came," said Marco, "it was because he wanted to see it." + +When they had finished talking, it was time for Marco and The Rat to go +on their way. Loristan had given The Rat an errand. At a certain hour +he was to present himself at a certain shop and receive a package. + +"Let him do it alone," Loristan said to Marco. "He will be better +pleased. His desire is to feel that he is trusted to do things alone." + +So they parted at a street corner, Marco to walk back to No. 7 +Philibert Place, The Rat to execute his commission. Marco turned into +one of the better streets, through which he often passed on his way +home. It was not a fashionable quarter, but it contained some +respectable houses in whose windows here and there were to be seen neat +cards bearing the word "Apartments," which meant that the owner of the +house would let to lodgers his drawing-room or sitting-room suite. + +As Marco walked up the street, he saw some one come out of the door of +one of the houses and walk quickly and lightly down the pavement. It +was a young woman wearing an elegant though quiet dress, and a hat +which looked as if it had been bought in Paris or Vienna. She had, in +fact, a slightly foreign air, and it was this, indeed, which made Marco +look at her long enough to see that she was also a graceful and lovely +person. He wondered what her nationality was. Even at some yards' +distance he could see that she had long dark eyes and a curved mouth +which seemed to be smiling to itself. He thought she might be Spanish +or Italian. + +He was trying to decide which of the two countries she belonged to, as +she drew near to him, but quite suddenly the curved mouth ceased +smiling as her foot seemed to catch in a break in the pavement, and she +so lost her balance that she would have fallen if he had not leaped +forward and caught her. + +She was light and slender, and he was a strong lad and managed to +steady her. An expression of sharp momentary anguish crossed her face. + +"I hope you are not hurt," Marco said. + +She bit her lip and clutched his shoulder very hard with her slim hand. + +"I have twisted my ankle," she answered. "I am afraid I have twisted +it badly. Thank you for saving me. I should have had a bad fall." + +Her long, dark eyes were very sweet and grateful. She tried to smile, +but there was such distress under the effort that Marco was afraid she +must have hurt herself very much. + +"Can you stand on your foot at all?" he asked. + +"I can stand a little now," she said, "but I might not be able to stand +in a few minutes. I must get back to the house while I can bear to +touch the ground with it. I am so sorry. I am afraid I shall have to +ask you to go with me. Fortunately it is only a few yards away." + +"Yes," Marco answered. "I saw you come out of the house. If you will +lean on my shoulder, I can soon help you back. I am glad to do it. +Shall we try now?" + +She had a gentle and soft manner which would have appealed to any boy. +Her voice was musical and her enunciation exquisite. + +Whether she was Spanish or Italian, it was easy to imagine her a person +who did not always live in London lodgings, even of the better class. + +"If you please," she answered him. "It is very kind of you. You are +very strong, I see. But I am glad to have only a few steps to go." + +She rested on his shoulder as well as on her umbrella, but it was plain +that every movement gave her intense pain. She caught her lip with her +teeth, and Marco thought she turned white. He could not help liking +her. She was so lovely and gracious and brave. He could not bear to +see the suffering in her face. + +"I am so sorry!" he said, as he helped her, and his boy's voice had +something of the wonderful sympathetic tone of Loristan's. The +beautiful lady herself remarked it, and thought how unlike it was to +the ordinary boy-voice. + +"I have a latch-key," she said, when they stood on the low step. + +She found the latch-key in her purse and opened the door. Marco helped +her into the entrance-hall. She sat down at once in a chair near the +hat-stand. The place was quite plain and old-fashioned inside. + +"Shall I ring the front-door bell to call some one?" Marco inquired. + +"I am afraid that the servants are out," she answered. "They had a +holiday. Will you kindly close the door? I shall be obliged to ask +you to help me into the sitting-room at the end of the hall. I shall +find all I want there--if you will kindly hand me a few things. Some +one may come in presently--perhaps one of the other lodgers--and, even +if I am alone for an hour or so, it will not really matter." + +"Perhaps I can find the landlady," Marco suggested. The beautiful +person smiled. + +"She has gone to her sister's wedding. That is why I was going out to +spend the day myself. I arranged the plan to accommodate her. How +good you are! I shall be quite comfortable directly, really. I can +get to my easy-chair in the sitting-room now I have rested a little." + +Marco helped her to her feet, and her sharp, involuntary exclamation of +pain made him wince internally. Perhaps it was a worse sprain than she +knew. + +The house was of the early-Victorian London order. A "front lobby" +with a dining-room on the right hand, and a "back lobby," after the +foot of the stairs was passed, out of which opened the basement kitchen +staircase and a sitting-room looking out on a gloomy flagged back yard +inclosed by high walls. The sitting-room was rather gloomy itself, but +there were a few luxurious things among the ordinary furnishings. +There was an easy-chair with a small table near it, and on the table +were a silver lamp and some rather elegant trifles. Marco helped his +charge to the easy-chair and put a cushion from the sofa under her +foot. He did it very gently, and, as he rose after doing it, he saw +that the long, soft dark eyes were looking at him in a curious way. + +"I must go away now," he said, "but I do not like to leave you. May I +go for a doctor?" + +"How dear you are!" she exclaimed. "But I do not want one, thank you. +I know exactly what to do for a sprained ankle. And perhaps mine is +not really a sprain. I am going to take off my shoe and see." + +"May I help you?" Marco asked, and he kneeled down again and carefully +unfastened her shoe and withdrew it from her foot. It was a slender +and delicate foot in a silk stocking, and she bent and gently touched +and rubbed it. + +"No," she said, when she raised herself, "I do not think it is a +sprain. Now that the shoe is off and the foot rests on the cushion, it +is much more comfortable, much more. Thank you, thank you. If you had +not been passing I might have had a dangerous fall." + +"I am very glad to have been able to help you," Marco answered, with an +air of relief. "Now I must go, if you think you will be all right." + +"Don't go yet," she said, holding out her hand. "I should like to know +you a little better, if I may. I am so grateful. I should like to +talk to you. You have such beautiful manners for a boy," she ended, +with a pretty, kind laugh, "and I believe I know where you got them +from." + +"You are very kind to me," Marco answered, wondering if he did not +redden a little. "But I must go because my father will--" + +"Your father would let you stay and talk to me," she said, with even a +prettier kindliness than before. "It is from him you have inherited +your beautiful manner. He was once a friend of mine. I hope he is my +friend still, though perhaps he has forgotten me." + +All that Marco had ever learned and all that he had ever trained +himself to remember, quickly rushed back upon him now, because he had a +clear and rapidly working brain, and had not lived the ordinary boy's +life. Here was a beautiful lady of whom he knew nothing at all but +that she had twisted her foot in the street and he had helped her back +into her house. If silence was still the order, it was not for him to +know things or ask questions or answer them. She might be the +loveliest lady in the world and his father her dearest friend, but, +even if this were so, he could best serve them both by obeying her +friend's commands with all courtesy, and forgetting no instruction he +had given. + +"I do not think my father ever forgets any one," he answered. + +"No, I am sure he does not," she said softly. "Has he been to Samavia +during the last three years?" + +Marco paused a moment. + +"Perhaps I am not the boy you think I am," he said. "My father has +never been to Samavia." + +"He has not? But--you are Marco Loristan?" + +"Yes. That is my name." + +Suddenly she leaned forward and her long lovely eyes filled with fire. + +"Then you are a Samavian, and you know of the disasters overwhelming +us. You know all the hideousness and barbarity of what is being done. +Your father's son must know it all!" + +"Every one knows it," said Marco. + +"But it is your country--your own! Your blood must burn in your veins!" + +Marco stood quite still and looked at her. His eyes told whether his +blood burned or not, but he did not speak. His look was answer enough, +since he did not wish to say anything. + +"What does your father think? I am a Samavian myself, and I think +night and day. What does he think of the rumor about the descendant of +the Lost Prince? Does he believe it?" + +Marco was thinking very rapidly. Her beautiful face was glowing with +emotion, her beautiful voice trembled. That she should be a Samavian, +and love Samavia, and pour her feeling forth even to a boy, was deeply +moving to him. But howsoever one was moved, one must remember that +silence was still the order. When one was very young, one must +remember orders first of all. + +"It might be only a newspaper story," he said. "He says one cannot +trust such things. If you know him, you know he is very calm." + +"Has he taught you to be calm too?" she said pathetically. "You are +only a boy. Boys are not calm. Neither are women when their hearts +are wrung. Oh, my Samavia! Oh, my poor little country! My brave, +tortured country!" and with a sudden sob she covered her face with her +hands. + +A great lump mounted to Marco's throat. Boys could not cry, but he +knew what she meant when he said her heart was wrung. + +When she lifted her head, the tears in her eyes made them softer than +ever. + +"If I were a million Samavians instead of one woman, I should know what +to do!" she cried. "If your father were a million Samavians, he would +know, too. He would find Ivor's descendant, if he is on the earth, and +he would end all this horror!" + +"Who would not end it if they could?" cried Marco, quite fiercely. + +"But men like your father, men who are Samavians, must think night and +day about it as I do," she impetuously insisted. "You see, I cannot +help pouring my thoughts out even to a boy--because he is a Samavian. +Only Samavians care. Samavia seems so little and unimportant to other +people. They don't even seem to know that the blood she is pouring +forth pours from human veins and beating human hearts. Men like your +father must think, and plan, and feel that they must--must find a way. +Even a woman feels it. Even a boy must. Stefan Loristan cannot be +sitting quietly at home, knowing that Samavian hearts are being shot +through and Samavian blood poured forth. He cannot think and say +NOTHING!" + +Marco started in spite of himself. He felt as if his father had been +struck in the face. How dare she say such words! Big as he was, +suddenly he looked bigger, and the beautiful lady saw that he did. + +"He is my father," he said slowly. + +She was a clever, beautiful person, and saw that she had made a great +mistake. + +"You must forgive me," she exclaimed. "I used the wrong words because +I was excited. That is the way with women. You must see that I meant +that I knew he was giving his heart and strength, his whole being, to +Samavia, even though he must stay in London." + +She started and turned her head to listen to the sound of some one +using the latch-key and opening the front door. The some one came in +with the heavy step of a man. + +"It is one of the lodgers," she said. "I think it is the one who lives +in the third floor sitting-room." + +"Then you won't be alone when I go," said Marco. "I am glad some one +has come. I will say good-morning. May I tell my father your name?" + +"Tell me that you are not angry with me for expressing myself so +awkwardly," she said. + +"You couldn't have meant it. I know that," Marco answered boyishly. +"You couldn't." + +"No, I couldn't," she repeated, with the same emphasis on the words. + +She took a card from a silver case on the table and gave it to him. + +"Your father will remember my name," she said. "I hope he will let me +see him and tell him how you took care of me." + +She shook his hand warmly and let him go. But just as he reached the +door she spoke again. + +"Oh, may I ask you to do one thing more before you leave me?" she said +suddenly. "I hope you won't mind. Will you run up-stairs into the +drawing-room and bring me the purple book from the small table? I +shall not mind being alone if I have something to read." + +"A purple book? On a small table?" said Marco. + +"Between the two long windows," she smiled back at him. + +The drawing-room of such houses as these is always to be reached by one +short flight of stairs. + +Marco ran up lightly. + + + +XIV + +MARCO DOES NOT ANSWER + +By the time he turned the corner of the stairs, the beautiful lady had +risen from her seat in the back room and walked into the dining-room at +the front. A heavily-built, dark-bearded man was standing inside the +door as if waiting for her. + +"I could do nothing with him," she said at once, in her soft voice, +speaking quite prettily and gently, as if what she said was the most +natural thing in the world. "I managed the little trick of the +sprained foot really well, and got him into the house. He is an +amiable boy with perfect manners, and I thought it might be easy to +surprise him into saying more than he knew he was saying. You can +generally do that with children and young things. But he either knows +nothing or has been trained to hold his tongue. He's not stupid, and +he's of a high spirit. I made a pathetic little scene about Samavia, +because I saw he could be worked up. It did work him up. I tried him +with the Lost Prince rumor; but, if there is truth in it, he does not +or will not know. I tried to make him lose his temper and betray +something in defending his father, whom he thinks a god, by the way. +But I made a mistake. I saw that. It's a pity. Boys can sometimes be +made to tell anything." She spoke very quickly under her breath. The +man spoke quickly too. + +"Where is he?" he asked. + +"I sent him up to the drawing-room to look for a book. He will look +for a few minutes. Listen. He's an innocent boy. He sees me only as +a gentle angel. Nothing will SHAKE him so much as to hear me tell him +the truth suddenly. It will be such a shock to him that perhaps you +can do something with him then. He may lose his hold on himself. He's +only a boy." + +"You're right," said the bearded man. "And when he finds out he is not +free to go, it may alarm him and we may get something worth while." + +"If we could find out what is true, or what Loristan thinks is true, we +should have a clue to work from," she said. + +"We have not much time," the man whispered. "We are ordered to Bosnia +at once. Before midnight we must be on the way." + +"Let us go into the other room. He is coming." + +When Marco entered the room, the heavily-built man with the pointed +dark beard was standing by the easy-chair. + +"I am sorry I could not find the book," he apologized. "I looked on +all the tables." + +"I shall be obliged to go and search for it myself," said the Lovely +Person. + +She rose from her chair and stood up smiling. And at her first +movement Marco saw that she was not disabled in the least. + +"Your foot!" he exclaimed. "It's better?" + +"It wasn't hurt," she answered, in her softly pretty voice and with her +softly pretty smile. "I only made you think so." + +It was part of her plan to spare him nothing of shock in her sudden +transformation. Marco felt his breath leave him for a moment. + +"I made you believe I was hurt because I wanted you to come into the +house with me," she added. "I wished to find out certain things I am +sure you know." + +"They were things about Samavia," said the man. "Your father knows +them, and you must know something of them at least. It is necessary +that we should hear what you can tell us. We shall not allow you to +leave the house until you have answered certain questions I shall ask +you." + +Then Marco began to understand. He had heard his father speak of +political spies, men and women who were paid to trace the people that +certain governments or political parties desired to have followed and +observed. He knew it was their work to search out secrets, to disguise +themselves and live among innocent people as if they were merely +ordinary neighbors. + +They must be spies who were paid to follow his father because he was a +Samavian and a patriot. He did not know that they had taken the house +two months before, and had accomplished several things during their +apparently innocent stay in it. They had discovered Loristan and had +learned to know his outgoings and incomings, and also the outgoings and +incomings of Lazarus, Marco, and The Rat. But they meant, if possible, +to learn other things. If the boy could be startled and terrified into +unconscious revelations, it might prove well worth their while to have +played this bit of melodrama before they locked the front door behind +them and hastily crossed the Channel, leaving their landlord to +discover for himself that the house had been vacated. + +In Marco's mind strange things were happening. They were spies! But +that was not all. The Lovely Person had been right when she said that +he would receive a shock. His strong young chest swelled. In all his +life, he had never come face to face with black treachery before. He +could not grasp it. This gentle and friendly being with the grateful +soft voice and grateful soft eyes had betrayed--BETRAYED him! It +seemed impossible to believe it, and yet the smile on her curved mouth +told him that it was true. When he had sprung to help her, she had +been playing a trick! When he had been sorry for her pain and had +winced at the sound of her low exclamation, she had been deliberately +laying a trap to harm him. For a few seconds he was stunned--perhaps, +if he had not been his father's son, he might have been stunned only. +But he was more. When the first seconds had passed, there arose slowly +within him a sense of something like high, remote disdain. It grew in +his deep boy's eyes as he gazed directly into the pupils of the long +soft dark ones. His body felt as if it were growing taller. + +"You are very clever," he said slowly. Then, after a second's pause, +he added, "I was too young to know that there was any one +so--clever--in the world." + +The Lovely Person laughed, but she did not laugh easily. She spoke to +her companion. + +"A grand seigneur!" she said. "As one looks at him, one half believes +it is true." + +The man with the beard was looking very angry. His eyes were savage +and his dark skin reddened. Marco thought that he looked at him as if +he hated him, and was made fierce by the mere sight of him, for some +mysterious reason. + +"Two days before you left Moscow," he said, "three men came to see your +father. They looked like peasants. They talked to him for more than +an hour. They brought with them a roll of parchment. Is that not +true?" + +"I know nothing," said Marco. + +"Before you went to Moscow, you were in Budapest. You went there from +Vienna. You were there for three months, and your father saw many +people. Some of them came in the middle of the night." + +"I know nothing," said Marco. + +"You have spent your life in traveling from one country to another," +persisted the man. "You know the European languages as if you were a +courier, or the _portier_ in a Viennese hotel. Do you not?" + +Marco did not answer. + +The Lovely Person began to speak to the man rapidly in Russian. + +"A spy and an adventurer Stefan Loristan has always been and always +will be," she said. "We know what he is. The police in every capital +in Europe know him as a sharper and a vagabond, as well as a spy. And +yet, with all his cleverness, he does not seem to have money. What did +he do with the bribe the Maranovitch gave him for betraying what he +knew of the old fortress? The boy doesn't even suspect him. Perhaps +it's true that he knows nothing. Or perhaps it is true that he has +been so ill-treated and flogged from his babyhood that he dare not +speak. There is a cowed look in his eyes in spite of his childish +swagger. He's been both starved and beaten." + +The outburst was well done. She did not look at Marco as she poured +forth her words. She spoke with the abruptness and impetuosity of a +person whose feelings had got the better of her. If Marco was sensitive +about his father, she felt sure that his youth would make his face +reveal something if his tongue did not--if he understood Russian, which +was one of the things it would be useful to find out, because it was a +fact which would verify many other things. + +Marco's face disappointed her. No change took place in it, and the +blood did not rise to the surface of his skin. He listened with an +uninterested air, blank and cold and polite. Let them say what they +chose. + +The man twisted his pointed beard and shrugged his shoulders. + +"We have a good little wine-cellar downstairs," he said. "You are +going down into it, and you will probably stay there for some time if +you do not make up your mind to answer my questions. You think that +nothing can happen to you in a house in a London street where policemen +walk up and down. But you are mistaken. If you yelled now, even if any +one chanced to hear you, they would only think you were a lad getting a +thrashing he deserved. You can yell as much as you like in the black +little wine-cellar, and no one will hear at all. We only took this +house for three months, and we shall leave it to-night without +mentioning the fact to any one. If we choose to leave you in the +wine-cellar, you will wait there until somebody begins to notice that +no one goes in and out, and chances to mention it to the +landlord--which few people would take the trouble to do. Did you come +here from Moscow?" + +"I know nothing," said Marco. + +"You might remain in the good little black cellar an unpleasantly long +time before you were found," the man went on, quite coolly. "Do you +remember the peasants who came to see your father two nights before you +left?" + +"I know nothing," said Marco. + +"By the time it was discovered that the house was empty and people came +in to make sure, you might be too weak to call out and attract their +attention. Did you go to Budapest from Vienna, and were you there for +three months?" asked the inquisitor. + +"I know nothing," said Marco. + +"You are too good for the little black cellar," put in the Lovely +Person. "I like you. Don't go into it!" + +"I know nothing," Marco answered, but the eyes which were like +Loristan's gave her just such a look as Loristan would have given her, +and she felt it. It made her uncomfortable. + +"I don't believe you were ever ill-treated or beaten," she said. "I +tell you, the little black cellar will be a hard thing. Don't go +there!" + +And this time Marco said nothing, but looked at her still as if he were +some great young noble who was very proud. + +He knew that every word the bearded man had spoken was true. To cry +out would be of no use. If they went away and left him behind them, +there was no knowing how many days would pass before the people of the +neighborhood would begin to suspect that the place had been deserted, +or how long it would be before it occurred to some one to give warning +to the owner. And in the meantime, neither his father nor Lazarus nor +The Rat would have the faintest reason for guessing where he was. And +he would be sitting alone in the dark in the wine-cellar. He did not +know in the least what to do about this thing. He only knew that +silence was still the order. + +"It is a jet-black little hole," the man said. "You might crack your +throat in it, and no one would hear. Did men come to talk with your +father in the middle of the night when you were in Vienna?" + +"I know nothing," said Marco. + +"He won't tell," said the Lovely Person. "I am sorry for this boy." + +"He may tell after he has sat in the good little black wine-cellar for +a few hours," said the man with the pointed beard. "Come with me!" + +He put his powerful hand on Marco's shoulder and pushed him before him. +Marco made no struggle. He remembered what his father had said about +the game not being a game. It wasn't a game now, but somehow he had a +strong haughty feeling of not being afraid. + +He was taken through the hallway, toward the rear, and down the +commonplace flagged steps which led to the basement. Then he was +marched through a narrow, ill-lighted, flagged passage to a door in the +wall. The door was not locked and stood a trifle ajar. His companion +pushed it farther open and showed part of a wine-cellar which was so +dark that it was only the shelves nearest the door that Marco could +faintly see. His captor pushed him in and shut the door. It was as +black a hole as he had described. Marco stood still in the midst of +darkness like black velvet. His guard turned the key. + +"The peasants who came to your father in Moscow spoke Samavian and were +big men. Do you remember them?" he asked from outside. + +"I know nothing," answered Marco. + +"You are a young fool," the voice replied. "And I believe you know +even more than we thought. Your father will be greatly troubled when +you do not come home. I will come back to see you in a few hours, if +it is possible. I will tell you, however, that I have had disturbing +news which might make it necessary for us to leave the house in a +hurry. I might not have time to come down here again before leaving." + +Marco stood with his back against a bit of wall and remained silent. + +There was stillness for a few minutes, and then there was to be heard +the sound of footsteps marching away. + +When the last distant echo died all was quite silent, and Marco drew a +long breath. Unbelievable as it may appear, it was in one sense almost +a breath of relief. In the rush of strange feeling which had swept +over him when he found himself facing the astounding situation +up-stairs, it had not been easy to realize what his thoughts really +were; there were so many of them and they came so fast. How could he +quite believe the evidence of his eyes and ears? A few minutes, only a +few minutes, had changed his prettily grateful and kindly acquaintance +into a subtle and cunning creature whose love for Samavia had been part +of a plot to harm it and to harm his father. + +What did she and her companion want to do--what could they do if they +knew the things they were trying to force him to tell? + +Marco braced his back against the wall stoutly. + +"What will it be best to think about first?" + +This he said because one of the most absorbingly fascinating things he +and his father talked about together was the power of the thoughts +which human beings allow to pass through their minds--the strange +strength of them. When they talked of this, Marco felt as if he were +listening to some marvelous Eastern story of magic which was true. In +Loristan's travels, he had visited the far Oriental countries, and he +had seen and learned many things which seemed marvels, and they had +taught him deep thinking. He had known, and reasoned through days with +men who believed that when they desired a thing, clear and exalted +thought would bring it to them. He had discovered why they believed +this, and had learned to understand their profound arguments. + +What he himself believed, he had taught Marco quite simply from his +childhood. It was this: he himself--Marco, with the strong boy-body, +the thick mat of black hair, and the patched clothes--was the magician. +He held and waved his wand himself--and his wand was his own Thought. +When special privation or anxiety beset them, it was their rule to say, +"What will it be best to think about first?" which was Marco's reason +for saying it to himself now as he stood in the darkness which was like +black velvet. + +He waited a few minutes for the right thing to come to him. + +"I will think of the very old hermit who lived on the ledge of the +mountains in India and who let my father talk to him through all one +night," he said at last. This had been a wonderful story and one of +his favorites. Loristan had traveled far to see this ancient Buddhist, +and what he had seen and heard during that one night had made changes +in his life. The part of the story which came back to Marco now was +these words: + +"Let pass through thy mind, my son, only the image thou wouldst desire +to see a truth. Meditate only upon the wish of thy heart, seeing first +that it can injure no man and is not ignoble. Then will it take +earthly form and draw near to thee. This is the law of that which +creates." + +"I am not afraid," Marco said aloud. "I shall not be afraid. In some +way I shall get out." + +This was the image he wanted most to keep steadily in his mind--that +nothing could make him afraid, and that in some way he would get out of +the wine-cellar. + +He thought of this for some minutes, and said the words over several +times. He felt more like himself when he had done it. + +"When my eyes are accustomed to the darkness, I shall see if there is +any little glimmer of light anywhere," he said next. + +He waited with patience, and it seemed for some time that he saw no +glimmer at all. He put out his hands on either side of him, and found +that, on the side of the wall against which he stood, there seemed to +be no shelves. Perhaps the cellar had been used for other purposes +than the storing of wine, and, if that was true, there might be +somewhere some opening for ventilation. The air was not bad, but then +the door had not been shut tightly when the man opened it. + +"I am not afraid," he repeated. "I shall not be afraid. In some way I +shall get out." + +He would not allow himself to stop and think about his father waiting +for his return. He knew that would only rouse his emotions and weaken +his courage. He began to feel his way carefully along the wall. It +reached farther than he had thought it would. + +The cellar was not so very small. He crept round it gradually, and, +when he had crept round it, he made his way across it, keeping his +hands extended before him and setting down each foot cautiously. Then +he sat down on the stone floor and thought again, and what he thought +was of the things the old Buddhist had told his father, and that there +was a way out of this place for him, and he should somehow find it, +and, before too long a time had passed, be walking in the street again. + +It was while he was thinking in this way that he felt a startling +thing. It seemed almost as if something touched him. It made him +jump, though the touch was so light and soft that it was scarcely a +touch at all, in fact he could not be sure that he had not imagined it. +He stood up and leaned against the wall again. Perhaps the suddenness +of his movement placed him at some angle he had not reached before, or +perhaps his eyes had become more completely accustomed to the darkness, +for, as he turned his head to listen, he made a discovery: above the +door there was a place where the velvet blackness was not so dense. +There was something like a slit in the wall, though, as it did not open +upon daylight but upon the dark passage, it was not light it admitted +so much as a lesser shade of darkness. But even that was better than +nothing, and Marco drew another long breath. + +"That is only the beginning. I shall find a way out," he said. + +"I SHALL." + +He remembered reading a story of a man who, being shut by accident in a +safety vault, passed through such terrors before his release that he +believed he had spent two days and nights in the place when he had been +there only a few hours. + +"His thoughts did that. I must remember. I will sit down again and +begin thinking of all the pictures in the cabinet rooms of the Art +History Museum in Vienna. It will take some time, and then there are +the others," he said. + +It was a good plan. While he could keep his mind upon the game which +had helped him to pass so many dull hours, he could think of nothing +else, as it required close attention--and perhaps, as the day went on, +his captors would begin to feel that it was not safe to run the risk of +doing a thing as desperate as this would be. They might think better +of it before they left the house at least. In any case, he had learned +enough from Loristan to realize that only harm could come from letting +one's mind run wild. + +"A mind is either an engine with broken and flying gear, or a giant +power under control," was the thing they knew. + +He had walked in imagination through three of the cabinet rooms and was +turning mentally into a fourth, when he found himself starting again +quite violently. This time it was not at a touch but at a sound. Surely +it was a sound. And it was in the cellar with him. But it was the +tiniest possible noise, a ghost of a squeak and a suggestion of a +movement. It came from the opposite side of the cellar, the side where +the shelves were. He looked across in the darkness, and in the darkness +saw a light which there could be no mistake about. It _was_ a light, two +lights indeed, two round phosphorescent greenish balls. They were two +eyes staring at him. And then he heard another sound. Not a squeak this +time, but something so homely and comfortable that he actually burst out +laughing. It was a cat purring, a nice warm cat! And she was curled up +on one of the lower shelves purring to some new-born kittens. He knew +there were kittens because it was plain now what the tiny squeak had +been, and it was made plainer by the fact that he heard another much +more distinct one and then another. They had all been asleep when he had +come into the cellar. If the mother had been awake, she had probably +been very much afraid. Afterward she had perhaps come down from her +shelf to investigate, and had passed close to him. The feeling of relief +which came upon him at this queer and simple discovery was wonderful. It +was so natural and comfortable an every-day thing that it seemed to make +spies and criminals unreal, and only natural things possible. With a +mother cat purring away among her kittens, even a dark wine-cellar was +not so black. He got up and kneeled by the shelf. The greenish eyes did +not shine in an unfriendly way. He could feel that the owner of them was +a nice big cat, and he counted four round little balls of kittens. It +was a curious delight to stroke the soft fur and talk to the mother cat. +She answered with purring, as if she liked the sense of friendly human +nearness. Marco laughed to himself. + + + +"It's queer what a difference it makes!" he said. "It is almost like +finding a window." + +The mere presence of these harmless living things was companionship. +He sat down close to the low shelf and listened to the motherly +purring, now and then speaking and putting out his hand to touch the +warm fur. The phosphorescent light in the green eyes was a comfort in +itself. + +"We shall get out of this--both of us," he said. "We shall not be here +very long, Puss-cat." + +He was not troubled by the fear of being really hungry for some time. +He was so used to eating scantily from necessity, and to passing long +hours without food during his journeys, that he had proved to himself +that fasting is not, after all, such a desperate ordeal as most people +imagine. If you begin by expecting to feel famished and by counting +the hours between your meals, you will begin to be ravenous. But he +knew better. + +The time passed slowly; but he had known it would pass slowly, and he +had made up his mind not to watch it nor ask himself questions about +it. He was not a restless boy, but, like his father, could stand or +sit or lie still. Now and then he could hear distant rumblings of +carts and vans passing in the street. There was a certain degree of +companionship in these also. He kept his place near the cat and his +hand where he could occasionally touch her. He could lift his eyes now +and then to the place where the dim glimmer of something like light +showed itself. + +Perhaps the stillness, perhaps the darkness, perhaps the purring of the +mother cat, probably all three, caused his thoughts to begin to travel +through his mind slowly and more slowly. At last they ceased and he +fell asleep. The mother cat purred for some time, and then fell asleep +herself. + + + +XV + +A SOUND IN A DREAM + +Marco slept peacefully for several hours. There was nothing to awaken +him during that time. But at the end of it, his sleep was penetrated +by a definite sound. He had dreamed of hearing a voice at a distance, +and, as he tried in his dream to hear what it said, a brief metallic +ringing sound awakened him outright. It was over by the time he was +fully conscious, and at once he realized that the voice of his dream +had been a real one, and was speaking still. It was the Lovely +Person's voice, and she was speaking rapidly, as if she were in the +greatest haste. She was speaking through the door. + +"You will have to search for it," was all he heard. "I have not a +moment!" And, as he listened to her hurriedly departing feet, there +came to him with their hastening echoes the words, "You are too good +for the cellar. I like you!" + +He sprang to the door and tried it, but it was still locked. The feet +ran up the cellar steps and through the upper hall, and the front door +closed with a bang. The two people had gone away, as they had +threatened. The voice had been excited as well as hurried. Something +had happened to frighten them, and they had left the house in great +haste. + +Marco turned and stood with his back against the door. The cat had +awakened and she was gazing at him with her green eyes. She began to +purr encouragingly. She really helped Marco to think. He was thinking +with all his might and trying to remember. + +"What did she come for? She came for something," he said to himself. +"What did she say? I only heard part of it, because I was asleep. The +voice in the dream was part of it. The part I heard was, 'You will +have to search for it. I have not a moment.' And as she ran down the +passage, she called back, 'You are too good for the cellar. I like +you.'" He said the words over and over again and tried to recall +exactly how they had sounded, and also to recall the voice which had +seemed to be part of a dream but had been a real thing. Then he began +to try his favorite experiment. As he often tried the experiment of +commanding his mind to go to sleep, so he frequently experimented on +commanding it to work for him--to help him to remember, to understand, +and to argue about things clearly. + +"Reason this out for me," he said to it now, quite naturally and +calmly. "Show me what it means." + +What did she come for? It was certain that she was in too great a +hurry to be able, without a reason, to spare the time to come. What was +the reason? She had said she liked him. Then she came because she +liked him. If she liked him, she came to do something which was not +unfriendly. The only good thing she could do for him was something +which would help him to get out of the cellar. She had said twice that +he was too good for the cellar. If he had been awake, he would have +heard all she said and have understood what she wanted him to do or +meant to do for him. He must not stop even to think of that. The +first words he had heard--what had they been? They had been less clear +to him than her last because he had heard them only as he was +awakening. But he thought he was sure that they had been, "You will +have to search for it." Search for it. For what? He thought and +thought. What must he search for? + +He sat down on the floor of the cellar and held his head in his hands, +pressing his eyes so hard that curious lights floated before them. + +"Tell me! Tell me!" he said to that part of his being which the +Buddhist anchorite had said held all knowledge and could tell a man +everything if he called upon it in the right spirit. + +And in a few minutes, he recalled something which seemed so much a part +of his sleep that he had not been sure that he had not dreamed it. The +ringing sound! He sprang up on his feet with a little gasping shout. +The ringing sound! It had been the ring of metal, striking as it fell. +Anything made of metal might have sounded like that. She had thrown +something made of metal into the cellar. She had thrown it through the +slit in the bricks near the door. She liked him, and said he was too +good for his prison. She had thrown to him the only thing which could +set him free. She had thrown him the KEY of the cellar! + +For a few minutes the feelings which surged through him were so full of +strong excitement that they set his brain in a whirl. He knew what his +father would say--that would not do. If he was to think, he must hold +himself still and not let even joy overcome him. The key was in the +black little cellar, and he must find it in the dark. Even the woman +who liked him enough to give him a chance of freedom knew that she must +not open the door and let him out. There must be a delay. He would +have to find the key himself, and it would be sure to take time. The +chances were that they would be at a safe enough distance before he +could get out. + +"I will kneel down and crawl on my hands and knees," he said. + +"I will crawl back and forth and go over every inch of the floor with +my hands until I find it. If I go over every inch, I shall find it." + +So he kneeled down and began to crawl, and the cat watched him and +purred. + +"We shall get out, Puss-cat," he said to her. "I told you we should." + +He crawled from the door to the wall at the side of the shelves, and +then he crawled back again. The key might be quite a small one, and it +was necessary that he should pass his hands over every inch, as he had +said. The difficulty was to be sure, in the darkness, that he did not +miss an inch. Sometimes he was not sure enough, and then he went over +the ground again. He crawled backward and forward, and he crawled +forward and backward. He crawled crosswise and lengthwise, he crawled +diagonally, and he crawled round and round. But he did not find the +key. If he had had only a little light, but he had none. He was so +absorbed in his search that he did not know he had been engaged in it +for several hours, and that it was the middle of the night. But at +last he realized that he must stop for a rest, because his knees were +beginning to feel bruised, and the skin of his hands was sore as a +result of the rubbing on the flags. The cat and her kittens had gone +to sleep and awakened again two or three times. + +"But it is somewhere!" he said obstinately. "It is inside the cellar. +I heard something fall which was made of metal. That was the ringing +sound which awakened me." + +When he stood up, he found his body ached and he was very tired. He +stretched himself and exercised his arms and legs. + +"I wonder how long I have been crawling about," he thought. "But the +key is in the cellar. It is in the cellar." + +He sat down near the cat and her family, and, laying his arm on the +shelf above her, rested his head on it. He began to think of another +experiment. + +"I am so tired, I believe I shall go to sleep again. 'Thought which +Knows All'"--he was quoting something the hermit had said to Loristan +in their midnight talk--"Thought which Knows All! Show me this little +thing. Lead me to it when I awake." + +And he did fall asleep, sound and fast. + + +He did not know that he slept all the rest of the night. But he did. +When he awakened, it was daylight in the streets, and the milk-carts +were beginning to jingle about, and the early postmen were knocking big +double-knocks at front doors. The cat may have heard the milk-carts, +but the actual fact was that she herself was hungry and wanted to go in +search of food. Just as Marco lifted his head from his arm and sat up, +she jumped down from her shelf and went to the door. She had expected +to find it ajar as it had been before. When she found it shut, she +scratched at it and was disturbed to find this of no use. Because she +knew Marco was in the cellar, she felt she had a friend who would +assist her, and she miauled appealingly. + +This reminded Marco of the key. + +"I will when I have found it," he said. "It is inside the cellar." + +The cat miauled again, this time very anxiously indeed. The kittens +heard her and began to squirm and squeak piteously. + +"Lead me to this little thing," said Marco, as if speaking to Something +in the darkness about him, and he got up. + +He put his hand out toward the kittens, and it touched something lying +not far from them. It must have been lying near his elbow all night +while he slept. + +It was the key! It had fallen upon the shelf, and not on the floor at +all. + +Marco picked it up and then stood still a moment. He made the sign of +the cross. + +Then he found his way to the door and fumbled until he found the +keyhole and got the key into it. Then he turned it and pushed the door +open--and the cat ran out into the passage before him. + + + +XVI + +THE RAT TO THE RESCUE + +Marco walked through the passage and into the kitchen part of the +basement. The doors were all locked, and they were solid doors. He ran +up the flagged steps and found the door at the top shut and bolted +also, and that too was a solid door. His jailers had plainly made sure +that it should take time enough for him to make his way into the world, +even after he got out of the wine-cellar. + +The cat had run away to some part of the place where mice were +plentiful. Marco was by this time rather gnawingly hungry himself. If +he could get into the kitchen, he might find some fragments of food +left in a cupboard; but there was no moving the locked door. He tried +the outlet into the area, but that was immovable. Then he saw near it +a smaller door. It was evidently the entrance to the coal-cellar under +the pavement. This was proved by the fact that trodden coal-dust marked +the flagstones, and near it stood a scuttle with coal in it. + +This coal-scuttle was the thing which might help him! Above the area +door was a small window which was supposed to light the entry. He +could not reach it, and, if he reached it, he could not open it. He +could throw pieces of coal at the glass and break it, and then he could +shout for help when people passed by. They might not notice or +understand where the shouts came from at first, but, if he kept them +up, some one's attention would be attracted in the end. + +He picked a large-sized solid piece of coal out of the heap in the +scuttle, and threw it with all his force against the grimy glass. It +smashed through and left a big hole. He threw another, and the entire +pane was splintered and fell outside into the area. Then he saw it was +broad daylight, and guessed that he had been shut up a good many hours. +There was plenty of coal in the scuttle, and he had a strong arm and a +good aim. He smashed pane after pane, until only the framework +remained. When he shouted, there would be nothing between his voice +and the street. No one could see him, but if he could do something +which would make people slacken their pace to listen, then he could +call out that he was in the basement of the house with the broken +window. + +"Hallo!" he shouted. "Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! Hallo!" + +But vehicles were passing in the street, and the passers-by were +absorbed in their own business. If they heard a sound, they did not +stop to inquire into it. + +"Hallo! Hallo! I am locked in!" yelled Marco, at the topmost power of +his lungs. "Hallo! Hallo!" + +After half an hour's shouting, he began to think that he was wasting +his strength. + +"They only think it is a boy shouting," he said. "Some one will notice +in time. At night, when the streets are quiet, I might make a +policeman hear. But my father does not know where I am. He will be +trying to find me--so will Lazarus--so will The Rat. One of them might +pass through this very street, as I did. What can I do!" + +A new idea flashed light upon him. + +"I will begin to sing a Samavian song, and I will sing it very loud. +People nearly always stop a moment to listen to music and find out +where it comes from. And if any of my own people came near, they would +stop at once--and now and then I will shout for help." + +Once when they had stopped to rest on Hampstead Heath, he had sung a +valiant Samavian song for The Rat. The Rat had wanted to hear how he +would sing when they went on their secret journey. He wanted him to +sing for the Squad some day, to make the thing seem real. The Rat had +been greatly excited, and had begged for the song often. It was a +stirring martial thing with a sort of trumpet call of a chorus. +Thousands of Samavians had sung it together on their way to the +battle-field, hundreds of years ago. + +He drew back a step or so, and, putting his hands on his hips, began to +sing, throwing his voice upward that it might pass through the broken +window. He had a splendid and vibrant young voice, though he knew +nothing of its fine quality. Just now he wanted only to make it loud. + +In the street outside very few people were passing. An irritable old +gentleman who was taking an invalid walk quite jumped with annoyance +when the song suddenly trumpeted forth. Boys had no right to yell in +that manner. He hurried his step to get away from the sound. Two or +three other people glanced over their shoulders, but had not time to +loiter. A few others listened with pleasure as they drew near and +passed on. + +"There's a boy with a fine voice," said one. + +"What's he singing?" said his companion. "It sounds foreign." + +"Don't know," was the reply as they went by. But at last a young man +who was a music-teacher, going to give a lesson, hesitated and looked +about him. The song was very loud and spirited just at this moment. +The music-teacher could not understand where it came from, and paused +to find out. The fact that he stopped attracted the attention of the +next comer, who also paused. + +"Who's singing?" he asked. "Where is he singing?" + +"I can't make out," the music-teacher laughed. "Sounds as if it came +out of the ground." + +And, because it was queer that a song should seem to be coming out of +the ground, a costermonger stopped, and then a little boy, and then a +workingwoman, and then a lady. + +There was quite a little group when another person turned the corner of +the street. He was a shabby boy on crutches, and he had a frantic look +on his face. + +And Marco actually heard, as he drew near to the group, the tap-tap-tap +of crutches. + +"It might be," he thought. "It might be!" + +And he sang the trumpet-call of the chorus as if it were meant to reach +the skies, and he sang it again and again. And at the end of it +shouted, "Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! Hallo!" + +The Rat swung himself into the group and looked as if he had gone +crazy. He hurled himself against the people. + +"Where is he! Where is he!" he cried, and he poured out some +breathless words; it was almost as if he sobbed them out. + +"We've been looking for him all night!" he shouted. "Where is he! +Marco! Marco! No one else sings it but him. Marco! Marco!" And out +of the area, as it seemed, came a shout of answer. + +"Rat! Rat! I'm here in the cellar--locked in. I'm here!" and a big +piece of coal came hurtling through the broken window and fell crashing +on the area flags. The Rat got down the steps into the area as if he +had not been on crutches but on legs, and banged on the door, shouting +back: + +"Marco! Marco! Here I am! Who locked you in? How can I get the door +open?" + +Marco was close against the door inside. It was The Rat! It was +The Rat! And he would be in the street again in a few minutes. "Call a +policeman!" he shouted through the keyhole. "The people locked me in +on purpose and took away the keys." + +Then the group of lookers-on began to get excited and press against the +area railings and ask questions. They could not understand what had +happened to cause the boy with the crutches to look as if he were crazy +with terror and relief at the same time. + +And the little boy ran delightedly to fetch a policeman, and found one +in the next street, and, with some difficulty, persuaded him that it +was his business to come and get a door open in an empty house where a +boy who was a street singer had got locked up in a cellar. + + + +XVII + +"IT IS A VERY BAD SIGN" + +The policeman was not so much excited as out of temper. He did not +know what Marco knew or what The Rat knew. Some common lad had got +himself locked up in a house, and some one would have to go to the +landlord and get a key from him. He had no intention of laying himself +open to the law by breaking into a private house with his truncheon, as +The Rat expected him to do. + +"He got himself in through some of his larks, and he'll have to wait +till he's got out without smashing locks," he growled, shaking the area +door. "How did you get in there?" he shouted. + +It was not easy for Marco to explain through a keyhole that he had come +in to help a lady who had met with an accident. The policeman thought +this mere boy's talk. As to the rest of the story, Marco knew that it +could not be related at all without saying things which could not be +explained to any one but his father. He quickly made up his mind that +he must let it be believed that he had been locked in by some queer +accident. It must be supposed that the people had not remembered, in +their haste, that he had not yet left the house. + +When the young clerk from the house agency came with the keys, he was +much disturbed and bewildered after he got inside. + +"They've made a bolt of it," he said. "That happens now and then, but +there's something queer about this. What did they lock these doors in +the basement for, and the one on the stairs? What did they say to +you?" he asked Marco, staring at him suspiciously. + +"They said they were obliged to go suddenly," Marco answered. + +"What were you doing in the basement?" + +"The man took me down." + +"And left you there and bolted? He must have been in a hurry." + +"The lady said they had not a moment's time." + +"Her ankle must have got well in short order," said the young man. + +"I knew nothing about them," answered Marco. "I had never seen them +before." + +"The police were after them," the young man said. "That's what I +should say. They paid three months' rent in advance, and they have +only been here two. Some of these foreign spies lurking about London; +that's what they were." + +The Rat had not waited until the keys arrived. He had swung himself at +his swiftest pace back through the streets to No. 7 Philibert Place. +People turned and stared at his wild pale face as he almost shot past +them. + +He had left himself barely breath enough to speak with when he reached +the house and banged on the door with his crutch to save time. + +Both Loristan and Lazarus came to answer. + +The Rat leaned against the door gasping. + +"He's found! He's all right!" he panted. "Some one had locked him in +a house and left him. They've sent for the keys. I'm going back. +Brandon Terrace, No. 10." + +Loristan and Lazarus exchanged glances. Both of them were at the +moment as pale as The Rat. + +"Help him into the house," said Loristan to Lazarus. "He must stay +here and rest. We will go." The Rat knew it was an order. + +He did not like it, but he obeyed. + +"This is a bad sign, Master," said Lazarus, as they went out together. + +"It is a very bad one," answered Loristan. + +"God of the Right, defend us!" Lazarus groaned. + +"Amen!" said Loristan. "Amen!" + +The group had become a small crowd by the time they reached Brandon +Terrace. Marco had not found it easy to leave the place because he was +being questioned. Neither the policeman nor the agent's clerk seemed +willing to relinquish the idea that he could give them some information +about the absconding pair. + +The entrance of Loristan produced its usual effect. The agent's clerk +lifted his hat, and the policeman stood straight and made salute. +Neither of them realized that the tall man's clothes were worn and +threadbare. They felt only that a personage was before them, and that +it was not possible to question his air of absolute and serene +authority. He laid his hand on Marco's shoulder and held it there as +he spoke. When Marco looked up at him and felt the closeness of his +touch, it seemed as if it were an embrace--as if he had caught him to +his breast. + +"My boy knew nothing of these people," he said. "That I can guarantee. +He had seen neither of them before. His entering the house was the +result of no boyish trick. He has been shut up in this place for +nearly twenty-four hours and has had no food. I must take him home. +This is my address." He handed the young man a card. + +Then they went home together, and all the way to Philibert Place +Loristan's firm hand held closely to his boy's shoulder as if he could +not endure to let him go. But on the way they said very little. + +"Father," Marco said, rather hoarsely, when they first got away from +the house in the terrace, "I can't talk well in the street. For one +thing, I am so glad to be with you again. It seemed as if--it might +turn out badly." + +"Beloved one," Loristan said the words in their own Samavian, "until +you are fed and at rest, you shall not talk at all." + +Afterward, when he was himself again and was allowed to tell his +strange story, Marco found that both his father and Lazarus had at once +had suspicions when he had not returned. They knew no ordinary event +could have kept him. They were sure that he must have been detained +against his will, and they were also sure that, if he had been so +detained, it could only have been for reasons they could guess at. + +"This was the card that she gave me," Marco said, and he handed it to +Loristan. "She said you would remember the name." Loristan looked at +the lettering with an ironic half-smile. + +"I never heard it before," he replied. "She would not send me a name I +knew. Probably I have never seen either of them. But I know the work +they do. They are spies of the Maranovitch, and suspect that I know +something of the Lost Prince. They believed they could terrify you +into saying things which would be a clue. Men and women of their class +will use desperate means to gain their end." + +"Might they--have left me as they threatened?" Marco asked him. + +"They would scarcely have dared, I think. Too great a hue and cry +would have been raised by the discovery of such a crime. Too many +detectives would have been set at work to track them." + +But the look in his father's eyes as he spoke, and the pressure of the +hand he stretched out to touch him, made Marco's heart thrill. He had +won a new love and trust from his father. When they sat together and +talked that night, they were closer to each other's souls than they had +ever been before. + +They sat in the firelight, Marco upon the worn hearth-rug, and they +talked about Samavia--about the war and its heart-rending struggles, +and about how they might end. + +"Do you think that some time we might be exiles no longer?" the boy +said wistfully. "Do you think we might go there together--and see +it--you and I, Father?" + +There was a silence for a while. Loristan looked into the sinking bed +of red coal. + +"For years--for years I have made for my soul that image," he said +slowly. "When I think of my friend on the side of the Himalayan +Mountains, I say, 'The Thought which Thought the World may give us that +also!'" + + + +XVIII + +"CITIES AND FACES" + +The hours of Marco's unexplained absence had been terrible to Loristan +and to Lazarus. They had reason for fears which it was not possible +for them to express. As the night drew on, the fears took stronger +form. They forgot the existence of The Rat, who sat biting his nails +in the bedroom, afraid to go out lest he might lose the chance of being +given some errand to do but also afraid to show himself lest he should +seem in the way. + +"I'll stay upstairs," he had said to Lazarus. "If you just whistle, +I'll come." + +The anguish he passed through as the day went by and Lazarus went out +and came in and he himself received no orders, could not have been +expressed in any ordinary words. He writhed in his chair, he bit his +nails to the quick, he wrought himself into a frenzy of misery and +terror by recalling one by one all the crimes his knowledge of London +police-courts supplied him with. He was doing nothing, yet he dare not +leave his post. It was his post after all, though they had not given +it to him. He must do something. + +In the middle of the night Loristan opened the door of the back +sitting-room, because he knew he must at least go upstairs and throw +himself upon his bed even if he could not sleep. + +He started back as the door opened. The Rat was sitting huddled on the +floor near it with his back against the wall. He had a piece of paper +in his hand and his twisted face was a weird thing to see. + +"Why are you here?" Loristan asked. + +"I've been here three hours, sir. I knew you'd have to come out +sometime and I thought you'd let me speak to you. Will you--will you?" + +"Come into the room," said Loristan. "I will listen to anything you +want to say. What have you been drawing on that paper?" as The Rat got +up in the wonderful way he had taught himself. The paper was covered +with lines which showed it to be another of his plans. + +"Please look at it," he begged. "I daren't go out lest you might want +to send me somewhere. I daren't sit doing nothing. I began +remembering and thinking things out. I put down all the streets and +squares he MIGHT have walked through on his way home. I've not missed +one. If you'll let me start out and walk through every one of them and +talk to the policemen on the beat and look at the houses--and think out +things and work at them--I'll not miss an inch--I'll not miss a brick +or a flagstone--I'll--" His voice had a hard sound but it shook, and +he himself shook. + +Loristan touched his arm gently. + +"You are a good comrade," he said. "It is well for us that you are +here. You have thought of a good thing." + +"May I go now?" said The Rat. + +"This moment, if you are ready," was the answer. The Rat swung himself +to the door. + +Loristan said to him a thing which was like the sudden lighting of a +great light in the very center of his being. + +"You are one of us. Now that I know you are doing this I may even +sleep. You are one of us." And it was because he was following this +plan that The Rat had turned into Brandon Terrace and heard the +Samavian song ringing out from the locked basement of Number 10. + +"Yes, he is one of us," Loristan said, when he told this part of the +story to Marco as they sat by the fire. "I had not been sure before. +I wanted to be very sure. Last night I saw into the depths of him and +KNEW. He may be trusted." + +From that day The Rat held a new place. Lazarus himself, strangely +enough, did not resent his holding it. The boy was allowed to be near +Loristan as he had never dared to hope to be near. It was not merely +that he was allowed to serve him in many ways, but he was taken into +the intimacy which had before enclosed only the three. Loristan talked +to him as he talked to Marco, drawing him within the circle which held +so much that was comprehended without speech. The Rat knew that he was +being trained and observed and he realized it with exaltation. His +idol had said that he was "one of them" and he was watching and putting +him to tests so that he might find out how much he was one of them. +And he was doing it for some grave reason of his own. This thought +possessed The Rat's whole mind. Perhaps he was wondering if he should +find out that he was to be trusted, as a rock is to be trusted. That +he should even think that perhaps he might find that he was like a +rock, was inspiration enough. + +"Sir," he said one night when they were alone together, because The Rat +had been copying a road-map. His voice was very low--"do you think +that--sometime--you could trust me as you trust Marco? Could it ever +be like that--ever?" + +"The time has come," and Loristan's voice was almost as low as his own, +though strong and deep feeling underlay its quiet--"the time has come +when I can trust you with Marco--to be his companion--to care for him, +to stand by his side at any moment. And Marco is--Marco is my son." +That was enough to uplift The Rat to the skies. But there was more to +follow. + +"It may not be long before it may be his part to do work in which he +will need a comrade who can be trusted--as a rock can be trusted." + +He had said the very words The Rat's own mind had given to him. + +"A Rock! A Rock!" the boy broke out. "Let me show you, sir. Send me +with him for a servant. The crutches are nothing. You've seen that +they're as good as legs, haven't you? I've trained myself." + +"I know, I know, dear lad." Marco had told him all of it. He gave him +a gracious smile which seemed as if it held a sort of fine secret. +"You shall go as his aide-de-camp. It shall be part of the game." + +He had always encouraged "the game," and during the last weeks had even +found time to help them in their plannings for the mysterious journey +of the Secret Two. He had been so interested that once or twice he had +called on Lazarus as an old soldier and Samavian to give his opinions +of certain routes--and of the customs and habits of people in towns and +villages by the way. Here they would find simple pastoral folk who +danced, sang after their day's work, and who would tell all they knew; +here they would find those who served or feared the Maranovitch and who +would not talk at all. In one place they would meet with hospitality, +in another with unfriendly suspicion of all strangers. Through talk +and stories The Rat began to know the country almost as Marco knew it. +That was part of the game too--because it was always "the game," they +called it. Another part was The Rat's training of his memory, and +bringing home his proofs of advance at night when he returned from his +walk and could describe, or recite, or roughly sketch all he had seen +in his passage from one place to another. Marco's part was to recall +and sketch faces. Loristan one night gave him a number of photographs +of people to commit to memory. Under each face was written the name of +a place. + +"Learn these faces," he said, "until you would know each one of them at +once wheresoever you met it. Fix them upon your mind, so that it will +be impossible for you to forget them. You must be able to sketch any +one of them and recall the city or town or neighborhood connected with +it." + +Even this was still called "the game," but Marco began to know in his +secret heart that it was so much more, that his hand sometimes trembled +with excitement as he made his sketches over and over again. To make +each one many times was the best way to imbed it in his memory. The +Rat knew, too, though he had no reason for knowing, but mere instinct. +He used to lie awake in the night and think it over and remember what +Loristan had said of the time coming when Marco might need a comrade in +his work. What was his work to be? It was to be something like "the +game." And they were being prepared for it. And though Marco often +lay awake on his bed when The Rat lay awake on his sofa, neither boy +spoke to the other of the thing his mind dwelt on. And Marco worked as +he had never worked before. The game was very exciting when he could +prove his prowess. The four gathered together at night in the back +sitting-room. Lazarus was obliged to be with them because a second +judge was needed. Loristan would mention the name of a place, perhaps +a street in Paris or a hotel in Vienna, and Marco would at once make a +rapid sketch of the face under whose photograph the name of the +locality had been written. It was not long before he could begin his +sketch without more than a moment's hesitation. And yet even when this +had become the case, they still played the game night after night. +There was a great hotel near the Place de la Concorde in Paris, of +which Marco felt he should never hear the name during all his life +without there starting up before his mental vision a tall woman with +fierce black eyes and a delicate high-bridged nose across which the +strong eyebrows almost met. In Vienna there was a palace which would +always bring back at once a pale cold-faced man with a heavy blonde +lock which fell over his forehead. A certain street in Munich meant a +stout genial old aristocrat with a sly smile; a village in Bavaria, a +peasant with a vacant and simple countenance. A curled and smoothed +man who looked like a hair-dresser brought up a place in an Austrian +mountain town. He knew them all as he knew his own face and No. 7 +Philibert Place. + +But still night after night the game was played. + +Then came a night when, out of a deep sleep, he was awakened by Lazarus +touching him. He had so long been secretly ready to answer any call +that he sat up straight in bed at the first touch. + +"Dress quickly and come down stairs," Lazarus said. "The Prince is +here and wishes to speak with you." + +Marco made no answer but got out of bed and began to slip on his +clothes. + +Lazarus touched The Rat. + +The Rat was as ready as Marco and sat upright as he had done. + +"Come down with the young Master," he commanded. "It is necessary that +you should be seen and spoken to." And having given the order he went +away. + +No one heard the shoeless feet of the two boys as they stole down the +stairs. + +An elderly man in ordinary clothes, but with an unmistakable face, was +sitting quietly talking to Loristan who with a gesture called both +forward. + +"The Prince has been much interested in what I have told him of your +game," he said in his lowest voice. "He wishes to see you make your +sketches, Marco." + +Marco looked very straight into the Prince's eyes which were fixed +intently on him as he made his bow. + +"His Highness does me honor," he said, as his father might have said +it. He went to the table at once and took from a drawer his pencils +and pieces of cardboard. + +"I should know he was your son and a Samavian," the Prince remarked. + +Then his keen and deep-set eyes turned themselves on the boy with the +crutches. + +"This," said Loristan, "is the one who calls himself The Rat. He is one +of us." + +The Rat saluted. + +"Please tell him, sir," he whispered, "that the crutches don't matter." + +"He has trained himself to an extraordinary activity," Loristan said. +"He can do anything." + +The keen eyes were still taking The Rat in. + +"They are an advantage," said the Prince at last. + +Lazarus had nailed together a light, rough easel which Marco used in +making his sketches when the game was played. Lazarus was standing in +state at the door, and he came forward, brought the easel from its +corner, and arranged the necessary drawing materials upon it. + +Marco stood near it and waited the pleasure of his father and his +visitor. They were speaking together in low tones and he waited +several minutes. What The Rat noticed was what he had noticed +before--that the big boy could stand still in perfect ease and silence. +It was not necessary for him to say things or to ask questions--to look +at people as if he felt restless if they did not speak to or notice +him. He did not seem to require notice, and The Rat felt vaguely that, +young as he was, this very freedom from any anxiety to be looked at or +addressed made him somehow look like a great gentleman. + +Loristan and the Prince advanced to where he stood. + +"L'Hotel de Marigny," Loristan said. + +Marco began to sketch rapidly. He began the portrait of the handsome +woman with the delicate high-bridged nose and the black brows which +almost met. As he did it, the Prince drew nearer and watched the work +over his shoulder. It did not take very long and, when it was +finished, the inspector turned, and after giving Loristan a long and +strange look, nodded twice. + +"It is a remarkable thing," he said. "In that rough sketch she is not +to be mistaken." + +Loristan bent his head. + +Then he mentioned the name of another street in another place--and +Marco sketched again. This time it was the peasant with the simple +face. The Prince bowed again. Then Loristan gave another name, and +after that another and another; and Marco did his work until it was at +an end, and Lazarus stood near with a handful of sketches which he had +silently taken charge of as each was laid aside. + +"You would know these faces wheresoever you saw them?" said the Prince. +"If you passed one in Bond Street or in the Marylebone Road, you would +recognize it at once?" + +"As I know yours, sir," Marco answered. + +Then followed a number of questions. Loristan asked them as he had +often asked them before. They were questions as to the height and +build of the originals of the pictures, of the color of their hair and +eyes, and the order of their complexions. Marco answered them all. He +knew all but the names of these people, and it was plainly not +necessary that he should know them, as his father had never uttered +them. + +After this questioning was at an end the Prince pointed to The Rat who +had leaned on his crutches against the wall, his eyes fiercely eager +like a ferret's. + +"And he?" the Prince said. "What can he do?" + +"Let me try," said The Rat. "Marco knows." + +Marco looked at his father. + +"May I help him to show you?" he asked. + +"Yes," Loristan answered, and then, as he turned to the Prince, he said +again in his low voice: "HE IS ONE OF US." + +Then Marco began a new form of the game. He held up one of the +pictured faces before The Rat, and The Rat named at once the city and +place connected with it, he detailed the color of eyes and hair, the +height, the build, all the personal details as Marco himself had +detailed them. To these he added descriptions of the cities, and +points concerning the police system, the palaces, the people. His face +twisted itself, his eyes burned, his voice shook, but he was amazing in +his readiness of reply and his exactness of memory. + +"I can't draw," he said at the end. "But I can remember. I didn't +want any one to be bothered with thinking I was trying to learn it. So +only Marco knew." + +This he said to Loristan with appeal in his voice. + +"It was he who invented 'the game,'" said Loristan. "I showed you his +strange maps and plans." + +"It is a good game," the Prince answered in the manner of a man +extraordinarily interested and impressed. "They know it well. They can +be trusted." + +"No such thing has ever been done before," Loristan said. "It is as +new as it is daring and simple." + +"Therein lies its safety," the Prince answered. + +"Perhaps only boyhood," said Loristan, "could have dared to imagine it." + +"The Prince thanks you," he said after a few more words spoken aside to +his visitor. "We both thank you. You may go back to your beds." + +And the boys went. + + + +XIX + +"THAT IS ONE!" + +A week had not passed before Marco brought to The Rat in their bedroom +an envelope containing a number of slips of paper on each of which was +written something. + +"This is another part of the game," he said gravely. "Let us sit down +together by the table and study it." + +They sat down and examined what was written on the slips. At the head +of each was the name of one of the places with which Marco had +connected a face he had sketched. Below were clear and concise +directions as to how it was to be reached and the words to be said when +each individual was encountered. + +"This person is to be found at his stall in the market," was written of +the vacant-faced peasant. "You will first attract his attention by +asking the price of something. When he is looking at you, touch your +left thumb lightly with the forefinger of your right hand. Then utter +in a low distinct tone the words 'The Lamp is lighted.' That is all +you are to do." + +Sometimes the directions were not quite so simple, but they were all +instructions of the same order. The originals of the sketches were to +be sought out--always with precaution which should conceal that they +were being sought at all, and always in such a manner as would cause an +encounter to appear to be mere chance. Then certain words were to be +uttered, but always without attracting the attention of any bystander +or passer-by. + +The boys worked at their task through the entire day. They +concentrated all their powers upon it. They wrote and re-wrote--they +repeated to each other what they committed to memory as if it were a +lesson. Marco worked with the greater ease and more rapidly, because +exercise of this order had been his practice and entertainment from his +babyhood. The Rat, however, almost kept pace with him, as he had been +born with a phenomenal memory and his eagerness and desire were a fury. + +But throughout the entire day neither of them once referred to what +they were doing as anything but "the game." + +At night, it is true, each found himself lying awake and thinking. It +was The Rat who broke the silence from his sofa. + +"It is what the messengers of the Secret Party would be ordered to do +when they were sent out to give the Sign for the Rising," he said. "I +made that up the first day I invented the party, didn't I?" + +"Yes," answered Marco. + +After a third day's concentration they knew by heart everything given +to them to learn. That night Loristan put them through an examination. + +"Can you write these things?" he asked, after each had repeated them +and emerged safely from all cross-questioning. + +Each boy wrote them correctly from memory. + +"Write yours in French--in German--in Russian--in Samavian," Loristan +said to Marco. + +"All you have told me to do and to learn is part of myself, Father," +Marco said in the end. "It is part of me, as if it were my hand or my +eyes--or my heart." + +"I believe that is true," answered Loristan. + +He was pale that night and there was a shadow on his face. His eyes +held a great longing as they rested on Marco. It was a yearning which +had a sort of dread in it. + +Lazarus also did not seem quite himself. He was red instead of pale, +and his movements were uncertain and restless. He cleared his throat +nervously at intervals and more than once left his chair as if to look +for something. + +It was almost midnight when Loristan, standing near Marco, put his arm +round his shoulders. + +"The Game"--he began, and then was silent a few moments while Marco +felt his arm tighten its hold. Both Marco and The Rat felt a hard +quick beat in their breasts, and, because of this and because the pause +seemed long, Marco spoke. + +"The Game--yes, Father?" he said. + +"The Game is about to give you work to do--both of you," Loristan +answered. + +Lazarus cleared his throat and walked to the easel in the corner of the +room. But he only changed the position of a piece of drawing-paper on +it and then came back. + +"In two days you are to go to Paris--as you," to The Rat, "planned in +the game." + +"As I planned?" The Rat barely breathed the words. + +"Yes," answered Loristan. "The instructions you have learned you will +carry out. There is no more to be done than to manage to approach +certain persons closely enough to be able to utter certain words to +them." + +"Only two young strollers whom no man could suspect," put in Lazarus in +an astonishingly rough and shaky voice. "They could pass near the +Emperor himself without danger. The young Master--" his voice became +so hoarse that he was obligated to clear it loudly--"the young Master +must carry himself less finely. It would be well to shuffle a little +and slouch as if he were of the common people." + +"Yes," said The Rat hastily. "He must do that. I can teach him. He +holds his head and his shoulders like a gentleman. He must look like a +street lad." + +"I will look like one," said Marco, with determination. + +"I will trust you to remind him," Loristan said to The Rat, and he said +it with gravity. "That will be your charge." + +As he lay upon his pillow that night, it seemed to Marco as if a load +had lifted itself from his heart. It was the load of uncertainty and +longing. He had so long borne the pain of feeling that he was too +young to be allowed to serve in any way. His dreams had never been wild +ones--they had in fact always been boyish and modest, howsoever +romantic. But now no dream which could have passed through his brain +would have seemed so wonderful as this--that the hour had come--the +hour had come--and that he, Marco, was to be its messenger. He was to +do no dramatic deed and be announced by no flourish of heralds. No one +would know what he did. What he achieved could only be attained if he +remained obscure and unknown and seemed to every one only a common +ordinary boy who knew nothing whatever of important things. But his +father had given to him a gift so splendid that he trembled with awe +and joy as he thought of it. The Game had become real. He and The Rat +were to carry with them The Sign, and it would be like carrying a tiny +lamp to set aflame lights which would blaze from one mountain-top to +another until half the world seemed on fire. + +As he had awakened out of his sleep when Lazarus touched him, so he +awakened in the middle of the night again. But he was not aroused by a +touch. When he opened his eyes he knew it was a look which had +penetrated his sleep--a look in the eyes of his father who was standing +by his side. In the road outside there was the utter silence he had +noticed the night of the Prince's first visit--the only light was that +of the lamp in the street, but he could see Loristan's face clearly +enough to know that the mere intensity of his gaze had awakened him. +The Rat was sleeping profoundly. Loristan spoke in Samavian and under +his breath. + +"Beloved one," he said. "You are very young. Because I am your +father--just at this hour I can feel nothing else. I have trained you +for this through all the years of your life. I am proud of your young +maturity and strength but--Beloved--you are a child! Can I do this +thing!" + +For the moment, his face and his voice were scarcely like his own. + +He kneeled by the bedside, and, as he did it, Marco half sitting up +caught his hand and held it hard against his breast. + +"Father, I know!" he cried under his breath also. "It is true. I am a +child but am I not a man also? You yourself said it. I always knew +that you were teaching me to be one--for some reason. It was my secret +that I knew it. I learned well because I never forgot it. And I +learned. Did I not?" + +He was so eager that he looked more like a boy than ever. But his +young strength and courage were splendid to see. Loristan knew him +through and through and read every boyish thought of his. + +"Yes," he answered slowly. "You did your part--and now if I--drew +back--you would feel that I HAD FAILED YOU--FAILED YOU." + +"You!" Marco breathed it proudly. "You COULD not fail even the weakest +thing in the world." + +There was a moment's silence in which the two pairs of eyes dwelt on +each other with the deepest meaning, and then Loristan rose to his feet. + +"The end will be all that our hearts most wish," he said. "To-morrow +you may begin the new part of 'the Game.' You may go to Paris." + + * * * * * + +When the train which was to meet the boat that crossed from Dover to +Calais steamed out of the noisy Charing Cross Station, it carried in a +third-class carriage two shabby boys. One of them would have been a +handsome lad if he had not carried himself slouchingly and walked with +a street lad's careless shuffling gait. The other was a cripple who +moved slowly, and apparently with difficulty, on crutches. There was +nothing remarkable or picturesque enough about them to attract +attention. They sat in the corner of the carriage and neither talked +much nor seemed to be particularly interested in the journey or each +other. When they went on board the steamer, they were soon lost among +the commoner passengers and in fact found for themselves a secluded +place which was not advantageous enough to be wanted by any one else. + +"What can such a poor-looking pair of lads be going to Paris for?" some +one asked his companion. + +"Not for pleasure, certainly; perhaps to get work," was the casual +answer. + +In the evening they reached Paris, and Marco led the way to a small +cafe in a side-street where they got some cheap food. In the same +side-street they found a bed they could share for the night in a tiny +room over a baker's shop. + +The Rat was too much excited to be ready to go to bed early. He begged +Marco to guide him about the brilliant streets. They went slowly along +the broad Avenue des Champs Elysees under the lights glittering among +the horse-chestnut trees. The Rat's sharp eyes took it all in--the +light of the cafes among the embowering trees, the many carriages +rolling by, the people who loitered and laughed or sat at little tables +drinking wine and listening to music, the broad stream of life which +flowed on to the Arc de Triomphe and back again. + +"It's brighter and clearer than London," he said to Marco. "The people +look as if they were having more fun than they do in England." + +The Place de la Concorde spreading its stately spaces--a world of +illumination, movement, and majestic beauty--held him as though by a +fascination. He wanted to stand and stare at it, first from one point +of view and then from another. It was bigger and more wonderful than +he had been able to picture it when Marco had described it to him and +told him of the part it had played in the days of the French Revolution +when the guillotine had stood in it and the tumbrils had emptied +themselves at the foot of its steps. + +He stood near the Obelisk a long time without speaking. + +"I can see it all happening," he said at last, and he pulled Marco away. + +Before they returned home, they found their way to a large house which +stood in a courtyard. In the iron work of the handsome gates which +shut it in was wrought a gilded coronet. The gates were closed and the +house was not brightly lighted. + +They walked past it and round it without speaking, but, when they +neared the entrance for the second time, The Rat said in a low tone: + +"She is five feet seven, has black hair, a nose with a high bridge, her +eyebrows are black and almost meet across it, she has a pale olive skin +and holds her head proudly." + +"That is the one," Marco answered. + +They were a week in Paris and each day passed this big house. There +were certain hours when great ladies were more likely to go out and +come in than they were at others. Marco knew this, and they managed to +be within sight of the house or to pass it at these hours. For two +days they saw no sign of the person they wished to see, but one morning +the gates were thrown open and they saw flowers and palms being taken +in. + +"She has been away and is coming back," said Marco. The next day they +passed three times--once at the hour when fashionable women drive out +to do their shopping, once at the time when afternoon visiting is most +likely to begin, and once when the streets were brilliant with lights +and the carriages had begun to roll by to dinner-parties and theaters. + +Then, as they stood at a little distance from the iron gates, a +carriage drove through them and stopped before the big open door which +was thrown open by two tall footmen in splendid livery. + +"She is coming out," said The Rat. + +They would be able to see her plainly when she came, because the lights +over the entrance were so bright. + +Marco slipped from under his coat sleeve a carefully made sketch. + +He looked at it and The Rat looked at it. + +A footman stood erect on each side of the open door. The footman who +sat with the coachman had got down and was waiting by the carriage. +Marco and The Rat glanced again with furtive haste at the sketch. A +handsome woman appeared upon the threshold. She paused and gave some +order to the footman who stood on the right. Then she came out in the +full light and got into the carriage which drove out of the courtyard +and quite near the place where the two boys waited. + +When it was gone, Marco drew a long breath as he tore the sketch into +very small pieces indeed. He did not throw them away but put them into +his pocket. + +The Rat drew a long breath also. + +"Yes," he said positively. + +"Yes," said Marco. + +When they were safely shut up in their room over the baker's shop, they +discussed the chances of their being able to pass her in such a way as +would seem accidental. Two common boys could not enter the courtyard. +There was a back entrance for tradespeople and messengers. When she +drove, she would always enter her carriage from the same place. Unless +she sometimes walked, they could not approach her. What should be +done? The thing was difficult. After they had talked some time, The +Rat sat and gnawed his nails. + +"To-morrow afternoon," he broke out at last, "we'll watch and see if +her carriage drives in for her--then, when she comes to the door, I'll +go in and begin to beg. The servant will think I'm a foreigner and +don't know what I'm doing. You can come after me to tell me to come +away, because you know better than I do that I shall be ordered out. +She may be a good-natured woman and listen to us--and you might get +near her." + +"We might try it," Marco answered. "It might work. We will try it." + +The Rat never failed to treat him as his leader. He had begged +Loristan to let him come with Marco as his servant, and his servant he +had been more than willing to be. When Loristan had said he should be +his aide-de-camp, he had felt his trust lifted to a military dignity +which uplifted him with it. As his aide-de-camp he must serve him, +watch him, obey his lightest wish, make everything easy for him. +Sometimes, Marco was troubled by the way in which he insisted on +serving him, this queer, once dictatorial and cantankerous lad who had +begun by throwing stones at him. + +"You must not wait on me," he said to him. "I must wait upon myself." + +The Rat rather flushed. + +"He told me that he would let me come with you as your aide-de camp," +he said. "It--it's part of the game. It makes things easier if we +keep up the game." + +It would have attracted attention if they had spent too much time in +the vicinity of the big house. So it happened that the next afternoon +the great lady evidently drove out at an hour when they were not +watching for her. They were on their way to try if they could carry +out their plan, when, as they walked together along the Rue Royale, The +Rat suddenly touched Marco's elbow. + +"The carriage stands before the shop with lace in the windows," he +whispered hurriedly. + +Marco saw and recognized it at once. The owner had evidently gone into +the shop to buy something. This was a better chance than they had +hoped for, and, when they approached the carriage itself, they saw that +there was another point in their favor. Inside were no less than three +beautiful little Pekingese spaniels that looked exactly alike. They +were all trying to look out of the window and were pushing against each +other. They were so perfect and so pretty that few people passed by +without looking at them. What better excuse could two boys have for +lingering about a place? + +They stopped and, standing a little distance away, began to look at and +discuss them and laugh at their excited little antics. Through the +shop-window Marco caught a glimpse of the great lady. + +"She does not look much interested. She won't stay long," he +whispered, and added aloud, "that little one is the master. See how he +pushes the others aside! He is stronger than the other two, though he +is so small." + +"He can snap, too," said The Rat. + +"She is coming now," warned Marco, and then laughed aloud as if at the +Pekingese, which, catching sight of their mistress at the shop-door, +began to leap and yelp for joy. + +Their mistress herself smiled, and was smiling as Marco drew near her. + +"May we look at them, Madame?" he said in French, and, as she made an +amiable gesture of acquiescence and moved toward the carriage with him, +he spoke a few words, very low but very distinctly, in Russian. + +"The Lamp is lighted," he said. + +The Rat was looking at her keenly, but he did not see her face change +at all. What he noticed most throughout their journey was that each +person to whom they gave the Sign had complete control over his or her +countenance, if there were bystanders, and never betrayed by any change +of expression that the words meant anything unusual. + +The great lady merely went on smiling, and spoke only of the dogs, +allowing Marco and himself to look at them through the window of the +carriage as the footman opened the door for her to enter. + +"They are beautiful little creatures," Marco said, lifting his cap, +and, as the footman turned away, he uttered his few Russian words once +more and moved off without even glancing at the lady again. + +"That is ONE!" he said to The Rat that night before they went to sleep, +and with a match he burned the scraps of the sketch he had torn and put +into his pocket. + + + +XX + +MARCO GOES TO THE OPERA + +Their next journey was to Munich, but the night before they left Paris +an unexpected thing happened. + +To reach the narrow staircase which led to their bedroom it was +necessary to pass through the baker's shop itself. + +The baker's wife was a friendly woman who liked the two boy lodgers who +were so quiet and gave no trouble. More than once she had given them a +hot roll or so or a freshly baked little tartlet with fruit in the +center. When Marco came in this evening, she greeted him with a nod +and handed him a small parcel as he passed through. + +"This was left for you this afternoon," she said. "I see you are +making purchases for your journey. My man and I are very sorry you are +going." + +"Thank you, Madame. We also are sorry," Marco answered, taking the +parcel. "They are not large purchases, you see." + +But neither he nor The Rat had bought anything at all, though the +ordinary-looking little package was plainly addressed to him and bore +the name of one of the big cheap shops. It felt as if it contained +something soft. + +When he reached their bedroom, The Rat was gazing out of the window +watching every living thing which passed in the street below. He who +had never seen anything but London was absorbed by the spell of Paris +and was learning it by heart. + +"Something has been sent to us. Look at this," said Marco. + +The Rat was at his side at once. "What is it? Where did it come from?" + +They opened the package and at first sight saw only several pairs of +quite common woolen socks. As Marco took up the sock in the middle of +the parcel, he felt that there was something inside it--something laid +flat and carefully. He put his hand in and drew out a number of +five-franc notes--not new ones, because new ones would have betrayed +themselves by crackling. These were old enough to be soft. But there +were enough of them to amount to a substantial sum. + +"It is in small notes because poor boys would have only small ones. No +one will be surprised when we change these," The Rat said. + +Each of them believed the package had been sent by the great lady, but +it had been done so carefully that not the slightest clue was furnished. + +To The Rat, part of the deep excitement of "the Game" was the working +out of the plans and methods of each person concerned. He could not +have slept without working out some scheme which might have been used +in this case. It thrilled him to contemplate the difficulties the +great lady might have found herself obliged to overcome. + +"Perhaps," he said, after thinking it over for some time, "she went to +a big common shop dressed as if she were an ordinary woman and bought +the socks and pretended she was going to carry them home herself. She +would do that so that she could take them into some corner and slip the +money in. Then, as she wanted to have them sent from the shop, perhaps +she bought some other things and asked the people to deliver the +packages to different places. The socks were sent to us and the other +things to some one else. She would go to a shop where no one knew her +and no one would expect to see her and she would wear clothes which +looked neither rich nor too poor." + +He created the whole episode with all its details and explained them to +Marco. It fascinated him for the entire evening and he felt relieved +after it and slept well. + +Even before they had left London, certain newspapers had swept out of +existence the story of the descendant of the Lost Prince. This had been +done by derision and light handling--by treating it as a romantic +legend. + +At first, The Rat had resented this bitterly, but one day at a meal, +when he had been producing arguments to prove that the story must be a +true one, Loristan somehow checked him by his own silence. + +"If there is such a man," he said after a pause, "it is well for him +that his existence should not be believed in--for some time at least." + +The Rat came to a dead stop. He felt hot for a moment and then felt +cold. He saw a new idea all at once. He had been making a mistake in +tactics. + +No more was said but, when they were alone afterwards, he poured +himself forth to Marco. + +"I was a fool!" he cried out. "Why couldn't I see it for myself! +Shall I tell you what I believe has been done? There is some one who +has influence in England and who is a friend to Samavia. They've got +the newspapers to make fun of the story so that it won't be believed. +If it was believed, both the Iarovitch and the Maranovitch would be on +the lookout, and the Secret Party would lose their chances. What a +fool I was not to think of it! There's some one watching and working +here who is a friend to Samavia." + +"But there is some one in Samavia who has begun to suspect that it +might be true," Marco answered. "If there were not, I should not have +been shut in the cellar. Some one thought my father knew something. +The spies had orders to find out what it was." + +"Yes. Yes. That's true, too!" The Rat answered anxiously. "We shall +have to be very careful." + +In the lining of the sleeve of Marco's coat there was a slit into which +he could slip any small thing he wished to conceal and also wished to +be able to reach without trouble. In this he had carried the sketch of +the lady which he had torn up in Paris. When they walked in the streets +of Munich, the morning after their arrival, he carried still another +sketch. It was the one picturing the genial-looking old aristocrat +with the sly smile. + +One of the things they had learned about this one was that his chief +characteristic was his passion for music. He was a patron of musicians +and he spent much time in Munich because he loved its musical +atmosphere and the earnestness of its opera-goers. + +"The military band plays in the Feldherrn-halle at midday. When +something very good is being played, sometimes people stop their +carriages so that they can listen. We will go there," said Marco. + +"It's a chance," said The Rat. "We mustn't lose anything like a +chance." + +The day was brilliant and sunny, the people passing through the streets +looked comfortable and homely, the mixture of old streets and modern +ones, of ancient corners and shops and houses of the day was +picturesque and cheerful. The Rat swinging through the crowd on his +crutches was full of interest and exhilaration. He had begun to grow, +and the change in his face and expression which had begun in London had +become more noticeable. He had been given his "place," and a work to +do which entitled him to hold it. + +No one could have suspected them of carrying a strange and vital secret +with them as they strolled along together. They seemed only two +ordinary boys who looked in at shop windows and talked over their +contents, and who loitered with upturned faces in the Marien-Platz +before the ornate Gothic Rathaus to hear the eleven o'clock chimes play +and see the painted figures of the King and Queen watch from their +balcony the passing before them of the automatic tournament procession +with its trumpeters and tilting knights. When the show was over and +the automatic cock broke forth into his lusty farewell crow, they +laughed just as any other boys would have laughed. Sometimes it would +have been easy for The Rat to forget that there was anything graver in +the world than the new places and new wonders he was seeing, as if he +were a wandering minstrel in a story. + +But in Samavia bloody battles were being fought, and bloody plans were +being wrought out, and in anguished anxiety the Secret Party and the +Forgers of the Sword waited breathlessly for the Sign for which they +had waited so long. And inside the lining of Marco's coat was hidden +the sketched face, as the two unnoticed lads made their way to the +Feldherrn-halle to hear the band play and see who might chance to be +among the audience. + +Because the day was sunny, and also because the band was playing a +specially fine programme, the crowd in the square was larger than +usual. Several vehicles had stopped, and among them were one or two +which were not merely hired cabs but were the carriages of private +persons. + +One of them had evidently arrived early, as it was drawn up in a good +position when the boys reached the corner. It was a big open carriage +and a grand one, luxuriously upholstered in green. The footman and +coachman wore green and silver liveries and seemed to know that people +were looking at them and their master. + +He was a stout, genial-looking old aristocrat with a sly smile, though, +as he listened to the music, it almost forgot to be sly. In the +carriage with him were a young officer and a little boy, and they also +listened attentively. Standing near the carriage door were several +people who were plainly friends or acquaintances, as they occasionally +spoke to him. Marco touched The Rat's coat sleeve as the two boys +approached. + +"It would not be easy to get near him," he said. "Let us go and stand +as close to the carriage as we can get without pushing. Perhaps we may +hear some one say something about where he is going after the music is +over." + +Yes, there was no mistaking him. He was the right man. Each of them +knew by heart the creases on his stout face and the sweep of his gray +moustache. But there was nothing noticeable in a boy looking for a +moment at a piece of paper, and Marco sauntered a few steps to a bit of +space left bare by the crowd and took a last glance at his sketch. His +rule was to make sure at the final moment. The music was very good and +the group about the carriage was evidently enthusiastic. There was +talk and praise and comment, and the old aristocrat nodded his head +repeatedly in applause. + +"The Chancellor is music mad," a looker-on near the boys said to +another. "At the opera every night unless serious affairs keep him +away! There you may see him nodding his old head and bursting his +gloves with applauding when a good thing is done. He ought to have led +an orchestra or played a 'cello. He is too big for first violin." + +There was a group about the carriage to the last, when the music came +to an end and it drove away. There had been no possible opportunity of +passing close to it even had the presence of the young officer and the +boy not presented an insurmountable obstacle. + +Marco and The Rat went on their way and passed by the Hof-Theater and +read the bills. "Tristan and Isolde" was to be presented at night and +a great singer would sing Isolde. + +"He will go to hear that," both boys said at once. "He will be sure to +go." + +It was decided between them that Marco should go on his quest alone +when night came. One boy who hung around the entrance of the Opera +would be observed less than two. + +"People notice crutches more than they notice legs," The Rat said. +"I'd better keep out of the way unless you need me. My time hasn't +come yet. Even if it doesn't come at all I've--I've been on duty. I've +gone with you and I've been ready--that's what an aide-de-camp does." + +He stayed at home and read such English papers as he could lay hands on +and he drew plans and re-fought battles on paper. + +Marco went to the opera. Even if he had not known his way to the +square near the place where the Hof-Theater stood, he could easily have +found it by following the groups of people in the streets who all +seemed walking in one direction. There were students in their odd caps +walking three or four abreast, there were young couples and older ones, +and here and there whole families; there were soldiers of all ages, +officers and privates; and, when talk was to be heard in passing, it +was always talk about music. + +For some time Marco waited in the square and watched the carriages roll +up and pass under the huge pillared portico to deposit their contents +at the entrance and at once drive away in orderly sequence. He must +make sure that the grand carriage with the green and silver liveries +rolled up with the rest. If it came, he would buy a cheap ticket and +go inside. + +It was rather late when it arrived. People in Munich are not late for +the opera if it can be helped, and the coachman drove up hurriedly. +The green and silver footman leaped to the ground and opened the +carriage door almost before it stopped. The Chancellor got out looking +less genial than usual because he was afraid that he might lose some of +the overture. A rosy-cheeked girl in a white frock was with him and +she was evidently trying to soothe him. + +"I do not think we are really late, Father," she said. "Don't feel +cross, dear. It will spoil the music for you." + +This was not a time in which a man's attention could be attracted +quietly. Marco ran to get the ticket which would give him a place +among the rows of young soldiers, artists, male and female students, +and musicians who were willing to stand four or five deep throughout +the performance of even the longest opera. He knew that, unless they +were in one of the few boxes which belonged only to the court, the +Chancellor and his rosy-cheeked daughter would be in the best seats in +the front curve of the balcony which were the most desirable of the +house. He soon saw them. They had secured the central places directly +below the large royal box where two quiet princesses and their +attendants were already seated. + +When he found he was not too late to hear the overture, the +Chancellor's face become more genial than ever. He settled himself +down to an evening of enjoyment and evidently forgot everything else in +the world. Marco did not lose sight of him. When the audience went out +between acts to promenade in the corridors, he might go also and there +might be a chance to pass near to him in the crowd. He watched him +closely. Sometimes his fine old face saddened at the beautiful woe of +the music, sometimes it looked enraptured, and it was always evident +that every note reached his soul. + +The pretty daughter who sat beside him was attentive but not so +enthralled. After the first act two glittering young officers appeared +and made elegant and low bows, drawing their heels together as they +kissed her hand. They looked sorry when they were obliged to return to +their seats again. + +After the second act the Chancellor sat for a few minutes as if he were +in a dream. The people in the seats near him began to rise from their +seats and file out into the corridors. The young officers were to be +seen rising also. The rosy daughter leaned forward and touched her +father's arm gently. + +"She wants him to take her out," Marco thought. "He will take her +because he is good-natured." + +He saw him recall himself from his dream with a smile and then he rose +and, after helping to arrange a silvery blue scarf round the girl's +shoulders, gave her his arm just as Marco skipped out of his fourth-row +standing-place. + +It was a rather warm night and the corridors were full. By the time +Marco had reached the balcony floor, the pair had issued from the +little door and were temporarily lost in the moving numbers. + +Marco quietly made his way among the crowd trying to look as if he +belonged to somebody. Once or twice his strong body and his dense +black eyes and lashes made people glance at him, but he was not the +only boy who had been brought to the opera so he felt safe enough to +stop at the foot of the stairs and watch those who went up and those +who passed by. Such a miscellaneous crowd as it was made up of--good +unfashionable music-lovers mixed here and there with grand people of +the court and the gay world. + +Suddenly he heard a low laugh and a moment later a hand lightly touched +him. + +"You DID get out, then?" a soft voice said. + +When he turned he felt his muscles stiffen. He ceased to slouch and +did not smile as he looked at the speaker. What he felt was a wave of +fierce and haughty anger. It swept over him before he had time to +control it. + +A lovely person who seemed swathed in several shades of soft violet +drapery was smiling at him with long, lovely eyes. + +It was the woman who had trapped him into No. 10 Brandon Terrace. + + + +XXI + +"HELP!" + +"Did it take you so long to find it?" asked the Lovely Person with the +smile. "Of course I knew you would find it in the end. But we had to +give ourselves time. How long did it take?" + +Marco removed himself from beneath the touch of her hand. It was +quietly done, but there was a disdain in his young face which made her +wince though she pretended to shrug her shoulders amusedly. + +"You refuse to answer?" she laughed. + +"I refuse." + +At that very moment he saw at the curve of the corridor the Chancellor +and his daughter approaching slowly. The two young officers were +talking gaily to the girl. They were on their way back to their box. +Was he going to lose them? Was he? + +The delicate hand was laid on his shoulder again, but this time he felt +that it grasped him firmly. + +"Naughty boy!" the soft voice said. "I am going to take you home with +me. If you struggle I shall tell these people that you are my bad boy +who is here without permission. What will you answer? My escort is +coming down the staircase and will help me. Do you see?" And in fact +there appeared in the crowd at the head of the staircase the figure of +the man he remembered. + +He did see. A dampness broke out on the palms of his hands. If she +did this bold thing, what could he say to those she told her lie to? +How could he bring proof or explain who he was--and what story dare he +tell? His protestations and struggles would merely amuse the +lookers-on, who would see in them only the impotent rage of an +insubordinate youngster. + +There swept over him a wave of remembrance which brought back, as if he +were living through it again, the moment when he had stood in the +darkness of the wine cellar with his back against the door and heard +the man walk away and leave him alone. He felt again as he had done +then--but now he was in another land and far away from his father. He +could do nothing to help himself unless Something showed him a way. + +He made no sound, and the woman who held him saw only a flame leap +under his dense black lashes. + +But something within him called out. It was as if he heard it. It was +that strong self--the self that was Marco, and it called--it called as +if it shouted. + +"Help!" it called--to that Unknown Stranger Thing which had made worlds +and which he and his father so often talked of and in whose power they +so believed. "Help!" + +The Chancellor was drawing nearer. Perhaps! Should he--? + +"You are too proud to kick and shout," the voice went on. "And people +would only laugh. Do you see?" + +The stairs were crowded and the man who was at the head of them could +only move slowly. But he had seen the boy. + +Marco turned so that he could face his captor squarely as if he were +going to say something in answer to her. But he was not. + +Even as he made the movement of turning, the help he had called for +came and he knew what he should do. And he could do two things at +once--save himself and give his Sign--because, the Sign once given, the +Chancellor would understand. + +"He will be here in a moment. He has recognized you," the woman said. + +As he glanced up the stairs, the delicate grip of her hand +unconsciously slackened. + +Marco whirled away from her. The bell rang which was to warn the +audience that they must return to their seats and he saw the Chancellor +hasten his pace. + +A moment later, the old aristocrat found himself amazedly looking down +at the pale face of a breathless lad who spoke to him in German and in +such a manner that he could not but pause and listen. + +"Sir," he was saying, "the woman in violet at the foot of the stairs is +a spy. She trapped me once and she threatens to do it again. Sir, may +I beg you to protect me?" + +He said it low and fast. No one else could hear his words. + +"What! What!" the Chancellor exclaimed. + +And then, drawing a step nearer and quite as low and rapidly but with +perfect distinctness, Marco uttered four words: + +"The Lamp is lighted." + +The Help cry had been answered instantly. Marco saw it at once in the +old man's eyes, notwithstanding that he turned to look at the woman at +the foot of the staircase as if she only concerned him. + +"What! What!" he said again, and made a movement toward her, pulling +his large moustache with a fierce hand. + +Then Marco recognized that a curious thing happened. The Lovely Person +saw the movement and the gray moustache, and that instant her smile +died away and she turned quite white--so white, that under the +brilliant electric light she was almost green and scarcely looked +lovely at all. She made a sign to the man on the staircase and slipped +through the crowd like an eel. She was a slim flexible creature and +never was a disappearance more wonderful in its rapidity. Between +stout matrons and their thin or stout escorts and families she made her +way and lost herself--but always making toward the exit. In two +minutes there was no sight of her violet draperies to be seen. She was +gone and so, evidently, was her male companion. + +It was plain to Marco that to follow the profession of a spy was not by +any means a safe thing. The Chancellor had recognized her--she had +recognized the Chancellor who turned looking ferociously angry and +spoke to one of the young officers. + +"She and the man with her are two of the most dangerous spies in +Europe. She is a Rumanian and he is a Russian. What they wanted of +this innocent lad I don't pretend to know. What did she threaten?" to +Marco. + +Marco was feeling rather cold and sick and had lost his healthy color +for the moment. + +"She said she meant to take me home with her and would pretend I was +her son who had come here without permission," he answered. "She +believes I know something I do not." He made a hesitating but grateful +bow. "The third act, sir--I must not keep you. Thank you! Thank you!" + +The Chancellor moved toward the entrance door of the balcony seats, but +he did it with his hand on Marco's shoulder. + +"See that he gets home safely," he said to the younger of the two +officers. "Send a messenger with him. He's young to be attacked by +creatures of that kind." + +Polite young officers naturally obey the commands of Chancellors and +such dignitaries. This one found without trouble a young private who +marched with Marco through the deserted streets to his lodgings. He +was a stolid young Bavarian peasant and seemed to have no curiosity or +even any interest in the reason for the command given him. He was in +fact thinking of his sweetheart who lived near Konigsee and who had +skated with him on the frozen lake last winter. He scarcely gave a +glance to the schoolboy he was to escort, he neither knew nor wondered +why. + +The Rat had fallen asleep over his papers and lay with his head on his +folded arms on the table. But he was awakened by Marco's coming into +the room and sat up blinking his eyes in the effort to get them open. + +"Did you see him? Did you get near enough?" he drowsed. + +"Yes," Marco answered. "I got near enough." + +The Rat sat upright suddenly. + +"It's not been easy," he exclaimed. "I'm sure something +happened--something went wrong." + +"Something nearly went wrong--VERY nearly," answered Marco. But as he +spoke he took the sketch of the Chancellor out of the slit in his +sleeve and tore it and burned it with a match. "But I did get near +enough. And that's TWO." + +They talked long, before they went to sleep that night. The Rat grew +pale as he listened to the story of the woman in violet. + +"I ought to have gone with you!" he said. "I see now. An aide-de-camp +must always be in attendance. It would have been harder for her to +manage two than one. I must always be near to watch, even if I am not +close by you. If you had not come back--if you had not come back!" He +struck his clenched hands together fiercely. "What should I have done!" + +When Marco turned toward him from the table near which he was standing, +he looked like his father. + +"You would have gone on with the Game just as far as you could," he +said. "You could not leave it. You remember the places, and the +faces, and the Sign. There is some money; and when it was all gone, +you could have begged, as we used to pretend we should. We have not had +to do it yet; and it was best to save it for country places and +villages. But you could have done it if you were obliged to. The Game +would have to go on." + +The Rat caught at his thin chest as if he had been struck breathless. + +"Without you?" he gasped. "Without you?" + +"Yes," said Marco. "And we must think of it, and plan in case anything +like that should happen." + +He stopped himself quite suddenly, and sat down, looking straight +before him, as if at some far away thing he saw. + +"Nothing will happen," he said. "Nothing can." + +"What are you thinking of?" The Rat gulped, because his breath had not +quite come back. "Why will nothing happen?" + +"Because--" the boy spoke in an almost matter-of-fact tone--in quite an +unexalted tone at all events, "you see I can always make a strong call, +as I did tonight." + +"Did you shout?" The Rat asked. "I didn't know you shouted." + +"I didn't. I said nothing aloud. But I--the myself that is in me," +Marco touched himself on the breast, "called out, 'Help! Help!' with +all its strength. And help came." + +The Rat regarded him dubiously. + +"What did it call to?" he asked. + +"To the Power--to the Strength-place--to the Thought that does things. +The Buddhist hermit, who told my father about it, called it 'The +Thought that thought the World.'" + +A reluctant suspicion betrayed itself in The Rat's eyes. + +"Do you mean you prayed?" he inquired, with a slight touch of disfavor. + +Marco's eyes remained fixed upon him in vague thoughtfulness for a +moment or so of pause. + +"I don't know," he said at last. "Perhaps it's the same thing--when +you need something so much that you cry out loud for it. But it's not +words, it's a strong thing without a name. I called like that when I +was shut in the wine-cellar. I remembered some of the things the old +Buddhist told my father." + +The Rat moved restlessly. + +"The help came that time," he admitted. "How did it come to-night?" + +"In that thought which flashed into my mind almost the next second. It +came like lightning. All at once I knew if I ran to the Chancellor and +said the woman was a spy, it would startle him into listening to me; +and that then I could give him the Sign; and that when I gave him the +Sign, he would know I was speaking the truth and would protect me." + +"It was a splendid thought!" The Rat said. "And it was quick. But it +was you who thought of it." + +"All thinking is part of the Big Thought," said Marco slowly. "It +KNOWS--It KNOWS. And the outside part of us somehow broke the chain +that linked us to It. And we are always trying to mend the chain, +without knowing it. That is what our thinking is--trying to mend the +chain. But we shall find out how to do it sometime. The old Buddhist +told my father so--just as the sun was rising from behind a high peak +of the Himalayas." Then he added hastily, "I am only telling you what +my father told me, and he only told me what the old hermit told him." + +"Does your father believe what he told him?" The Rat's bewilderment +had become an eager and restless thing. + +"Yes, he believes it. He always thought something like it, himself. +That is why he is so calm and knows so well how to wait." + +"Is THAT it!" breathed The Rat. "Is that why? Has--has he mended the +chain?" And there was awe in his voice, because of this one man to +whom he felt any achievement was possible. + +"I believe he has," said Marco. "Don't you think so yourself?" + +"He has done something," The Rat said. + +He seemed to be thinking things over before he spoke again--and then +even more slowly than Marco. + +"If he could mend the chain," he said almost in a whisper, "he could +find out where the descendant of the Lost Prince is. He would know +what to do for Samavia!" + +He ended the words with a start, and his whole face glowed with a new, +amazed light. + +"Perhaps he does know!" he cried. "If the help comes like thoughts--as +yours did--perhaps his thought of letting us give the Sign was part of +it. We--just we two every-day boys--are part of it!" + +"The old Buddhist said--" began Marco. + +"Look here!" broke in The Rat. "Tell me the whole story. I want to +hear it." + +It was because Loristan had heard it, and listened and believed, that +The Rat had taken fire. His imagination seized upon the idea, as it +would have seized on some theory of necromancy proved true and workable. + +With his elbows on the table and his hands in his hair, he leaned +forward, twisting a lock with restless fingers. His breath quickened. + +"Tell it," he said, "I want to hear it all!" + +"I shall have to tell it in my own words," Marco said. "And it won't +be as wonderful as it was when my father told it to me. This is what I +remember: + +"My father had gone through much pain and trouble. A great load was +upon him, and he had been told he was going to die before his work was +done. He had gone to India, because a man he was obliged to speak to +had gone there to hunt, and no one knew when he would return. My +father followed him for months from one wild place to another, and, +when he found him, the man would not hear or believe what he had come +so far to say. Then he had jungle-fever and almost died. Once the +natives left him for dead in a bungalow in the forest, and he heard the +jackals howling round him all the night. Through all the hours he was +only alive enough to be conscious of two things--all the rest of him +seemed gone from his body: his thought knew that his work was +unfinished--and his body heard the jackals howl!" + +"Was the work for Samavia?" The Rat put in quickly. "If he had died +that night, the descendant of the Lost Prince never would have been +found--never!" The Rat bit his lip so hard that a drop of blood started +from it. + +"When he was slowly coming alive again, a native, who had gone back and +stayed to wait upon him, told him that near the summit of a mountain, +about fifty miles away, there was a ledge which jutted out into space +and hung over the valley, which was thousands of feet below. On the +ledge there was a hut in which there lived an ancient Buddhist, who was +a holy man, as they called him, and who had been there during time +which had not been measured. They said that their grandparents and +great-grandparents had known of him, though very few persons had ever +seen him. It was told that the most savage beast was tame before him. +They said that a man-eating tiger would stop to salute him, and that a +thirsty lioness would bring her whelps to drink at the spring near his +hut." + +"That was a lie," said The Rat promptly. + +Marco neither laughed nor frowned. + +"How do we KNOW?" he said. "It was a native's story, and it might be +anything. My father neither said it was true nor false. He listened to +all that was told him by natives. They said that the holy man was the +brother of the stars. He knew all things past and to come, and could +heal the sick. But most people, especially those who had sinful +thoughts, were afraid to go near him." + +"I'd like to have seen--" The Rat pondered aloud, but he did not +finish. + +"Before my father was well, he had made up his mind to travel to the +ledge if he could. He felt as if he must go. He thought that if he +were going to die, the hermit might tell him some wise thing to do for +Samavia." + +"He might have given him a message to leave to the Secret Ones," said +The Rat. + +"He was so weak when he set out on his journey that he wondered if he +would reach the end of it. Part of the way he traveled by bullock +cart, and part, he was carried by natives. But at last the bearers +came to a place more than halfway up the mountain, and would go no +further. Then they went back and left him to climb the rest of the way +himself. They had traveled slowly and he had got more strength, but he +was weak yet. The forest was more wonderful than anything he had ever +seen. There were tropical trees with foliage like lace, and some with +huge leaves, and some of them seemed to reach the sky. Sometimes he +could barely see gleams of blue through them. And vines swung down +from their high branches, and caught each other, and matted together; +and there were hot scents, and strange flowers, and dazzling birds +darting about, and thick moss, and little cascades bursting out. The +path grew narrower and steeper, and the flower scents and the +sultriness made it like walking in a hothouse. He heard rustlings in +the undergrowth, which might have been made by any kind of wild animal; +once he stepped across a deadly snake without seeing it. But it was +asleep and did not hurt him. He knew the natives had been convinced +that he would not reach the ledge; but for some strange reason he +believed he should. He stopped and rested many times, and he drank +some milk he had brought in a canteen. The higher he climbed, the more +wonderful everything was, and a strange feeling began to fill him. He +said his body stopped being tired and began to feel very light. And +his load lifted itself from his heart, as if it were not his load any +more but belonged to something stronger. Even Samavia seemed to be +safe. As he went higher and higher, and looked down the abyss at the +world below, it appeared as if it were not real but only a dream he had +wakened from--only a dream." + +The Rat moved restlessly. + +"Perhaps he was light-headed with the fever," he suggested. + +"The fever had left him, and the weakness had left him," Marco +answered. "It seemed as if he had never really been ill at all--as if +no one could be ill, because things like that were only dreams, just as +the world was." + +"I wish I'd been with him! Perhaps I could have thrown these +away--down into the abyss!" And The Rat shook his crutches which +rested against the table. "I feel as if I was climbing, too. Go on." + +Marco had become more absorbed than The Rat. He had lost himself in +the memory of the story. + +"I felt that _I_ was climbing, when he told me," he said. "I felt as +if I were breathing in the hot flower-scents and pushing aside the big +leaves and giant ferns. There had been a rain, and they were wet and +shining with big drops, like jewels, that showered over him as he +thrust his way through and under them. And the stillness and the +height--the stillness and the height! I can't make it real to you as he +made it to me! I can't! I was there. He took me. And it was so +high--and so still--and so beautiful that I could scarcely bear it." + +But the truth was, that with some vivid boy-touch he had carried his +hearer far. The Rat was deadly quiet. Even his eyes had not moved. +He spoke almost as if he were in a sort of trance. "It's real," he +said. "I'm there now. As high as you--go on--go on. I want to climb +higher." + +And Marco, understanding, went on. + +"The day was over and the stars were out when he reached the place were +the ledge was. He said he thought that during the last part of the +climb he never looked on the earth at all. The stars were so immense +that he could not look away from them. They seemed to be drawing him +up. And all overhead was like violet velvet, and they hung there like +great lamps of radiance. Can you see them? You must see them. My +father saw them all night long. They were part of the wonder." + +"I see them," The Rat answered, still in his trance-like voice and +without stirring, and Marco knew he did. + +"And there, with the huge stars watching it, was the hut on the ledge. +And there was no one there. The door was open. And outside it was a +low bench and table of stone. And on the table was a meal of dates and +rice, waiting. Not far from the hut was a deep spring, which ran away +in a clear brook. My father drank and bathed his face there. Then he +went out on the ledge, and sat down and waited, with his face turned up +to the stars. He did not lie down, and he thought he saw the stars all +the time he waited. He was sure he did not sleep. He did not know how +long he sat there alone. But at last he drew his eyes from the stars, +as if he had been commanded to do it. And he was not alone any more. +A yard or so away from him sat the holy man. He knew it was the hermit +because his eyes were different from any human eyes he had ever beheld. +They were as still as the night was, and as deep as the shadows +covering the world thousands of feet below, and they had a far, far +look, and a strange light was in them." + +"What did he say?" asked The Rat hoarsely. + +"He only said, 'Rise, my son. I awaited thee. Go and eat the food I +prepared for thee, and then we will speak together.' He didn't move or +speak again until my father had eaten the meal. He only sat on the moss +and let his eyes rest on the shadows over the abyss. When my father +went back, he made a gesture which meant that he should sit near him. + +"Then he sat still for several minutes, and let his eyes rest on my +father, until he felt as if the light in them were set in the midst of +his own body and his soul. Then he said, 'I cannot tell thee all thou +wouldst know. That I may not do.' He had a wonderful gentle voice, +like a deep soft bell. 'But the work will be done. Thy life and thy +son's life will set it on its way.' + +"They sat through the whole night together. And the stars hung quite +near, as if they listened. And there were sounds in the bushes of +stealthy, padding feet which wandered about as if the owners of them +listened too. And the wonderful, low, peaceful voice of the holy man +went on and on, telling of wonders which seemed like miracles but which +were to him only the 'working of the Law.'" + +"What is the Law?" The Rat broke in. + +"There were two my father wrote down, and I learned them. The first +was the law of The One. I'll try to say that," and he covered his eyes +and waited through a moment of silence. + +It seemed to The Rat as if the room held an extraordinary stillness. + +"Listen!" came next. "This is it: + +"'There are a myriad worlds. There is but One Thought out of which +they grew. Its Law is Order which cannot swerve. Its creatures are +free to choose. Only they can create Disorder, which in itself is Pain +and Woe and Hate and Fear. These they alone can bring forth. The +Great One is a Golden Light. It is not remote but near. Hold thyself +within its glow and thou wilt behold all things clearly. First, with +all thy breathing being, know one thing! That thine own thought--when +so thou standest--is one with That which thought the Worlds!'" + +"What?" gasped The Rat. "MY thought--the things _I_ think!" + +"Your thoughts--boys' thoughts--anybody's thoughts." + +"You're giving me the jim-jams!" + +"He said it," answered Marco. "And it was then he spoke about the +broken Link--and about the greatest books in the world--that in all +their different ways, they were only saying over and over again one +thing thousands of times. Just this thing--'Hate not, Fear not, Love.' +And he said that was Order. And when it was disturbed, suffering +came--poverty and misery and catastrophe and wars." + +"Wars!" The Rat said sharply. "The World couldn't do without war--and +armies and defences! What about Samavia?" + +"My father asked him that. And this is what he answered. I learned +that too. Let me think again," and he waited as he had waited before. +Then he lifted his head. "Listen! This is it: + +"'Out of the blackness of Disorder and its outpouring of human misery, +there will arise the Order which is Peace. When Man learns that he is +one with the Thought which itself creates all beauty, all power, all +splendor, and all repose, he will not fear that his brother can rob him +of his heart's desire. He will stand in the Light and draw to himself +his own.'" + +"Draw to himself?" The Rat said. "Draw what he wants? I don't believe +it!" + +"Nobody does," said Marco. "We don't know. He said we stood in the +dark of the night--without stars--and did not know that the broken +chain swung just above us." + +"I don't believe it!" said The Rat. "It's too big!" + +Marco did not say whether he believed it or not. He only went on +speaking. + +"My father listened until he felt as if he had stopped breathing. Just +at the stillest of the stillness the Buddhist stopped speaking. And +there was a rustling of the undergrowth a few yards away, as if +something big was pushing its way through--and there was the soft pad +of feet. The Buddhist turned his head and my father heard him say +softly: 'Come forth, Sister.' + +"And a huge leopardess with two cubs walked out on to the ledge and +came to him and threw herself down with a heavy lunge near his feet." + +"Your father saw that!" cried out The Rat. "You mean the old fellow +knew something that made wild beasts afraid to touch him or any one +near him?" + +"Not afraid. They knew he was their brother, and that he was one with +the Law. He had lived so long with the Great Thought that all darkness +and fear had left him forever. He had mended the Chain." + +The Rat had reached deep waters. He leaned forward--his hands +burrowing in his hair, his face scowling and twisted, his eyes boring +into space. He had climbed to the ledge at the mountain-top; he had +seen the luminous immensity of the stars, and he had looked down into +the shadows filling the world thousands of feet below. Was there some +remote deep in him from whose darkness a slow light was rising? All +that Loristan had said he knew must be true. But the rest of it--? + +Marco got up and came over to him. He looked like his father again. + +"If the descendant of the Lost Prince is brought back to rule Samavia, +he will teach his people the Law of the One. It was for that the holy +man taught my father until the dawn came." + +"Who will--who will teach the Lost Prince--the new King--when he is +found?" The Rat cried. "Who will teach him?" + +"The hermit said my father would. He said he would also teach his +son--and that son would teach his son--and he would teach his. And +through such as they were, the whole world would come to know the Order +and the Law." + +Never had The Rat looked so strange and fierce a thing. A whole world +at peace! No tactics--no battles--no slaughtered heroes--no clash of +arms, and fame! It made him feel sick. And yet--something set his +chest heaving. + +"And your father would teach him that--when he was found! So that he +could teach his sons. Your father BELIEVES in it?" + +"Yes," Marco answered. He said nothing but "Yes." The Rat threw +himself forward on the table, face downward. + +"Then," he said, "he must make me believe it. He must teach me--if he +can." + +They heard a clumping step upon the staircase, and, when it reached the +landing, it stopped at their door. Then there was a solid knock. + +When Marco opened the door, the young soldier who had escorted him from +the Hof-Theater was standing outside. He looked as uninterested and +stolid as before, as he handed in a small flat package. + +"You must have dropped it near your seat at the Opera," he said. "I +was to give it into your own hands. It is your purse." + +After he had clumped down the staircase again, Marco and The Rat drew a +quick breath at one and the same time. + +"I had no seat and I had no purse," Marco said. "Let us open it." + +There was a flat limp leather note-holder inside. In it was a paper, +at the head of which were photographs of the Lovely Person and her +companion. Beneath were a few lines which stated that they were the +well known spies, Eugenia Karovna and Paul Varel, and that the bearer +must be protected against them. It was signed by the Chief of the +Police. On a separate sheet was written the command: "Carry this with +you as protection." + +"That is help," The Rat said. "It would protect us, even in another +country. The Chancellor sent it--but you made the strong call--and +it's here!" + +There was no street lamp to shine into their windows when they went at +last to bed. When the blind was drawn up, they were nearer the sky +than they had been in the Marylebone Road. The last thing each of them +saw, as he went to sleep, was the stars--and in their dreams, they saw +them grow larger and larger, and hang like lamps of radiance against +the violet-velvet sky above a ledge of a Himalayan Mountain, where +they listened to the sound of a low voice going on and on and on. + + + +XXII + +A NIGHT VIGIL + +On a hill in the midst of a great Austrian plain, around which high +Alps wait watching through the ages, stands a venerable fortress, almost +more beautiful than anything one has ever seen. Perhaps, if it were not +for the great plain flowering broadly about it with its wide-spread +beauties of meadow-land, and wood, and dim toned buildings gathered +about farms, and its dream of a small ancient city at its feet, it +might--though it is to be doubted--seem something less a marvel of +medieval picturesqueness. But out of the plain rises the low hill, and +surrounding it at a stately distance stands guard the giant majesty of +Alps, with shoulders in the clouds and god-like heads above them, +looking on--always looking on--sometimes themselves ethereal clouds of +snow-whiteness, some times monster bare crags which pierce the blue, +and whose unchanging silence seems to know the secret of the +everlasting. And on the hill which this august circle holds in its +embrace, as though it enclosed a treasure, stands the old, old, towered +fortress built as a citadel for the Prince Archbishops, who were kings +in their domain in the long past centuries when the splendor and power +of ecclesiastical princes was among the greatest upon earth. + +And as you approach the town--and as you leave it--and as you walk +through its streets, the broad calm empty-looking ones, or the narrow +thoroughfares whose houses seem so near to each other, whether you +climb or descend--or cross bridges, or gaze at churches, or step out on +your balcony at night to look at the mountains and the moon--always it +seems that from some point you can see it gazing down at you--the +citadel of Hohen-Salzburg. + +It was to Salzburg they went next, because at Salzburg was to be found +the man who looked like a hair-dresser and who worked in a barber's +shop. Strange as it might seem, to him also must be carried the Sign. + +"There may be people who come to him to be shaved--soldiers, or men who +know things," The Rat worked it out, "and he can speak to them when he +is standing close to them. It will be easy to get near him. You can +go and have your hair cut." + +The journey from Munich was not a long one, and during the latter part +of it they had the wooden-seated third-class carriage to themselves. +Even the drowsy old peasant who nodded and slept in one corner got out +with his bundles at last. To Marco the mountains were long-known +wonders which could never grow old. They had always and always been so +old! Surely they had been the first of the world! Surely they had +been standing there waiting when it was said "Let there be Light." The +Light had known it would find them there. They were so silent, and yet +it seemed as if they said some amazing thing--something which would +take your breath from you if you could hear it. And they never +changed. The clouds changed, they wreathed them, and hid them, and +trailed down them, and poured out storm torrents on them, and thundered +against them, and darted forked lightnings round them. But the +mountains stood there afterwards as if such things had not been and +were not in the world. Winds roared and tore at them, centuries passed +over them--centuries of millions of lives, of changing of kingdoms and +empires, of battles and world-wide fame which grew and died and passed +away; and temples crumbled, and kings' tombs were forgotten, and cities +were buried and others built over them after hundreds of years--and +perhaps a few stones fell from a mountain side, or a fissure was worn, +which the people below could not even see. And that was all. There +they stood, and perhaps their secret was that they had been there for +ever and ever. That was what the mountains said to Marco, which was +why he did not want to talk much, but sat and gazed out of the carriage +window. + +The Rat had been very silent all the morning. He had been silent when +they got up, and he had scarcely spoken when they made their way to the +station at Munich and sat waiting for their train. It seemed to Marco +that he was thinking so hard that he was like a person who was far away +from the place he stood in. His brows were drawn together and his eyes +did not seem to see the people who passed by. Usually he saw +everything and made shrewd remarks on almost all he saw. But to-day he +was somehow otherwise absorbed. He sat in the train with his forehead +against the window and stared out. He moved and gasped when he found +himself staring at the Alps, but afterwards he was even strangely +still. It was not until after the sleepy old peasant had gathered his +bundles and got out at a station that he spoke, and he did it without +turning his head. + +"You only told me one of the two laws," he said. "What was the other +one?" + +Marco brought himself back from his dream of reaching the highest +mountain-top and seeing clouds float beneath his feet in the sun. He +had to come back a long way. + +"Are you thinking of that? I wondered what you had been thinking of +all the morning," he said. + +"I couldn't stop thinking of it. What was the second one?" said The +Rat, but he did not turn his head. + +"It was called the Law of Earthly Living. It was for every day," said +Marco. "It was for the ordering of common things--the small things we +think don't matter, as well as the big ones. I always remember that +one without any trouble. This was it: + +"'Let pass through thy mind, my son, only the image thou wouldst desire +to see become a truth. Meditate only upon the wish of thy +heart--seeing first that it is such as can wrong no man and is not +ignoble. Then will it take earthly form and draw near to thee. + +"'This is the Law of That which Creates.'" + +Then The Rat turned round. He had a shrewdly reasoning mind. + +"That sounds as if you could get anything you wanted, if you think +about it long enough and in the right way," he said. "But perhaps it +only means that, if you do it, you'll be happy after you're dead. My +father used to shout with laughing when he was drunk and talked about +things like that and looked at his rags." + +He hugged his knees for a few minutes. He was remembering the rags, +and the fog-darkened room in the slums, and the loud, hideous laughter. + +"What if you want something that will harm somebody else?" he said +next. "What if you hate some one and wish you could kill him?" + +"That was one of the questions my father asked that night on the ledge. +The holy man said people always asked it," Marco answered. "This was +the answer: + +"'Let him who stretcheth forth his hand to draw the lightning to his +brother recall that through his own soul and body will pass the bolt.'" + +"Wonder if there's anything in it?" The Rat pondered. "It'd make a +chap careful if he believed it! Revenging yourself on a man would be +like holding him against a live wire to kill him and getting all the +volts through yourself." + +A sudden anxiety revealed itself in his face. + +"Does your father believe it?" he asked. "Does he?" + +"He knows it is true," Marco said. + +"I'll own up," The Rat decided after further reflection--"I'll own up +I'm glad that there isn't any one left that I've a grudge against. +There isn't any one--now." + +Then he fell again into silence and did not speak until their journey +was at an end. As they arrived early in the day, they had plenty of +time to wander about the marvelous little old city. But through the +wide streets and through the narrow ones, under the archways into the +market gardens, across the bridge and into the square where the +"glockenspiel" played its old tinkling tune, everywhere the Citadel +looked down and always The Rat walked on in his dream. + +They found the hair-dresser's shop in one of the narrow streets. There +were no grand shops there, and this particular shop was a modest one. +They walked past it once, and then went back. It was a shop so humble +that there was nothing remarkable in two common boys going into it to +have their hair cut. An old man came forward to receive them. He was +evidently glad of their modest patronage. He undertook to attend to +The Rat himself, but, having arranged him in a chair, he turned about +and called to some one in the back room. + +"Heinrich," he said. + +In the slit in Marco's sleeve was the sketch of the man with smooth +curled hair, who looked like a hair-dresser. They had found a corner +in which to take their final look at it before they turned back to come +in. Heinrich, who came forth from the small back room, had smooth +curled hair. He looked extremely like a hair-dresser. He had features +like those in the sketch--his nose and mouth and chin and figure were +like what Marco had drawn and committed to memory. But-- + +He gave Marco a chair and tied the professional white covering around +his neck. Marco leaned back and closed his eyes a moment. + +"That is NOT the man!" he was saying to himself. "He is NOT the man." + +How he knew he was not, he could not have explained, but he felt sure. +It was a strong conviction. But for the sudden feeling, nothing would +have been easier than to give the Sign. And if he could not give it +now, where was the one to whom it must be spoken, and what would be the +result if that one could not be found? And if there were two who were +so much alike, how could he be sure? + +Each owner of each of the pictured faces was a link in a powerful +secret chain; and if a link were missed, the chain would be broken. +Each time Heinrich came within the line of his vision, he recorded +every feature afresh and compared it with the remembered sketch. Each +time the resemblance became more close, but each time some persistent +inner conviction repeated, "No; the Sign is not for him!" + +It was disturbing, also, to find that The Rat was all at once as +restless as he had previously been silent and preoccupied. He moved in +his chair, to the great discomfort of the old hair-dresser. He kept +turning his head to talk. He asked Marco to translate divers questions +he wished him to ask the two men. They were questions about the +Citadel--about the Monchsberg--the Residenz--the Glockenspiel--the +mountains. He added one query to another and could not sit still. + +"The young gentleman will get an ear snipped," said the old man to +Marco. "And it will not be my fault." + +"What shall I do?" Marco was thinking. "He is not the man." + +He did not give the Sign. He must go away and think it out, though +where his thoughts would lead him he did not know. This was a more +difficult problem than he had ever dreamed of facing. There was no one +to ask advice of. Only himself and The Rat, who was nervously +wriggling and twisting in his chair. + +"You must sit still," he said to him. "The hair-dresser is afraid you +will make him cut you by accident." + +"But I want to know who lives at the Residenz?" said The Rat. "These +men can tell us things if you ask them." + +"It is done now," said the old hair-dresser with a relieved air. +"Perhaps the cutting of his hair makes the young gentleman nervous. It +is sometimes so." + +The Rat stood close to Marco's chair and asked questions until Heinrich +also had done his work. Marco could not understand his companion's +change of mood. He realized that, if he had wished to give the Sign, +he had been allowed no opportunity. He could not have given it. The +restless questioning had so directed the older man's attention to his +son and Marco that nothing could have been said to Heinrich without his +observing it. + +"I could not have spoken if he had been the man," Marco said to himself. + +Their very exit from the shop seemed a little hurried. When they were +fairly in the street, The Rat made a clutch at Marco's arm. + +"You didn't give it?" he whispered breathlessly. "I kept talking and +talking to prevent you." + +Marco tried not to feel breathless, and he tried to speak in a low and +level voice with no hint of exclamation in it. + +"Why did you say that?" he asked. + +The Rat drew closer to him. + +"That was not the man!" he whispered. "It doesn't matter how much he +looks like him, he isn't the right one." + +He was pale and swinging along swiftly as if he were in a hurry. + +"Let's get into a quiet place," he said. "Those queer things you've +been telling me have got hold of me. How did I know? How could I +know--unless it's because I've been trying to work that second law? +I've been saying to myself that we should be told the right things to +do--for the Game and for your father--and so that I could be the right +sort of aide-de-camp. I've been working at it, and, when he came out, +I knew he was not the man in spite of his looks. And I couldn't be +sure you knew, and I thought, if I kept on talking and interrupting you +with silly questions, you could be prevented from speaking." + +"There's a place not far away where we can get a look at the mountains. +Let's go there and sit down," said Marco. "I knew it was not the right +one, too. It's the Help over again." + +"Yes, it's the Help--it's the Help--it must be," muttered The Rat, +walking fast and with a pale, set face. "It could not be anything +else." + +They got away from the streets and the people and reached the quiet +place where they could see the mountains. There they sat down by the +wayside. The Rat took off his cap and wiped his forehead, but it was +not only the quick walking which had made it damp. + +"The queerness of it gave me a kind of fright," he said. "When he came +out and he was near enough for me to see him, a sudden strong feeling +came over me. It seemed as if I knew he wasn't the man. Then I said +to myself--'but he looks like him'--and I began to get nervous. And +then I was sure again--and then I wanted to try to stop you from giving +him the Sign. And then it all seemed foolishness--and the next second +all the things you had told me rushed back to me at once--and I +remembered what I had been thinking ever since--and I said--'Perhaps +it's the Law beginning to work,' and the palms of my hands got moist." + +Marco was very quiet. He was looking at the farthest and highest peaks +and wondering about many things. + +"It was the expression of his face that was different," he said. "And +his eyes. They are rather smaller than the right man's are. The light +in the shop was poor, and it was not until the last time he bent over +me that I found out what I had not seen before. His eyes are gray--the +other ones are brown." + +"Did you see that!" The Rat exclaimed. "Then we're sure! We're safe!" + +"We're not safe till we've found the right man," Marco said. "Where is +he? Where is he? Where is he?" + +He said the words dreamily and quietly, as if he were lost in +thought--but also rather as if he expected an answer. And he still +looked at the far-off peaks. The Rat, after watching him a moment or +so, began to look at them also. They were like a loadstone to him too. +There was something stilling about them, and when your eyes had rested +upon them a few moments they did not want to move away. + +"There must be a ledge up there somewhere," he said at last. + +"Let's go up and look for it and sit there and think and think--about +finding the right man." + +There seemed nothing fantastic in this to Marco. To go into some quiet +place and sit and think about the thing he wanted to remember or to +find out was an old way of his. To be quiet was always the best thing, +his father had taught him. It was like listening to something which +could speak without words. + +"There is a little train which goes up the Gaisberg," he said. "When +you are at the top, a world of mountains spreads around you. Lazarus +went once and told me. And we can lie out on the grass all night. Let +us go, Aide-de-camp." + +So they went, each one thinking the same thought, and each boy-mind +holding its own vision. Marco was the calmer of the two, because his +belief that there was always help to be found was an accustomed one and +had ceased to seem to partake of the supernatural. He believed quite +simply that it was the working of a law, not the breaking of one, which +gave answer and led him in his quests. The Rat, who had known nothing +of laws other than those administered by police-courts, was at once +awed and fascinated by the suggestion of crossing some borderland of +the Unknown. The law of the One had baffled and overthrown him, with +its sweeping away of the enmities of passions which created wars and +called for armies. But the Law of Earthly Living seemed to offer +practical benefits if you could hold on to yourself enough to work it. + +"You wouldn't get everything for nothing, as far as I can make out," he +had said to Marco. "You'd have to sweep all the rubbish out of your +mind--sweep it as if you did it with a broom--and then keep on thinking +straight and believing you were going to get things--and working for +them--and they'd come." + +Then he had laughed a short ugly laugh because he recalled something. + +"There was something in the Bible that my father used to jeer +about--something about a man getting what he prayed for if he believed +it," he said. + +"Oh, yes, it's there," said Marco. "That if a man pray believing he +shall receive what he asks it shall be given him. All the books say +something like it. It's been said so often it makes you believe it." + +"He didn't believe it, and I didn't," said The Rat. + +"Nobody does--really," answered Marco, as he had done once before. +"It's because we don't know." + +They went up the Gaisberg in the little train, which pushed and dragged +and panted slowly upward with them. It took them with it stubbornly +and gradually higher and higher until it had left Salzburg and the +Citadel below and had reached the world of mountains which rose and +spread and lifted great heads behind each other and beside each other +and beyond each other until there seemed no other land on earth but +that on mountain sides and backs and shoulders and crowns. And also +one felt the absurdity of living upon flat ground, where life must be +an insignificant thing. + +There were only a few sight-seers in the small carriages, and they were +going to look at the view from the summit. They were not in search of +a ledge. + +The Rat and Marco were. When the little train stopped at the top, they +got out with the rest. They wandered about with them over the short +grass on the treeless summit and looked out from this viewpoint and the +other. The Rat grew more and more silent, and his silence was not +merely a matter of speechlessness but of expression. He LOOKED silent +and as if he were no longer aware of the earth. They left the +sight-seers at last and wandered away by themselves. They found a +ledge where they could sit or lie and where even the world of mountains +seemed below them. They had brought some simple food with them, and +they laid it behind a jutting bit of rock. When the sight-seers +boarded the laboring little train again and were dragged back down the +mountain, their night of vigil would begin. + +That was what it was to be. A night of stillness on the heights, where +they could wait and watch and hold themselves ready to hear any thought +which spoke to them. + +The Rat was so thrilled that he would not have been surprised if he had +heard a voice from the place of the stars. But Marco only believed +that in this great stillness and beauty, if he held his boy-soul quiet +enough, he should find himself at last thinking of something that would +lead him to the place which held what it was best that he should find. +The people returned to the train and it set out upon its way down the +steepness. + +They heard it laboring on its way, as though it was forced to make as +much effort to hold itself back as it had made to drag itself upward. + +Then they were alone, and it was a loneness such as an eagle might feel +when it held itself poised high in the curve of blue. And they sat and +watched. They saw the sun go down and, shade by shade, deepen and make +radiant and then draw away with it the last touches of +color--rose-gold, rose-purple, and rose-gray. + +One mountain-top after another held its blush a few moments and lost +it. It took long to gather them all but at length they were gone and +the marvel of night fell. + +The breath of the forests below was sweet about them, and soundlessness +enclosed them which was of unearthly peace. The stars began to show +themselves, and presently the two who waited found their faces turned +upward to the sky and they both were speaking in whispers. + +"The stars look large here," The Rat said. + +"Yes," answered Marco. "We are not as high as the Buddhist was, but it +seems like the top of the world." + +"There is a light on the side of the mountain yonder which is not a +star," The Rat whispered. + +"It is a light in a hut where the guides take the climbers to rest and +to spend the night," answered Marco. + +"It is so still," The Rat whispered again after a silence, and Marco +whispered back: + +"It is so still." + +They had eaten their meal of black bread and cheese after the setting +of the sun, and now they lay down on their backs and looked up until +the first few stars had multiplied themselves into myriads. They began +a little low talk, but the soundlessness was stronger than themselves. + +"How am I going to hold on to that second law?" The Rat said +restlessly. "'Let pass through thy mind only the image thou wouldst +see become a truth.' The things that are passing through my mind are +not the things I want to come true. What if we don't find him--don't +find the right one, I mean!" + +"Lie still--still--and look up at the stars," whispered Marco. "They +give you a SURE feeling." + +There was something in the curious serenity of him which calmed even +his aide-de-camp. The Rat lay still and looked--and looked--and +thought. And what he thought of was the desire of his heart. The +soundlessness enwrapped him and there was no world left. That there +was a spark of light in the mountain-climbers' rest-hut was a thing +forgotten. + +They were only two boys, and they had begun their journey on the +earliest train and had been walking about all day and thinking of great +and anxious things. + +"It is so still," The Rat whispered again at last. + +"It is so still," whispered Marco. + +And the mountains rising behind each other and beside each other and +beyond each other in the night, and also the myriads of stars which had +so multiplied themselves, looking down knew that they were asleep--as +sleep the human things which do not watch forever. + +"Some one is smoking," Marco found himself saying in a dream. After +which he awakened and found that the smoke was not part of a dream at +all. It came from the pipe of a young man who had an alpenstock and +who looked as if he had climbed to see the sun rise. He wore the +clothes of a climber and a green hat with a tuft at the back. He +looked down at the two boys, surprised. + +"Good day," he said. "Did you sleep here so that you could see the sun +get up?" + +"Yes," answered Marco. + +"Were you cold?" + +"We slept too soundly to know. And we brought our thick coats." + +"I slept half-way down the mountains," said the smoker. "I am a guide +in these days, but I have not been one long enough to miss a sunrise it +is no work to reach. My father and brother think I am mad about such +things. They would rather stay in their beds. Oh! he is awake, is +he?" turning toward The Rat, who had risen on one elbow and was staring +at him. "What is the matter? You look as if you were afraid of me." + +Marco did not wait for The Rat to recover his breath and speak. + +"I know why he looks at you so," he answered for him. "He is startled. +Yesterday we went to a hair-dresser's shop down below there, and we saw +a man who was almost exactly like you--only--" he added, looking up, +"his eyes were gray and yours are brown." + +"He was my twin brother," said the guide, puffing at his pipe +cheerfully. "My father thought he could make hair-dressers of us both, +and I tried it for four years. But I always wanted to be climbing the +mountains and there were not holidays enough. So I cut my hair, and +washed the pomade out of it, and broke away. I don't look like a +hair-dresser now, do I?" + +He did not. Not at all. But Marco knew him. He was the man. There +was no one on the mountain-top but themselves, and the sun was just +showing a rim of gold above the farthest and highest giant's shoulders. +One need not be afraid to do anything, since there was no one to see or +hear. Marco slipped the sketch out of the slit in his sleeve. He +looked at it and he looked at the guide, and then he showed it to him. + +"That is not your brother. It is you!" he said. + +The man's face changed a little--more than any other face had changed +when its owner had been spoken to. On a mountain-top as the sun rises +one is not afraid. + +"The Lamp is lighted," said Marco. "The Lamp is lighted." + +"God be thanked!" burst forth the man. And he took off his hat and +bared his head. Then the rim behind the mountain's shoulder leaped +forth into a golden torrent of splendor. + +And The Rat stood up, resting his weight on his crutches in utter +silence, and stared and stared. + +"That is three!" said Marco. + + + +XXIII + +THE SILVER HORN + +During the next week, which they spent in journeying towards Vienna, +they gave the Sign to three different persons at places which were on +the way. In a village across the frontier in Bavaria they found a +giant of an old man sitting on a bench under a tree before his mountain +"Gasthaus" or inn; and when the four words were uttered, he stood up +and bared his head as the guide had done. When Marco gave the Sign in +some quiet place to a man who was alone, he noticed that they all did +this and said their "God be thanked" devoutly, as if it were part of +some religious ceremony. In a small town a few miles away he had to +search some hours before he found a stalwart young shoemaker with +bright red hair and a horseshoe-shaped scar on his forehead. He was +not in his workshop when the boys first passed it, because, as they +found out later, he had been climbing a mountain the day before, and +had been detained in the descent because his companion had hurt himself. + +When Marco went in and asked him to measure him for a pair of shoes, he +was quite friendly and told them all about it. + +"There are some good fellows who should not climb," he said. "When they +find themselves standing on a bit of rock jutting out over emptiness, +their heads begin to whirl round--and then, if they don't turn head +over heels a few thousand feet, it is because some comrade is near +enough to drag them back. There can be no ceremony then and they +sometimes get hurt--as my friend did yesterday." + +"Did you never get hurt yourself?" The Rat asked. + +"When I was eight years old I did that," said the young shoemaker, +touching the scar on his forehead. "But it was not much. My father +was a guide and took me with him. He wanted me to begin early. There +is nothing like it--climbing. I shall be at it again. This won't do +for me. I tried shoemaking because I was in love with a girl who +wanted me to stay at home. She married another man. I am glad of it. +Once a guide, always a guide." He knelt down to measure Marco's foot, +and Marco bent a little forward. + +"The Lamp is lighted," he said. + +There was no one in the shop, but the door was open and people were +passing in the narrow street; so the shoemaker did not lift his red +head. He went on measuring. + +"God be thanked!" he said, in a low voice. "Do you want these shoes +really, or did you only want me to take your measure?" + +"I cannot wait until they are made," Marco answered. "I must go on." + +"Yes, you must go on," answered the shoemaker. "But I'll tell you what +I'll do--I'll make them and keep them. Some great day might come when +I shall show them to people and swagger about them." He glanced round +cautiously, and then ended, still bending over his measuring. "They +will be called the shoes of the Bearer of the Sign. And I shall say, +'He was only a lad. This was the size of his foot.'" Then he stood up +with a great smile. + +"There'll be climbing enough to be done now," he said, "and I look to +see you again somewhere." + +When the boys went away, they talked it over. + +"The hair-dresser didn't want to be a hair-dresser, and the shoemaker +didn't want to make shoes," said The Rat. "They both wanted to be +mountain-climbers. There are mountains in Samavia and mountains on the +way to it. You showed them to me on the map. + +"Yes; and secret messengers who can climb anywhere, and cross dangerous +places, and reconnoiter from points no one else can reach, can find out +things and give signals other men cannot," said Marco. + +"That's what I thought out," The Rat answered. "That was what he meant +when he said, 'There will be climbing enough to be done now.'" + +Strange were the places they went to and curiously unlike each other +were the people to whom they carried their message. The most singular +of all was an old woman who lived in so remote a place that the road +which wound round and round the mountain, wound round it for miles and +miles. It was not a bad road and it was an amazing one to travel, +dragged in a small cart by a mule, when one could be dragged, and +clambering slowly with rests between when one could not: the +tree-covered precipices one looked down, the tossing whiteness of +waterfalls, or the green foaming of rushing streams, and the immensity +of farm- and village-scattered plains spreading themselves to the feet +of other mountains shutting them in were breath-taking beauties to look +down on, as the road mounted and wound round and round and higher and +higher. + +"How can any one live higher than this?" said The Rat as they sat on +the thick moss by the wayside after the mule and cart had left them. +"Look at the bare crags looming up above there. Let us look at her +again. Her picture looked as if she were a hundred years old." + +Marco took out his hidden sketch. It seemed surely one of the +strangest things in the world that a creature as old as this one seemed +could reach such a place, or, having reached it, could ever descend to +the world again to give aid to any person or thing. + +Her old face was crossed and recrossed with a thousand wrinkles. Her +profile was splendid yet and she had been a beauty in her day. Her +eyes were like an eagle's--and not an old eagle's. And she had a long +neck which held her old head high. + +"How could she get here?" exclaimed The Rat. + +"Those who sent us know, though we don't," said Marco. "Will you sit +here and rest while I go on further?" + +"No!" The Rat answered stubbornly. "I didn't train myself to stay +behind. But we shall come to bare-rock climbing soon and then I shall +be obliged to stop," and he said the last bitterly. He knew that, if +Marco had come alone, he would have ridden in no cart but would have +trudged upward and onward sturdily to the end of his journey. + +But they did not reach the crags, as they had thought must be +inevitable. Suddenly half-way to the sky, as it seemed, they came to a +bend in the road and found themselves mounting into a new green +world--an astonishing marvel of a world, with green velvet slopes and +soft meadows and thick woodland, and cows feeding in velvet pastures, +and--as if it had been snowed down from the huge bare mountain crags +which still soared above into heaven--a mysterious, ancient, huddled +village which, being thus snowed down, might have caught among the +rocks and rested there through all time. + +There it stood. There it huddled itself. And the monsters in the blue +above it themselves looked down upon it as if it were an incredible +thing--this ancient, steep-roofed, hanging-balconied, crumbling cluster +of human nests, which seemed a thousand miles from the world. Marco +and The Rat stood and stared at it. Then they sat down and stared at +it. + +"How did it get here?" The Rat cried. + +Marco shook his head. He certainly could see no explanation of its +being there. Perhaps some of the oldest villagers could tell stories of +how its first chalets had gathered themselves together. + +An old peasant driving a cow came down a steep path. He looked with a +dull curiosity at The Rat and his crutches; but when Marco advanced and +spoke to him in German, he did not seem to understand, but shook his +head saying something in a sort of dialect Marco did not know. + +"If they all speak like that, we shall have to make signs when we want +to ask anything," The Rat said. "What will she speak?" + +"She will know the German for the Sign or we should not have been sent +here," answered Marco. "Come on." + +They made their way to the village, which huddled itself together +evidently with the object of keeping itself warm when through the +winter months the snows strove to bury it and the winds roared down +from the huge mountain crags and tried to tear it from among its rocks. +The doors and windows were few and small, and glimpses of the inside of +the houses showed earthen floors and dark rooms. It was plain that it +was counted a more comfortable thing to live without light than to let +in the cold. + +It was easy enough to reconnoiter. The few people they saw were +evidently not surprised that strangers who discovered their unexpected +existence should be curious and want to look at them and their houses. + +The boys wandered about as if they were casual explorers, who having +reached the place by chance were interested in all they saw. They went +into the little Gasthaus and got some black bread and sausage and some +milk. The mountaineer owner was a brawny fellow who understood some +German. He told them that few strangers knew of the village but that +bold hunters and climbers came for sport. In the forests on the +mountain sides were bears and, in the high places, chamois. Now and +again, some great gentlemen came with parties of the daring kind--very +great gentlemen indeed, he said, shaking his head with pride. There +was one who had castles in other mountains, but he liked best to come +here. Marco began to wonder if several strange things might not be +true if great gentlemen sometimes climbed to the mysterious place. But +he had not been sent to give the Sign to a great gentleman. He had +been sent to give it to an old woman with eyes like an eagle which was +young. + +He had a sketch in his sleeve, with that of her face, of her +steep-roofed, black-beamed, balconied house. If they walked about a +little, they would be sure to come upon it in this tiny place. Then he +could go in and ask her for a drink of water. + +They roamed about for an hour after they left the Gasthaus. They went +into the little church and looked at the graveyard and wondered if it +was not buried out of all sight in the winter. After they had done +this, they sauntered out and walked through the huddled clusters of +houses, examining each one as they drew near it and passed. + +"I see it!" The Rat exclaimed at last. "It is that very old-looking +one standing a little way from the rest. It is not as tumbled down as +most of them. And there are some red flowers on the balcony." + +"Yes! That's it!" said Marco. + +They walked up to the low black door and, as he stopped on the +threshold, Marco took off his cap. He did this because, sitting in the +doorway on a low wooden chair, the old, old woman with the eagle eyes +was sitting knitting. + +There was no one else in the room and no one anywhere within sight. +When the old, old woman looked up at him with her young eagle's eyes, +holding her head high on her long neck, Marco knew he need not ask for +water or for anything else. + +"The Lamp is lighted," he said, in his low but strong and clear young +voice. + +She dropped her knitting upon her knees and gazed at him a moment in +silence. She knew German it was clear, for it was in German she +answered him. + +"God be thanked!" she said. "Come in, young Bearer of the Sign, and +bring your friend in with you. I live alone and not a soul is within +hearing." + +She was a wonderful old woman. Neither Marco nor The Rat would live +long enough to forget the hours they spent in her strange dark house. +She kept them and made them spend the night with her. + +"It is quite safe," she said. "I live alone since my man fell into the +crevasse and was killed because his rope broke when he was trying to +save his comrade. So I have two rooms to spare and sometimes climbers +are glad to sleep in them. Mine is a good warm house and I am well +known in the village. You are very young," she added shaking her head. +"You are very young. You must have good blood in your veins to be +trusted with this." + +"I have my father's blood," answered Marco. + +"You are like some one I once saw," the old woman said, and her eagle +eyes set themselves hard upon him. "Tell me your name." + +There was no reason why he should not tell it to her. + +"It is Marco Loristan," he said. + +"What! It is that!" she cried out, not loud but low. + +To Marco's amazement she got up from her chair and stood before him, +showing what a tall old woman she really was. There was a startled, +even an agitated, look in her face. And suddenly she actually made a +sort of curtsey to him--bending her knee as peasants do when they pass +a shrine. + +"It is that!" she said again. "And yet they dare let you go on a +journey like this! That speaks for your courage and for theirs." + +But Marco did not know what she meant. Her strange obeisance made him +feel awkward. He stood up because his training had told him that when +a woman stands a man also rises. + +"The name speaks for the courage," he said, "because it is my father's." + +She watched him almost anxiously. + +"You do not even know!" she breathed--and it was an exclamation and not +a question. + +"I know what I have been told to do," he answered. "I do not ask +anything else." + +"Who is that?" she asked, pointing to The Rat. + +"He is the friend my father sent with me," said Marco smiling. "He +called him my aide-de-camp. It was a sort of joke because we had +played soldiers together." + +It seemed as if she were obliged to collect her thoughts. She stood +with her hand at her mouth, looking down at the earth floor. + +"God guard you!" she said at last. "You are very--very young!" + +"But all his years," The Rat broke in, "he has been in training for +just this thing. He did not know it was training, but it was. A +soldier who had been trained for thirteen years would know his work." + +He was so eager that he forgot she could not understand English. Marco +translated what he said into German and added: "What he says is true." + +She nodded her head, still with questioning and anxious eyes. + +"Yes. Yes," she muttered. "But you are very young." Then she asked +in a hesitating way: + +"Will you not sit down until I do?" + +"No," answered Marco. "I would not sit while my mother or grandmother +stood." + +"Then I must sit--and forget," she said. + +She passed her hand over her face as though she were sweeping away the +sudden puzzled trouble in her expression. Then she sat down, as if she +had obliged herself to become again the old peasant she had been when +they entered. + +"All the way up the mountain you wondered why an old woman should be +given the Sign," she said. "You asked each other how she could be of +use." + +Neither Marco nor The Rat said anything. + +"When I was young and fresh," she went on. "I went to a castle over +the frontier to be foster-mother to a child who was born a great +noble--one who was near the throne. He loved me and I loved him. He +was a strong child and he grew up a great hunter and climber. When he +was not ten years old, my man taught him to climb. He always loved +these mountains better than his own. He comes to see me as if he were +only a young mountaineer. He sleeps in the room there," with a gesture +over her shoulder into the darkness. "He has great power and, if he +chooses to do a thing, he will do it--just as he will attack the +biggest bear or climb the most dangerous peak. He is one who can bring +things about. It is very safe to talk in this room." + +Then all was quite clear. Marco and The Rat understood. + +No more was said about the Sign. It had been given and that was +enough. The old woman told them that they must sleep in one of her +bedrooms. The next morning one of her neighbors was going down to the +valley with a cart and he would help them on their way. The Rat knew +that she was thinking of his crutches and he became restless. + +"Tell her," he said to Marco, "how I have trained myself until I can do +what any one else can. And tell her I am growing stronger every day. +Tell her I'll show her what I can do. Your father wouldn't have let me +come as your aide if I hadn't proved to him that I wasn't a cripple. +Tell her. She thinks I'm no use." + +Marco explained and the old woman listened attentively. When The Rat +got up and swung himself about up and down the steep path near her +house she seemed relieved. His extraordinary dexterity and firm +swiftness evidently amazed her and gave her a confidence she had not +felt at first. + +"If he has taught himself to be like that just for love of your father, +he will go to the end," she said. "It is more than one could believe, +that a pair of crutches could do such things." + +The Rat was pacified and could afterwards give himself up to watching +her as closely as he wished to. He was soon "working out" certain +things in his mind. What he watched was her way of watching Marco. It +was as if she were fascinated and could not keep her eyes from him. +She told them stories about the mountains and the strangers who came to +climb with guides or to hunt. She told them about the storms, which +sometimes seemed about to put an end to the little world among the +crags. She described the winter when the snow buried them and the +strong ones were forced to dig out the weak and some lived for days +under the masses of soft whiteness, glad to keep their cows or goats in +their rooms that they might share the warmth of their bodies. The +villages were forced to be good neighbors to each other, for the man +who was not ready to dig out a hidden chimney or buried door to-day +might be left to freeze and starve in his snow tomb next week. Through +the worst part of the winter no creature from the world below could +make way to them to find out whether they were all dead or alive. + +While she talked, she watched Marco as if she were always asking +herself some question about him. The Rat was sure that she liked him +and greatly admired his strong body and good looks. It was not +necessary for him to carry himself slouchingly in her presence and he +looked glowing and noble. There was a sort of reverence in her manner +when she spoke to him. She reminded him of Lazarus more than once. +When she gave them their evening meal, she insisted on waiting on him +with a certain respectful ceremony. She would not sit at table with +him, and The Rat began to realize that she felt that he himself should +be standing to serve him. + +"She thinks I ought to stand behind your chair as Lazarus stands behind +your father's," he said to Marco. "Perhaps an aide ought to do it. +Shall I? I believe it would please her." + +"A Bearer of the Sign is not a royal person," answered Marco. "My +father would not like it--and I should not. We are only two boys." + +It was very wonderful when, after their supper was over, they all three +sat together before the fire. + +The red glow of the bed of wood-coal and the orange yellow of the flame +from the big logs filled the room with warm light, which made a mellow +background for the figure of the old woman as she sat in her low chair +and told them more and more enthralling stories. + +Her eagle eyes glowed and her long neck held her head splendidly high +as she described great feats of courage and endurance or almost +superhuman daring in aiding those in awesome peril, and, when she +glowed most in the telling, they always knew that the hero of the +adventure had been her foster-child who was the baby born a great noble +and near the throne. To her, he was the most splendid and adorable of +human beings. Almost an emperor, but so warm and tender of heart that +he never forgot the long-past days when she had held him on her knee +and told him tales of chamois- and bear-hunting, and of the +mountain-tops in mid-winter. He was her sun-god. + +"Yes! Yes!" she said. "'Good Mother,' he calls me. And I bake him a +cake on the hearth, as I did when he was ten years old and my man was +teaching him to climb. And when he chooses that a thing shall be +done--done it is! He is a great lord." + +The flames had died down and only the big bed of red coal made the room +glow, and they were thinking of going to bed when the old woman started +very suddenly, turning her head as if to listen. + +Marco and The Rat heard nothing, but they saw that she did and they sat +so still that each held his breath. So there was utter stillness for a +few moments. Utter stillness. + +Then they did hear something--a clear silver sound, piercing the pure +mountain air. + +The old woman sprang upright with the fire of delight in her eyes. + +"It is his silver horn!" she cried out striking her hands together. +"It is his own call to me when he is coming. He has been hunting +somewhere and wants to sleep in his good bed here. Help me to put on +more faggots," to The Rat, "so that he will see the flame of them +through the open door as he comes." + +"Shall we be in the way?" said Marco. "We can go at once." + +She was going towards the door to open it and she stopped a moment and +turned. + +"No, no!" she said. "He must see your face. He will want to see it. +I want him to see--how young you are." + +She threw the door wide open and they heard the silver horn send out +its gay call again. The brushwood and faggots The Rat had thrown on +the coals crackled and sparkled and roared into fine flames, which cast +their light into the road and threw out in fine relief the old figure +which stood on the threshold and looked so tall. + +And in but a few minutes her great lord came to her. And in his green +hunting-suit with its green hat and eagle's feather he was as splendid +as she had said he was. He was big and royal-looking and laughing and +he bent and kissed her as if he had been her own son. + +"Yes, good Mother," they heard him say. "I want my warm bed and one of +your good suppers. I sent the others to the Gasthaus." + +He came into the redly glowing room and his head almost touched the +blackened rafters. Then he saw the two boys. + +"Who are these, good Mother?" he asked. + +She lifted his hand and kissed it. + +"They are the Bearers of the Sign," she said rather softly. "'The Lamp +is lighted.'" + +Then his whole look changed. His laughing face became quite grave and +for a moment looked even anxious. Marco knew it was because he was +startled to find them only boys. He made a step forward to look at +them more closely. + +"The Lamp is lighted! And you two bear the Sign!" he exclaimed. Marco +stood out in the fire glow that he might see him well. He saluted with +respect. + +"My name is Marco Loristan, Highness," he said. "And my father sent +me." + +The change which came upon his face then was even greater than at +first. For a second, Marco even felt that there was a flash of alarm +in it. But almost at once that passed. + +"Loristan is a great man and a great patriot," he said. "If he sent +you, it is because he knows you are the one safe messenger. He has +worked too long for Samavia not to know what he does." + +Marco saluted again. He knew what it was right to say next. + +"If we have your Highness's permission to retire," he said, "we will +leave you and go to bed. We go down the mountain at sunrise." + +"Where next?" asked the hunter, looking at him with curious intentness. + +"To Vienna, Highness," Marco answered. + +His questioner held out his hand, still with the intent interest in his +eyes. + +"Good night, fine lad," he said. "Samavia has need to vaunt itself on +its Sign-bearer. God go with you." + +He stood and watched him as he went toward the room in which he and his +aide-de-camp were to sleep. The Rat followed him closely. At the +little back door the old, old woman stood, having opened it for them. +As Marco passed and bade her good night, he saw that she again made the +strange obeisance, bending the knee as he went by. + + + +XXIV + +"HOW SHALL WE FIND HIM?" + +In Vienna they came upon a pageant. In celebration of a century-past +victory the Emperor drove in state and ceremony to attend at the great +cathedral and to do honor to the ancient banners and laurel-wreathed +statue of a long-dead soldier-prince. The broad pavements of the huge +chief thoroughfare were crowded with a cheering populace watching the +martial pomp and splendor as it passed by with marching feet, prancing +horses, and glitter of scabbard and chain, which all seemed somehow +part of music in triumphant bursts. + +The Rat was enormously thrilled by the magnificence of the imperial +place. Its immense spaces, the squares and gardens, reigned over by +statues of emperors, and warriors, and queens made him feel that all +things on earth were possible. The palaces and stately piles of +architecture, whose surmounting equestrian bronzes ramped high in the +air clear cut and beautiful against the sky, seemed to sweep out of his +world all atmosphere but that of splendid cities down whose broad +avenues emperors rode with waving banners, tramping, jangling soldiery +before and behind, and golden trumpets blaring forth. It seemed as if +it must always be like this--that lances and cavalry and emperors would +never cease to ride by. "I should like to stay here a long time," he +said almost as if he were in a dream. "I should like to see it all." + +He leaned on his crutches in the crowd and watched the glitter of the +passing pageant. Now and then he glanced at Marco, who watched also +with a steady eye which, The Rat saw, nothing would escape: How +absorbed he always was in the Game! How impossible it was for him to +forget it or to remember it only as a boy would! Often it seemed that +he was not a boy at all. And the Game, The Rat knew in these days, was +a game no more but a thing of deep and deadly earnest--a thing which +touched kings and thrones, and concerned the ruling and swaying of +great countries. And they--two lads pushed about by the crowd as they +stood and stared at the soldiers--carried with them that which was even +now lighting the Lamp. The blood in The Rat's veins ran quickly and +made him feel hot as he remembered certain thoughts which had forced +themselves into his mind during the past weeks. As his brain had the +trick of "working things out," it had, during the last fortnight at +least, been following a wonderful even if rather fantastic and feverish +fancy. A mere trifle had set it at work, but, its labor once begun, +things which might have once seemed to be trifles appeared so no +longer. When Marco was asleep, The Rat lay awake through thrilled and +sometimes almost breathless midnight hours, looking backward and +recalling every detail of their lives since they had known each other. +Sometimes it seemed to him that almost everything he remembered--the +Game from first to last above all--had pointed to but one thing. And +then again he would all at once feel that he was a fool and had better +keep his head steady. Marco, he knew, had no wild fancies. He had +learned too much and his mind was too well balanced. He did not try to +"work out things." He only thought of what he was under orders to do. + +"But," said The Rat more than once in these midnight hours, "if it ever +comes to a draw whether he is to be saved or I am, he is the one that +must come to no harm. Killing can't take long--and his father sent me +with him." + +This thought passed through his mind as the tramping feet went by. As +a sudden splendid burst of approaching music broke upon his ear, a +queer look twisted his face. He realized the contrast between this day +and that first morning behind the churchyard, when he had sat on his +platform among the Squad and looked up and saw Marco in the arch at the +end of the passage. And because he had been good-looking and had held +himself so well, he had thrown a stone at him. Yes--blind gutter-bred +fool that he'd been:--his first greeting to Marco had been a stone, +just because he was what he was. As they stood here in the crowd in +this far-off foreign city, it did not seem as if it could be true that +it was he who had done it. + +He managed to work himself closer to Marco's side. "Isn't it +splendid?" he said, "I wish I was an emperor myself. I'd have these +fellows out like this every day." He said it only because he wanted to +say something, to speak, as a reason for getting closer to him. He +wanted to be near enough to touch him and feel that they were really +together and that the whole thing was not a sort of magnificent dream +from which he might awaken to find himself lying on his heap of rags in +his corner of the room in Bone Court. + +The crowd swayed forward in its eagerness to see the principal feature +of the pageant--the Emperor in his carriage. The Rat swayed forward +with the rest to look as it passed. + +A handsome white-haired and mustached personage in splendid uniform +decorated with jeweled orders and with a cascade of emerald-green +plumes nodding in his military hat gravely saluted the shouting people +on either side. By him sat a man uniformed, decorated, and +emerald-plumed also, but many years younger. + +Marco's arm touched The Rat's almost at the same moment that his own +touched Marco. Under the nodding plumes each saw the rather tired and +cynical pale face, a sketch of which was hidden in the slit in Marco's +sleeve. + +"Is the one who sits with the Emperor an Archduke?" Marco asked the man +nearest to him in the crowd. The man answered amiably enough. No, he +was not, but he was a certain Prince, a descendant of the one who was +the hero of the day. He was a great favorite of the Emperor's and was +also a great personage, whose palace contained pictures celebrated +throughout Europe. + +"He pretends it is only pictures he cares for," he went on, shrugging +his shoulders and speaking to his wife, who had begun to listen, "but +he is a clever one, who amuses himself with things he professes not to +concern himself about--big things. It's his way to look bored, and +interested in nothing, but it's said he's a wizard for knowing +dangerous secrets." + +"Does he live at the Hofburg with the Emperor?" asked the woman, +craning her neck to look after the imperial carriage. + +"No, but he's often there. The Emperor is lonely and bored too, no +doubt, and this one has ways of making him forget his troubles. It's +been told me that now and then the two dress themselves roughly, like +common men, and go out into the city to see what it's like to rub +shoulders with the rest of the world. I daresay it's true. I should +like to try it myself once in a while, if I had to sit on a throne and +wear a crown." + +The two boys followed the celebration to its end. They managed to get +near enough to see the entrance to the church where the service was +held and to get a view of the ceremonies at the banner-draped and +laurel-wreathed statue. They saw the man with the pale face several +times, but he was always so enclosed that it was not possible to get +within yards of him. It happened once, however, that he looked through +a temporary break in the crowding people and saw a dark strong-featured +and remarkably intent boy's face, whose vivid scrutiny of him caught +his eye. There was something in the fixedness of its attention which +caused him to look at it curiously for a few seconds, and Marco met his +gaze squarely. + +"Look at me! Look at me!" the boy was saying to him mentally. "I have +a message for you. A message!" + +The tired eyes in the pale face rested on him with a certain growing +light of interest and curiosity, but the crowding people moved and the +temporary break closed up, so that the two could see each other no +more. Marco and The Rat were pushed backward by those taller and +stronger than themselves until they were on the outskirts of the crowd. + +"Let us go to the Hofburg," said Marco. "They will come back there, +and we shall see him again even if we can't get near." + +To the Hofburg they made their way through the less crowded streets, +and there they waited as near to the great palace as they could get. +They were there when, the ceremonies at an end, the imperial carriages +returned, but, though they saw their man again, they were at some +distance from him and he did not see them. + +Then followed four singular days. They were singular days because they +were full of tantalizing incidents. Nothing seemed easier than to hear +talk of, and see the Emperor's favorite, but nothing was more +impossible than to get near to him. He seemed rather a favorite with +the populace, and the common people of the shopkeeping or laboring +classes were given to talking freely of him--of where he was going and +what he was doing. To-night he would be sure to be at this great house +or that, at this ball or that banquet. There was no difficulty in +discovering that he would be sure to go to the opera, or the theatre, +or to drive to Schonbrunn with his imperial master. Marco and The Rat +heard casual speech of him again and again, and from one part of the +city to the other they followed and waited for him. But it was like +chasing a will-o'-the-wisp. He was evidently too brilliant and +important a person to be allowed to move about alone. There were +always people with him who seemed absorbed in his languid cynical +talk. Marco thought that he never seemed to care much for his +companions, though they on their part always seemed highly entertained +by what he was saying. It was noticeable that they laughed a great +deal, though he himself scarcely even smiled. + +"He's one of those chaps with the trick of saying witty things as if he +didn't see the fun in them himself," The Rat summed him up. "Chaps +like that are always cleverer than the other kind." + +"He's too high in favor and too rich not to be followed about," they +heard a man in a shop say one day, "but he gets tired of it. +Sometimes, when he's too bored to stand it any longer, he gives it out +that he's gone into the mountains somewhere, and all the time he's shut +up alone with his pictures in his own palace." + +That very night The Rat came in to their attic looking pale and +disappointed. He had been out to buy some food after a long and +arduous day in which they had covered much ground, had seen their man +three times, and each time under circumstances which made him more +inaccessible than ever. They had come back to their poor quarters both +tired and ravenously hungry. + +The Rat threw his purchase on to the table and himself into a chair. + +"He's gone to Budapest," he said. "NOW how shall we find him?" + +Marco was rather pale also, and for a moment he looked paler. The day +had been a hard one, and in their haste to reach places at a long +distance from each other they had forgotten their need of food. + +They sat silent for a few moments because there seemed to be nothing to +say. "We are too tired and hungry to be able to think well," Marco +said at last. "Let us eat our supper and then go to sleep. Until +we've had a rest, we must 'let go.'" + +"Yes. There's no good in talking when you're tired," The Rat answered +a trifle gloomily. "You don't reason straight. We must 'let go.'" + +Their meal was simple but they ate well and without words. + +Even when they had finished and undressed for the night, they said very +little. + +"Where do our thoughts go when we are asleep?" The Rat inquired +casually after he was stretched out in the darkness. "They must go +somewhere. Let's send them to find out what to do next." + +"It's not as still as it was on the Gaisberg. You can hear the city +roaring," said Marco drowsily from his dark corner. "We must make a +ledge--for ourselves." + +Sleep made it for them--deep, restful, healthy sleep. If they had been +more resentful of their ill luck and lost labor, it would have come +less easily and have been less natural. In their talks of strange +things they had learned that one great secret of strength and +unflagging courage is to know how to "let go"--to cease thinking over +an anxiety until the right moment comes. It was their habit to "let +go" for hours sometimes, and wander about looking at places and +things--galleries, museums, palaces, giving themselves up with boyish +pleasure and eagerness to all they saw. Marco was too intimate with +the things worth seeing, and The Rat too curious and feverishly +wide-awake to allow of their missing much. + +The Rat's image of the world had grown until it seemed to know no +boundaries which could hold its wealth of wonders. He wanted to go on +and on and see them all. + +When Marco opened his eyes in the morning, he found The Rat lying +looking at him. Then they both sat up in bed at the same time. + +"I believe we are both thinking the same thing," Marco said. + +They frequently discovered that they were thinking the same things. + +"So do I," answered The Rat. "It shows how tired we were that we +didn't think of it last night." + +"Yes, we are thinking the same thing," said Marco. "We have both +remembered what we heard about his shutting himself up alone with his +pictures and making people believe he had gone away." + +"He's in his palace now," The Rat announced. + +"Do you feel sure of that, too?" asked Marco. "Did you wake up and +feel sure of it the first thing?" + +"Yes," answered The Rat. "As sure as if I'd heard him say it himself." + +"So did I," said Marco. + +"That's what our thoughts brought back to us," said The Rat, "when we +'let go' and sent them off last night." He sat up hugging his knees +and looking straight before him for some time after this, and Marco did +not interrupt his meditations. + +The day was a brilliant one, and, though their attic had only one +window, the sun shone in through it as they ate their breakfast. After +it, they leaned on the window's ledge and talked about the Prince's +garden. They talked about it because it was a place open to the public +and they had walked round it more than once. The palace, which was not +a large one, stood in the midst of it. The Prince was good-natured +enough to allow quiet and well-behaved people to saunter through. It +was not a fashionable promenade but a pleasant retreat for people who +sometimes took their work or books and sat on the seats placed here and +there among the shrubs and flowers. + +"When we were there the first time, I noticed two things," Marco said. +"There is a stone balcony which juts out from the side of the palace +which looks on the Fountain Garden. That day there were chairs on it +as if the Prince and his visitors sometimes sat there. Near it, there +was a very large evergreen shrub and I saw that there was a hollow +place inside it. If some one wanted to stay in the gardens all night +to watch the windows when they were lighted and see if any one came out +alone upon the balcony, he could hide himself in the hollow place and +stay there until the morning." + +"Is there room for two inside the shrub?" The Rat asked. + +"No. I must go alone," said Marco. + + + +XXV + +A VOICE IN THE NIGHT + +Late that afternoon there wandered about the gardens two quiet, +inconspicuous, rather poorly dressed boys. They looked at the palace, +the shrubs, and the flower-beds, as strangers usually did, and they sat +on the seats and talked as people were accustomed to seeing boys talk +together. It was a sunny day and exceptionally warm, and there were +more saunterers and sitters than usual, which was perhaps the reason +why the _portier_ at the entrance gates gave such slight notice to the +pair that he did not observe that, though two boys came in, only one +went out. He did not, in fact, remember, when he saw The Rat swing by +on his crutches at closing-time, that he had entered in company with a +dark-haired lad who walked without any aid. It happened that, when +The Rat passed out, the _portier_ at the entrance was much interested in +the aspect of the sky, which was curiously threatening. There had been +heavy clouds hanging about all day and now and then blotting out the +sunshine entirely, but the sun had refused to retire altogether. Just +now, however, the clouds had piled themselves in thunderous, purplish +mountains, and the sun had been forced to set behind them. + +"It's been a sort of battle since morning," the _portier_ said. "There +will be some crashes and cataracts to-night." That was what The Rat +had thought when they had sat in the Fountain Garden on a seat which +gave them a good view of the balcony and the big evergreen shrub, which +they knew had the hollow in the middle, though its circumference was so +imposing. "If there should be a big storm, the evergreen will not save +you much, though it may keep off the worst," The Rat said. "I wish +there was room for two." + +He would have wished there was room for two if he had seen Marco +marching to the stake. As the gardens emptied, the boys rose and +walked round once more, as if on their way out. By the time they had +sauntered toward the big evergreen, nobody was in the Fountain Garden, +and the last loiterers were moving toward the arched stone entrance to +the streets. + +When they drew near one side of the evergreen, the two were together. +When The Rat swung out on the other side of it, he was alone! No one +noticed that anything had happened; no one looked back. So The Rat +swung down the walks and round the flower-beds and passed into the +street. And the _portier_ looked at the sky and made his remark about +the "crashes" and "cataracts." + +As the darkness came on, the hollow in the shrub seemed a very safe +place. It was not in the least likely that any one would enter the +closed gardens; and if by rare chance some servant passed through, he +would not be in search of people who wished to watch all night in the +middle of an evergreen instead of going to bed and to sleep. The +hollow was well inclosed with greenery, and there was room to sit down +when one was tired of standing. + +Marco stood for a long time because, by doing so, he could see plainly +the windows opening on the balcony if he gently pushed aside some +flexible young boughs. He had managed to discover in his first visit +to the gardens that the windows overlooking the Fountain Garden were +those which belonged to the Prince's own suite of rooms. Those which +opened on to the balcony lighted his favorite apartment, which +contained his best-loved books and pictures and in which he spent most +of his secluded leisure hours. + +Marco watched these windows anxiously. If the Prince had not gone to +Budapest,--if he were really only in retreat, and hiding from his gay +world among his treasures,--he would be living in his favorite rooms +and lights would show themselves. And if there were lights, he might +pass before a window because, since he was inclosed in his garden, he +need not fear being seen. The twilight deepened into darkness and, +because of the heavy clouds, it was very dense. Faint gleams showed +themselves in the lower part of the palace, but none was lighted in the +windows Marco watched. He waited so long that it became evident that +none was to be lighted at all. At last he loosed his hold on the young +boughs and, after standing a few moments in thought, sat down upon the +earth in the midst of his embowered tent. The Prince was not in his +retreat; he was probably not in Vienna, and the rumor of his journey to +Budapest had no doubt been true. So much time lost through making a +mistake--but it was best to have made the venture. Not to have made it +would have been to lose a chance. The entrance was closed for the +night and there was no getting out of the gardens until they were +opened for the next day. He must stay in his hiding-place until the +time when people began to come and bring their books and knitting and +sit on the seats. Then he could stroll out without attracting +attention. But he had the night before him to spend as best he could. +That would not matter at all. He could tuck his cap under his head and +go to sleep on the ground. He could command himself to waken once +every half-hour and look for the lights. He would not go to sleep until +it was long past midnight--so long past that there would not be one +chance in a hundred that anything could happen. But the clouds which +made the night so dark were giving forth low rumbling growls. At +intervals a threatening gleam of light shot across them and a sudden +swish of wind rushed through the trees in the garden. This happened +several times, and then Marco began to hear the patter of raindrops. +They were heavy and big drops, but few at first, and then there was a +new and more powerful rush of wind, a jagged dart of light in the sky, +and a tremendous crash. After that the clouds tore themselves open and +poured forth their contents in floods. After the protracted struggle +of the day it all seemed to happen at once, as if a horde of huge lions +had at one moment been let loose: flame after flame of lightning, roar +and crash and sharp reports of thunder, shrieks of hurricane wind, +torrents of rain, as if some tidal-wave of the skies had gathered and +rushed and burst upon the earth. It was such a storm as people +remember for a lifetime and which in few lifetimes is seen at all. + +Marco stood still in the midst of the rage and flooding, blinding roar +of it. After the first few minutes he knew he could do nothing to +shield himself. Down the garden paths he heard cataracts rushing. He +held his cap pressed against his eyes because he seemed to stand in the +midst of darting flames. The crashes, cannon reports and thunderings, +and the jagged streams of light came so close to one another that he +seemed deafened as well as blinded. He wondered if he should ever be +able to hear human voices again when it was over. That he was drenched +to the skin and that the water poured from his clothes as if he were +himself a cataract was so small a detail that he was scarcely aware of +it. He stood still, bracing his body, and waited. If he had been a +Samavian soldier in the trenches and such a storm had broken upon him +and his comrades, they could only have braced themselves and waited. +This was what he found himself thinking when the tumult and downpour +were at their worst. There were men who had waited in the midst of a +rain of bullets. + +It was not long after this thought had come to him that there occurred +the first temporary lull in the storm. Its fury perhaps reached its +height and broke at that moment. A yellow flame had torn its jagged +way across the heavens, and an earth-rending crash had thundered itself +into rumblings which actually died away before breaking forth again. +Marco took his cap from his eyes and drew a long breath. He drew two +long breaths. It was as he began drawing a third and realizing the +strange feeling of the almost stillness about him that he heard a new +kind of sound at the side of the garden nearest his hiding-place. It +sounded like the creak of a door opening somewhere in the wall behind +the laurel hedge. Some one was coming into the garden by a private +entrance. He pushed aside the young boughs again and tried to see, but +the darkness was too dense. Yet he could hear if the thunder would not +break again. There was the sound of feet on the wet gravel, the +footsteps of more than one person coming toward where he stood, but not +as if afraid of being heard; merely as if they were at liberty to come +in by what entrance they chose. Marco remained very still. A sudden +hope gave him a shock of joy. If the man with the tired face chose to +hide himself from his acquaintances, he might choose to go in and out +by a private entrance. The footsteps drew near, crushing the wet +gravel, passed by, and seemed to pause somewhere near the balcony; and +them flame lit up the sky again and the thunder burst forth once more. + +But this was its last great peal. The storm was at an end. Only +fainter and fainter rumblings and mutterings and paler and paler darts +followed. Even they were soon over, and the cataracts in the paths had +rushed themselves silent. But the darkness was still deep. + +It was deep to blackness in the hollow of the evergreen. Marco stood +in it, streaming with rain, but feeling nothing because he was full of +thought. He pushed aside his greenery and kept his eyes on the place +in the blackness where the windows must be, though he could not see +them. It seemed that he waited a long time, but he knew it only seemed +so really. He began to breathe quickly because he was waiting for +something. + +Suddenly he saw exactly where the windows were--because they were all +lighted! + +His feeling of relief was great, but it did not last very long. It was +true that something had been gained in the certainty that his man had +not left Vienna. But what next? It would not be so easy to follow him +if he chose only to go out secretly at night. What next? To spend the +rest of the night watching a lighted window was not enough. To-morrow +night it might not be lighted. But he kept his gaze fixed upon it. He +tried to fix all his will and thought-power on the person inside the +room. Perhaps he could reach him and make him listen, even though he +would not know that any one was speaking to him. He knew that thoughts +were strong things. If angry thoughts in one man's mind will create +anger in the mind of another, why should not sane messages cross the +line? + +"I must speak to you. I must speak to you!" he found himself saying in +a low intense voice. "I am outside here waiting. Listen! I must speak +to you!" + +He said it many times and kept his eyes fixed upon the window which +opened on to the balcony. Once he saw a man's figure cross the room, +but he could not be sure who it was. The last distant rumblings of +thunder had died away and the clouds were breaking. It was not long +before the dark mountainous billows broke apart, and a brilliant full +moon showed herself sailing in the rift, suddenly flooding everything +with light. Parts of the garden were silver white, and the tree +shadows were like black velvet. A silvery lance pierced even into the +hollow of Marco's evergreen and struck across his face. + +Perhaps it was this sudden change which attracted the attention of +those inside the balconied room. A man's figure appeared at the long +windows. Marco saw now that it was the Prince. He opened the windows +and stepped out on to the balcony. + +"It is all over," he said quietly. And he stood with his face lifted, +looking at the great white sailing moon. + +He stood very still and seemed for the moment to forget the world and +himself. It was a wonderful, triumphant queen of a moon. But something +brought him back to earth. A low, but strong and clear, boy-voice came +up to him from the garden path below. + +"The Lamp is lighted. The Lamp is lighted," it said, and the words +sounded almost as if some one were uttering a prayer. They seemed to +call to him, to arrest him, to draw him. + +He stood still a few seconds in dead silence. Then he bent over the +balustrade. The moonlight had not broken the darkness below. + +"That is a boy's voice," he said in a low tone, "but I cannot see who +is speaking." + +"Yes, it is a boy's voice," it answered, in a way which somehow moved +him, because it was so ardent. "It is the son of Stefan Loristan. The +Lamp is lighted." + +"Wait. I am coming down to you," the Prince said. + +In a few minutes Marco heard a door open gently not far from where he +stood. Then the man he had been following so many days appeared at his +side. + +"How long have you been here?" he asked. + +"Before the gates closed. I hid myself in the hollow of the big shrub +there, Highness," Marco answered. + +"Then you were out in the storm?" + +"Yes, Highness." + +The Prince put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "I cannot see you--but +it is best to stand in the shadow. You are drenched to the skin." + +"I have been able to give your Highness--the Sign," Marco whispered. +"A storm is nothing." + +There was a silence. Marco knew that his companion was pausing to turn +something over in his mind. + +"So-o?" he said slowly, at length. "The Lamp is lighted, And YOU are +sent to bear the Sign." Something in his voice made Marco feel that he +was smiling. + +"What a race you are! What a race--you Samavian Loristans!" + +He paused as if to think the thing over again. + +"I want to see your face," he said next. "Here is a tree with a shaft +of moonlight striking through the branches. Let us step aside and +stand under it." + +Marco did as he was told. The shaft of moonlight fell upon his +uplifted face and showed its young strength and darkness, quite +splendid for the moment in a triumphant glow of joy in obstacles +overcome. Raindrops hung on his hair, but he did not look draggled, +only very wet and picturesque. He had reached his man. He had given +the Sign. + +The Prince looked him over with interested curiosity. + +"Yes," he said in his cool, rather dragging voice. "You are the son of +Stefan Loristan. Also you must be taken care of. You must come with +me. I have trained my household to remain in its own quarters until I +require its service. I have attached to my own apartments a good safe +little room where I sometimes keep people. You can dry your clothes +and sleep there. When the gardens are opened again, the rest will be +easy." + +But though he stepped out from under the trees and began to move +towards the palace in the shadow, Marco noticed that he moved +hesitatingly, as if he had not quite decided what he should do. He +stopped rather suddenly and turned again to Marco, who was following +him. + +"There is some one in the room I just now left," he said, "an old +man--whom it might interest to see you. It might also be a good thing +for him to feel interest in you. I choose that he shall see you--as +you are." + +"I am at your command, Highness," Marco answered. He knew his +companion was smiling again. + +"You have been in training for more centuries than you know," he said; +"and your father has prepared you to encounter the unexpected without +surprise." + +They passed under the balcony and paused at a low stone doorway hidden +behind shrubs. The door was a beautiful one, Marco saw when it was +opened, and the corridor disclosed was beautiful also, though it had an +air of quiet and aloofness which was not so much secret as private. A +perfect though narrow staircase mounted from it to the next floor. +After ascending it, the Prince led the way through a short corridor and +stopped at the door at the end of it. "We are going in here," he said. + +It was a wonderful room--the one which opened on to the balcony. Each +piece of furniture in it, the hangings, the tapestries, and pictures on +the wall were all such as might well have found themselves adorning a +museum. Marco remembered the common report of his escort's favorite +amusement of collecting wonders and furnishing his house with the +things others exhibited only as marvels of art and handicraft. The +place was rich and mellow with exquisitely chosen beauties. + +In a massive chair upon the hearth sat a figure with bent head. It was a +tall old man with white hair and moustache. His elbows rested upon the +arm of his chair and he leaned his forehead on his hand as if he were +weary. + +Marco's companion crossed the room and stood beside him, speaking in a +lowered voice. Marco could not at first hear what he said. He himself +stood quite still, waiting. The white-haired man lifted his head and +listened. It seemed as though almost at once he was singularly +interested. The lowered voice was slightly raised at last and Marco +heard the last two sentences: + +"The only son of Stefan Loristan. Look at him." + +The old man in the chair turned slowly and looked, steadily, and with +questioning curiosity touched with grave surprise. He had keen and +clear blue eyes. + +Then Marco, still erect and silent, waited again. The Prince had +merely said to him, "an old man whom it might interest to see you." He +had plainly intended that, whatsoever happened, he must make no outward +sign of seeing more than he had been told he would see--"an old man." +It was for him to show no astonishment or recognition. He had been +brought here not to see but to be seen. The power of remaining still +under scrutiny, which The Rat had often envied him, stood now in good +stead because he had seen the white head and tall form not many days +before, surmounted by brilliant emerald plumes, hung with jeweled +decorations, in the royal carriage, escorted by banners, and helmets, +and following troops whose tramping feet kept time to bursts of +military music while the populace bared their heads and cheered. + +"He is like his father," this personage said to the Prince. "But if any +one but Loristan had sent him--His looks please me." Then suddenly to +Marco, "You were waiting outside while the storm was going on?" + +"Yes, sir," Marco answered. + +Then the two exchanged some words still in the lowered voice. + +"You read the news as you made your journey?" he was asked. "You know +how Samavia stands?" + +"She does not stand," said Marco. "The Iarovitch and the Maranovitch +have fought as hyenas fight, until each has torn the other into +fragments--and neither has blood or strength left." + +The two glanced at each other. + +"A good simile," said the older person. "You are right. If a strong +party rose--and a greater power chose not to interfere--the country +might see better days." He looked at him a few moments longer and then +waved his hand kindly. + +"You are a fine Samavian," he said. "I am glad of that. You may go. +Good night." + +Marco bowed respectfully and the man with the tired face led him out of +the room. + +It was just before he left him in the small quiet chamber in which he +was to sleep that the Prince gave him a final curious glance. "I +remember now," he said. "In the room, when you answered the question +about Samavia, I was sure that I had seen you before. It was the day +of the celebration. There was a break in the crowd and I saw a boy +looking at me. It was you." + +"Yes," said Marco, "I have followed you each time you have gone out +since then, but I could never get near enough to speak. To-night seemed +only one chance in a thousand." + +"You are doing your work more like a man than a boy," was the next +speech, and it was made reflectively. "No man could have behaved more +perfectly than you did just now, when discretion and composure were +necessary." Then, after a moment's pause, "He was deeply interested +and deeply pleased. Good night." + + * * * * * + +When the gardens had been thrown open the next morning and people were +passing in and out again, Marco passed out also. He was obliged to +tell himself two or three times that he had not wakened from an amazing +dream. He quickened his pace after he had crossed the street, because +he wanted to get home to the attic and talk to The Rat. There was a +narrow side-street it was necessary for him to pass through if he +wished to make a short cut. As he turned into it, he saw a curious +figure leaning on crutches against a wall. It looked damp and forlorn, +and he wondered if it could be a beggar. It was not. It was The Rat, +who suddenly saw who was approaching and swung forward. His face was +pale and haggard and he looked worn and frightened. He dragged off his +cap and spoke in a voice which was hoarse as a crow's. + +"God be thanked!" he said. "God be thanked!" as people always said it +when they received the Sign, alone. But there was a kind of anguish in +his voice as well as relief. + +"Aide-de-camp!" Marco cried out--The Rat had begged him to call him so. +"What have you been doing? How long have you been here?" + +"Ever since I left you last night," said The Rat clutching tremblingly +at his arm as if to make sure he was real. "If there was not room for +two in the hollow, there was room for one in the street. Was it my +place to go off duty and leave you alone--was it?" + +"You were out in the storm?" + +"Weren't you?" said The Rat fiercely. "I huddled against the wall as +well as I could. What did I care? Crutches don't prevent a fellow +waiting. I wouldn't have left you if you'd given me orders. And that +would have been mutiny. When you did not come out as soon as the gates +opened, I felt as if my head got on fire. How could I know what had +happened? I've not the nerve and backbone you have. I go half mad." +For a second or so Marco did not answer. But when he put his hand on +the damp sleeve, The Rat actually started, because it seemed as though +he were looking into the eyes of Stefan Loristan. + +"You look just like your father!" he exclaimed, in spite of himself. +"How tall you are!" + +"When you are near me," Marco said, in Loristan's own voice, "when you +are near me, I feel--I feel as if I were a royal prince attended by an +army. You ARE my army." And he pulled off his cap with quick +boyishness and added, "God be thanked!" + +The sun was warm in the attic window when they reached their lodging, +and the two leaned on the rough sill as Marco told his story. It took +some time to relate; and when he ended, he took an envelope from his +pocket and showed it to The Rat. It contained a flat package of money. + +"He gave it to me just before he opened the private door," Marco +explained. "And he said to me, 'It will not be long now. After +Samavia, go back to London as quickly as you can--AS QUICKLY AS YOU +CAN!'" + +"I wonder--what he meant?" The Rat said, slowly. A tremendous thought +had shot through his mind. But it was not a thought he could speak of +to Marco. + +"I cannot tell. I thought that it was for some reason he did not +expect me to know," Marco said. "We will do as he told us. As quickly +as we can." They looked over the newspapers, as they did every day. +All that could be gathered from any of them was that the opposing +armies of Samavia seemed each to have reached the culmination of +disaster and exhaustion. Which party had the power left to take any +final step which could call itself a victory, it was impossible to say. +Never had a country been in a more desperate case. + +"It is the time!" said The Rat, glowering over his map. "If the Secret +Party rises suddenly now, it can take Melzarr almost without a blow. +It can sweep through the country and disarm both armies. They're +weakened--they're half starved--they're bleeding to death; they WANT to +be disarmed. Only the Iarovitch and the Maranovitch keep on with the +struggle because each is fighting for the power to tax the people and +make slaves of them. If the Secret Party does not rise, the people +will, and they'll rush on the palaces and kill every Maranovitch and +Iarovitch they find. And serve them right!" + +"Let us spend the rest of the day in studying the road-map again," said +Marco. "To-night we must be on the way to Samavia!" + + + +XXVI + +ACROSS THE FRONTIER + +That one day, a week later, two tired and travel-worn boy-mendicants +should drag themselves with slow and weary feet across the frontier +line between Jiardasia and Samavia, was not an incident to awaken +suspicion or even to attract attention. War and hunger and anguish had +left the country stunned and broken. Since the worst had happened, no +one was curious as to what would befall them next. If Jiardasia +herself had become a foe, instead of a friendly neighbor, and had sent +across the border galloping hordes of soldiery, there would only have +been more shrieks, and home-burnings, and slaughter which no one dare +resist. But, so far, Jiardasia had remained peaceful. The two +boys--one of them on crutches--had evidently traveled far on foot. +Their poor clothes were dusty and travel-stained, and they stopped and +asked for water at the first hut across the line. The one who walked +without crutches had some coarse bread in a bag slung over his +shoulder, and they sat on the roadside and ate it as if they were +hungry. The old grandmother who lived alone in the hut sat and stared +at them without any curiosity. She may have vaguely wondered why any +one crossed into Samavia in these days. But she did not care to know +their reason. Her big son had lived in a village which belonged to the +Maranovitch and he had been called out to fight for his lords. He had +not wanted to fight and had not known what the quarrel was about, but +he was forced to obey. He had kissed his handsome wife and four sturdy +children, blubbering aloud when he left them. His village and his good +crops and his house must be left behind. Then the Iarovitch swept +through the pretty little cluster of homesteads which belonged to their +enemy. They were mad with rage because they had met with great losses +in a battle not far away, and, as they swooped through, they burned and +killed, and trampled down fields and vineyards. The old woman's son +never saw either the burned walls of his house or the bodies of his +wife and children, because he had been killed himself in the battle for +which the Iarovitch were revenging themselves. Only the old +grandmother who lived in the hut near the frontier line and stared +vacantly at the passers-by remained alive. She wearily gazed at people +and wondered why she did not hear news from her son and her +grandchildren. But that was all. + +When the boys were over the frontier and well on their way along the +roads, it was not difficult to keep out of sight if it seemed +necessary. The country was mountainous and there were deep and thick +forests by the way--forests so far-reaching and with such thick +undergrowth that full-grown men could easily have hidden themselves. +It was because of this, perhaps, that this part of the country had seen +little fighting. There was too great opportunity for secure ambush for +a foe. As the two travelers went on, they heard of burned villages and +towns destroyed, but they were towns and villages nearer Melzarr and +other fortress-defended cities, or they were in the country surrounding +the castles and estates of powerful nobles and leaders. It was true, +as Marco had said to the white-haired personage, that the Maranovitch +and Iarovitch had fought with the savageness of hyenas until at last +the forces of each side lay torn and bleeding, their strength, their +resources, their supplies exhausted. + +Each day left them weaker and more desperate. Europe looked on with +small interest in either party but with growing desire that the +disorder should end and cease to interfere with commerce. All this and +much more Marco and The Rat knew, but, as they made their cautious way +through byways of the maimed and tortured little country, they learned +other things. They learned that the stories of its beauty and +fertility were not romances. Its heaven-reaching mountains, its +immense plains of rich verdure on which flocks and herds might have fed +by thousands, its splendor of deep forest and broad clear rushing +rivers had a primeval majesty such as the first human creatures might +have found on earth in the days of the Garden of Eden. The two boys +traveled through forest and woodland when it was possible to leave the +road. It was safe to thread a way among huge trees and tall ferns and +young saplings. It was not always easy but it was safe. Sometimes +they saw a charcoal-burner's hut or a shelter where a shepherd was +hiding with the few sheep left to him. Each man they met wore the same +look of stony suffering in his face; but, when the boys begged for +bread and water, as was their habit, no one refused to share the little +he had. It soon became plain to them that they were thought to be two +young fugitives whose homes had probably been destroyed and who were +wandering about with no thought but that of finding safety until the +worst was over. That one of them traveled on crutches added to their +apparent helplessness, and that he could not speak the language of the +country made him more an object of pity. The peasants did not know +what language he spoke. Sometimes a foreigner came to find work in +this small town or that. The poor lad might have come to the country +with his father and mother and then have been caught in the whirlpool +of war and tossed out on the world parent-less. But no one asked +questions. Even in their desolation they were silent and noble people +who were too courteous for curiosity. + +"In the old days they were simple and stately and kind. All doors were +open to travelers. The master of the poorest hut uttered a blessing +and a welcome when a stranger crossed his threshold. It was the custom +of the country," Marco said. "I read about it in a book of my +father's. About most of the doors the welcome was carved in stone. It +was this--'The Blessing of the Son of God, and Rest within these +Walls.'" + +"They are big and strong," said The Rat. "And they have good faces. +They carry themselves as if they had been drilled--both men and women." + +It was not through the blood-drenched part of the unhappy land their +way led them, but they saw hunger and dread in the villages they +passed. Crops which should have fed the people had been taken from +them for the use of the army; flocks and herds had been driven away, +and faces were gaunt and gray. Those who had as yet only lost crops +and herds knew that homes and lives might be torn from them at any +moment. Only old men and women and children were left to wait for any +fate which the chances of war might deal out to them. + +When they were given food from some poor store, Marco would offer a +little money in return. He dare not excite suspicion by offering much. +He was obliged to let it be imagined that in his flight from his ruined +home he had been able to snatch at and secrete some poor hoard which +might save him from starvation. Often the women would not take what he +offered. Their journey was a hard and hungry one. They must make it +all on foot and there was little food to be found. But each of them +knew how to live on scant fare. They traveled mostly by night and +slept among the ferns and undergrowth through the day. They drank from +running brooks and bathed in them. Moss and ferns made soft and +sweet-smelling beds, and trees roofed them. Sometimes they lay long +and talked while they rested. And at length a day came when they knew +they were nearing their journey's end. + +"It is nearly over now," Marco said, after they had thrown themselves +down in the forest in the early hours of one dewy morning. "He said +'After Samavia, go back to London as quickly as you can--AS QUICKLY AS +YOU CAN.' He said it twice. As if--something were going to happen." + +"Perhaps it will happen more suddenly than we think--the thing he +meant," answered The Rat. + +Suddenly he sat up on his elbow and leaned towards Marco. + +"We are in Samavia!" he said "We two are in Samavia! And we are near +the end!" + +Marco rose on his elbow also. He was very thin as a result of hard +travel and scant feeding. His thinness made his eyes look immense and +black as pits. But they burned and were beautiful with their own fire. + +"Yes," he said, breathing quickly. "And though we do not know what the +end will be, we have obeyed orders. The Prince was next to the last +one. There is only one more. The old priest." + +"I have wanted to see him more than I have wanted to see any of the +others," The Rat said. + +"So have I," Marco answered. "His church is built on the side of this +mountain. I wonder what he will say to us." + +Both had the same reason for wanting to see him. In his youth he had +served in the monastery over the frontier--the one which, till it was +destroyed in a revolt, had treasured the five-hundred-year-old story of +the beautiful royal lad brought to be hidden among the brotherhood by +the ancient shepherd. In the monastery the memory of the Lost Prince +was as the memory of a saint. It had been told that one of the early +brothers, who was a decorator and a painter, had made a picture of him +with a faint halo shining about his head. The young acolyte who had +served there must have heard wonderful legends. But the monastery had +been burned, and the young acolyte had in later years crossed the +frontier and become the priest of a few mountaineers whose little +church clung to the mountain side. He had worked hard and faithfully +and was worshipped by his people. Only the secret Forgers of the Sword +knew that his most ardent worshippers were those with whom he prayed +and to whom he gave blessings in dark caverns under the earth, where +arms piled themselves and men with dark strong faces sat together in +the dim light and laid plans and wrought schemes. + +This Marco and The Rat did not know as they talked of their desire to +see him. + +"He may not choose to tell us anything," said Marco. "When we have +given him the Sign, he may turn away and say nothing as some of the +others did. He may have nothing to say which we should hear. Silence +may be the order for him, too." + +It would not be a long or dangerous climb to the little church on the +rock. They could sleep or rest all day and begin it at twilight. So +after they had talked of the old priest and had eaten their black +bread, they settled themselves to sleep under cover of the thick tall +ferns. + +It was a long and deep sleep which nothing disturbed. So few human +beings ever climbed the hill, except by the narrow rough path leading +to the church, that the little wild creatures had not learned to be +afraid of them. Once, during the afternoon, a hare hopping along under +the ferns to make a visit stopped by Marco's head, and, after looking +at him a few seconds with his lustrous eyes, began to nibble the ends +of his hair. He only did it from curiosity and because he wondered if +it might be a new kind of grass, but he did not like it and stopped +nibbling almost at once, after which he looked at it again, moving the +soft sensitive end of his nose rapidly for a second or so, and then +hopped away to attend to his own affairs. A very large and handsome +green stag-beetle crawled from one end of The Rat's crutches to the +other, but, having done it, he went away also. Two or three times a +bird, searching for his dinner under the ferns, was surprised to find +the two sleeping figures, but, as they lay so quietly, there seemed +nothing to be frightened about. A beautiful little field mouse running +past discovered that there were crumbs lying about and ate all she +could find on the moss. After that she crept into Marco's pocket and +found some excellent ones and had quite a feast. But she disturbed +nobody and the boys slept on. + +It was a bird's evening song which awakened them both. The bird +alighted on the branch of a tree near them and her trill was rippling +clear and sweet. The evening air had freshened and was fragrant with +hillside scents. When Marco first rolled over and opened his eyes, he +thought the most delicious thing on earth was to waken from sleep on a +hillside at evening and hear a bird singing. It seemed to make +exquisitely real to him the fact that he was in Samavia--that the Lamp +was lighted and his work was nearly done. The Rat awakened when he +did, and for a few minutes both lay on their backs without speaking. +At last Marco said, "The stars are coming out. We can begin to climb, +Aide-de-camp." + +Then they both got up and looked at each other. + +"The last one!" The Rat said. "To-morrow we shall be on our way back +to London--Number 7 Philibert Place. After all the places we've been +to--what will it look like?" + +"It will be like wakening out of a dream," said Marco. "It's not +beautiful--Philibert Place. But HE will be there," And it was as if a +light lighted itself in his face and shone through the very darkness of +it. + +And The Rat's face lighted in almost exactly the same way. And he +pulled off his cap and stood bare-headed. "We've obeyed orders," he +said. "We've not forgotten one. No one has noticed us, no one has +thought of us. We've blown through the countries as if we had been +grains of dust." + +Marco's head was bared, too, and his face was still shining. "God be +thanked!" he said. "Let us begin to climb." + +They pushed their way through the ferns and wandered in and out through +trees until they found the little path. The hill was thickly clothed +with forest and the little path was sometimes dark and steep; but they +knew that, if they followed it, they would at last come out to a place +where there were scarcely any trees at all, and on a crag they would +find the tiny church waiting for them. The priest might not be there. +They might have to wait for him, but he would be sure to come back for +morning Mass and for vespers, wheresoever he wandered between times. + +There were many stars in the sky when at last a turn of the path +showed them the church above them. It was little and built of rough +stone. It looked as if the priest himself and his scattered flock +might have broken and carried or rolled bits of the hill to put it +together. It had the small, round, mosque-like summit the Turks had +brought into Europe in centuries past. It was so tiny that it would +hold but a very small congregation--and close to it was a shed-like +house, which was of course the priest's. + +The two boys stopped on the path to look at it. + +"There is a candle burning in one of the little windows," said Marco. + +"There is a well near the door--and some one is beginning to draw +water," said The Rat, next. "It is too dark to see who it is. Listen!" + +They listened and heard the bucket descend on the chains, and splash in +the water. Then it was drawn up, and it seemed some one drank long. +Then they saw a dim figure move forward and stand still. Then they +heard a voice begin to pray aloud, as if the owner, being accustomed to +utter solitude, did not think of earthly hearers. + +"Come," Marco said. And they went forward. + +Because the stars were so many and the air so clear, the priest heard +their feet on the path, and saw them almost as soon as he heard them. +He ended his prayer and watched them coming. A lad on crutches, who +moved as lightly and easily as a bird--and a lad who, even yards away, +was noticeable for a bearing of his body which was neither haughty nor +proud but set him somehow aloof from every other lad one had ever seen. +A magnificent lad--though, as he drew near, the starlight showed his +face thin and his eyes hollow as if with fatigue or hunger. + +"And who is this one?" the old priest murmured to himself. "WHO?" + +Marco drew up before him and made a respectful reverence. Then he +lifted his black head, squared his shoulders and uttered his message +for the last time. + +"The Lamp is lighted, Father," he said. "The Lamp is lighted." + +The old priest stood quite still and gazed into his face. The next +moment he bent his head so that he could look at him closely. It +seemed almost as if he were frightened and wanted to make sure of +something. At the moment it flashed through The Rat's mind that the +old, old woman on the mountain-top had looked frightened in something +the same way. + +"I am an old man," he said. "My eyes are not good. If I had a +light"--and he glanced towards the house. + +It was The Rat who, with one whirl, swung through the door and seized +the candle. He guessed what he wanted. He held it himself so that the +flare fell on Marco's face. + +The old priest drew nearer and nearer. He gasped for breath. "You are +the son of Stefan Loristan!" he cried. "It is HIS SON who brings the +Sign." + +He fell upon his knees and hid his face in his hands. Both the boys +heard him sobbing and praying--praying and sobbing at once. + +They glanced at each other. The Rat was bursting with excitement, but +he felt a little awkward also and wondered what Marco would do. An old +fellow on his knees, crying, made a chap feel as if he didn't know what +to say. Must you comfort him or must you let him go on? + +Marco only stood quite still and looked at him with understanding and +gravity. + +"Yes, Father," he said. "I am the son of Stefan Loristan, and I have +given the Sign to all. You are the last one. The Lamp is lighted. I +could weep for gladness, too." + +The priest's tears and prayers ended. He rose to his feet--a +rugged-faced old man with long and thick white hair which fell on his +shoulders--and smiled at Marco while his eyes were still wet. + +"You have passed from one country to another with the message?" he +said. "You were under orders to say those four words?" + +"Yes, Father," answered Marco. + +"That was all? You were to say no more?" + +"I know no more. Silence has been the order since I took my oath of +allegiance when I was a child. I was not old enough to fight, or +serve, or reason about great things. All I could do was to be silent, +and to train myself to remember, and be ready when I was called. When +my father saw I was ready, he trusted me to go out and give the Sign. +He told me the four words. Nothing else." + +The old man watched him with a wondering face. + +"If Stefan Loristan does not know best," he said, "who does?" + +"He always knows," answered Marco proudly. "Always." He waved his +hand like a young king toward The Rat. He wanted each man they met to +understand the value of The Rat. "He chose for me this companion," he +added. "I have done nothing alone." + +"He let me call myself his aide-de-camp!" burst forth The Rat. "I would +be cut into inch-long strips for him." + +Marco translated. + +Then the priest looked at The Rat and slowly nodded his head. "Yes," he +said. "He knew best. He always knows best. That I see." + +"How did you know I was my father's son?" asked Marco. "You have seen +him?" + +"No," was the answer; "but I have seen a picture which is said to be +his image--and you are the picture's self. It is, indeed, a strange +thing that two of God's creatures should be so alike. There is a +purpose in it." He led them into his bare small house and made them +rest, and drink goat's milk, and eat food. As he moved about the +hut-like place, there was a mysterious and exalted look on his face. + +"You must be refreshed before we leave here," he said at last. "I am +going to take you to a place hidden in the mountains where there are +men whose hearts will leap at the sight of you. To see you will give +them new power and courage and new resolve. To-night they meet as they +or their ancestors have met for centuries, but now they are nearing the +end of their waiting. And I shall bring them the son of Stefan +Loristan, who is the Bearer of the Sign!" + +They ate the bread and cheese and drank the goat's milk he gave them, +but Marco explained that they did not need rest as they had slept all +day. They were prepared to follow him when he was ready. + +The last faint hint of twilight had died into night and the stars were +at their thickest when they set out together. The white-haired old man +took a thick knotted staff in his hand and led the way. He knew it +well, though it was a rugged and steep one with no track to mark it. +Sometimes they seemed to be walking around the mountain, sometimes they +were climbing, sometimes they dragged themselves over rocks or fallen +trees, or struggled through almost impassable thickets; more than once +they descended into ravines and, almost at the risk of their lives, +clambered and drew themselves with the aid of the undergrowth up the +other side. The Rat was called upon to use all his prowess, and +sometimes Marco and the priest helped him across obstacles with the aid +of his crutch. + +"Haven't I shown to-night whether I'm a cripple or not?" he said once +to Marco. "You can tell HIM about this, can't you? And that the +crutches helped instead of being in the way?" + +They had been out nearly two hours when they came to a place where the +undergrowth was thick and a huge tree had fallen crashing down among it +in some storm. Not far from the tree was an outcropping rock. Only +the top of it was to be seen above the heavy tangle. + +They had pushed their way through the jungle of bushes and young +saplings, led by their companion. They did not know where they would +be led next and were supposed to push forward further when the priest +stopped by the outcropping rock. He stood silent a few minutes--quite +motionless--as if he were listening to the forest and the night. But +there was utter stillness. There was not even a breeze to stir a leaf, +or a half-wakened bird to sleepily chirp. + +He struck the rock with his staff--twice, and then twice again. + +Marco and The Rat stood with bated breath. + +They did not wait long. Presently each of them found himself leaning +forward, staring with almost unbelieving eyes, not at the priest or his +staff, but at THE ROCK ITSELF! + +It was moving! Yes, it moved. The priest stepped aside and it slowly +turned, as if worked by a lever. As it turned, it gradually revealed a +chasm of darkness dimly lighted, and the priest spoke to Marco. "There +are hiding-places like this all through Samavia," he said. "Patience +and misery have waited long in them. They are the caverns of the +Forgers of the Sword. Come!" + + + +XXVII + +"IT IS THE LOST PRINCE! IT IS IVOR!" + +Many times since their journey had begun the boys had found their +hearts beating with the thrill and excitement of things. The story of +which their lives had been a part was a pulse-quickening experience. +But as they carefully made their way down the steep steps leading +seemingly into the bowels of the earth, both Marco and The Rat felt as +though the old priest must hear the thudding in their young sides. + +"'The Forgers of the Sword.' Remember every word they say," The Rat +whispered, "so that you can tell it to me afterwards. Don't forget +anything! I wish I knew Samavian." + +At the foot of the steps stood the man who was evidently the sentinel +who worked the lever that turned the rock. He was a big burly peasant +with a good watchful face, and the priest gave him a greeting and a +blessing as he took from him the lantern he held out. + +They went through a narrow and dark passage, and down some more steps, +and turned a corner into another corridor cut out of rock and earth. +It was a wider corridor, but still dark, so that Marco and The Rat had +walked some yards before their eyes became sufficiently accustomed to +the dim light to see that the walls themselves seemed made of arms +stacked closely together. + +"The Forgers of the Sword!" The Rat was unconsciously mumbling to +himself, "The Forgers of the Sword!" + +It must have taken years to cut out the rounding passage they threaded +their way through, and longer years to forge the solid, bristling +walls. But The Rat remembered the story the stranger had told his +drunken father, of the few mountain herdsmen who, in their savage grief +and wrath over the loss of their prince, had banded themselves together +with a solemn oath which had been handed down from generation to +generation. The Samavians were a long-memoried people, and the fact +that their passion must be smothered had made it burn all the more +fiercely. Five hundred years ago they had first sworn their oath; and +kings had come and gone, had died or been murdered, and dynasties had +changed, but the Forgers of the Sword had not changed or forgotten +their oath or wavered in their belief that some time--some time, even +after the long dark years--the soul of their Lost Prince would be among +them once more, and that they would kneel at the feet and kiss the +hands of him for whose body that soul had been reborn. And for the +last hundred years their number and power and their hiding places had +so increased that Samavia was at last honeycombed with them. And they +only waited, breathless,--for the Lighting of the Lamp. + +The old priest knew how breathlessly, and he knew what he was bringing +them. Marco and The Rat, in spite of their fond boy-imaginings, were +not quite old enough to know how fierce and full of flaming eagerness +the breathless waiting of savage full-grown men could be. But there +was a tense-strung thrill in knowing that they who were being led to +them were the Bearers of the Sign. The Rat went hot and cold; he +gnawed his fingers as he went. He could almost have shrieked aloud, in +the intensity of his excitement, when the old priest stopped before a +big black door! + +Marco made no sound. Excitement or danger always made him look tall +and quite pale. He looked both now. + +The priest touched the door, and it opened. + +They were looking into an immense cavern. Its walls and roof were +lined with arms--guns, swords, bayonets, javelins, daggers, pistols, +every weapon a desperate man might use. The place was full of men, who +turned towards the door when it opened. They all made obeisance to the +priest, but Marco realized almost at the same instant that they started +on seeing that he was not alone. + +They were a strange and picturesque crowd as they stood under their +canopy of weapons in the lurid torchlight. Marco saw at once that they +were men of all classes, though all were alike roughly dressed. They +were huge mountaineers, and plainsmen young and mature in years. Some +of the biggest were men with white hair but with bodies of giants, and +with determination in their strong jaws. There were many of these, +Marco saw, and in each man's eyes, whether he were young or old, glowed +a steady unconquered flame. They had been beaten so often, they had +been oppressed and robbed, but in the eyes of each one was this +unconquered flame which, throughout all the long tragedy of years had +been handed down from father to son. It was this which had gone on +through centuries, keeping its oath and forging its swords in the +caverns of the earth, and which to-day was--waiting. + +The old priest laid his hand on Marco's shoulder, and gently pushed him +before him through the crowd which parted to make way for them. He did +not stop until the two stood in the very midst of the circle, which +fell back gazing wonderingly. Marco looked up at the old man because +for several seconds he did not speak. It was plain that he did not +speak because he also was excited, and could not. He opened his lips +and his voice seemed to fail him. Then he tried again and spoke so +that all could hear--even the men at the back of the gazing circle. + +"My children," he said, "this is the son of Stefan Loristan, and he +comes to bear the Sign. My son," to Marco, "speak!" + +Then Marco understood what he wished, and also what he felt. He felt +it himself, that magnificent uplifting gladness, as he spoke, holding +his black head high and lifting his right hand. + +"The Lamp is Lighted, brothers!" he cried. "The Lamp is Lighted!" + +Then The Rat, who stood apart, watching, thought that the strange world +within the cavern had gone mad! Wild smothered cries broke forth, men +caught each other in passionate embrace, they fell upon their knees, +they clutched one another sobbing, they wrung each other's hands, they +leaped into the air. It was as if they could not bear the joy of +hearing that the end of their waiting had come at last. They rushed +upon Marco, and fell at his feet. The Rat saw big peasants kissing his +shoes, his hands, every scrap of his clothing they could seize. The +wild circle swayed and closed upon him until The Rat was afraid. He +did not know that, overpowered by this frenzy of emotion, his own +excitement was making him shake from head to foot like a leaf, and that +tears were streaming down his cheeks. The swaying crowd hid Marco from +him, and he began to fight his way towards him because his excitement +increased with fear. The ecstasy-frenzied crowd of men seemed for the +moment to have almost ceased to be sane. Marco was only a boy. They +did not know how fiercely they were pressing upon him and keeping away +the very air. + +"Don't kill him! Don't kill him!" yelled The Rat, struggling forward. +"Stand back, you fools! I'm his aide-de-camp! Let me pass!" + +And though no one understood his English, one or two suddenly +remembered they had seen him enter with the priest and so gave way. +But just then the old priest lifted his hand above the crowd, and spoke +in a voice of stern command. + +"Stand back, my children!" he cried. "Madness is not the homage you +must bring to the son of Stefan Loristan. Obey! Obey!" His voice had +a power in it that penetrated even the wildest herdsmen. The frenzied +mass swayed back and left space about Marco, whose face The Rat could +at last see. It was very white with emotion, and in his eyes there was +a look which was like awe. + +The Rat pushed forward until he stood beside him. He did not know that +he almost sobbed as he spoke. + +"I'm your aide-de-camp," he said. "I'm going to stand here! Your +father sent me! I'm under orders! I thought they'd crush you to +death." + +He glared at the circle about them as if, instead of worshippers +distraught with adoration, they had been enemies. The old priest +seeing him, touched Marco's arm. + +"Tell him he need not fear," he said. "It was only for the first few +moments. The passion of their souls drove them wild. They are your +slaves." + +"Those at the back might have pushed the front ones on until they +trampled you under foot in spite of themselves!" The Rat persisted. + +"No," said Marco. "They would have stopped if I had spoken." + + +"Why didn't you speak then?" snapped The Rat. + +"All they felt was for Samavia, and for my father," Marco said, "and +for the Sign. I felt as they did." + +The Rat was somewhat softened. It was true, after all. How could he +have tried to quell the outbursts of their worship of Loristan--of the +country he was saving for them--of the Sign which called them to +freedom? He could not. + +Then followed a strange and picturesque ceremonial. The priest went +about among the encircling crowd and spoke to one man after +another--sometimes to a group. A larger circle was formed. As the +pale old man moved about, The Rat felt as if some religious ceremony +were going to be performed. Watching it from first to last, he was +thrilled to the core. + +At the end of the cavern a block of stone had been cut out to look like +an altar. It was covered with white, and against the wall above it +hung a large picture veiled by a curtain. From the roof there swung +before it an ancient lamp of metal suspended by chains. In front of +the altar was a sort of stone dais. There the priest asked Marco to +stand, with his aide-de-camp on the lower level in attendance. A knot +of the biggest herdsmen went out and returned. Each carried a huge +sword which had perhaps been of the earliest made in the dark days gone +by. The bearers formed themselves into a line on either side of +Marco. They raised their swords and formed a pointed arch above his +head and a passage twelve men long. When the points first clashed +together The Rat struck himself hard upon his breast. His exultation +was too keen to endure. He gazed at Marco standing still--in that +curiously splendid way in which both he and his father COULD stand +still--and wondered how he could do it. He looked as if he were +prepared for any strange thing which could happen to him--because he +was "under orders." The Rat knew that he was doing whatsoever he did +merely for his father's sake. It was as if he felt that he was +representing his father, though he was a mere boy; and that because of +this, boy as he was, he must bear himself nobly and remain outwardly +undisturbed. + +At the end of the arch of swords, the old priest stood and gave a sign +to one man after another. When the sign was given to a man he walked +under the arch to the dais, and there knelt and, lifting Marco's hand +to his lips, kissed it with passionate fervor. Then he returned to the +place he had left. One after another passed up the aisle of swords, +one after another knelt, one after the other kissed the brown young +hand, rose and went away. Sometimes The Rat heard a few words which +sounded almost like a murmured prayer, sometimes he heard a sob as a +shaggy head bent, again and again he saw eyes wet with tears. Once or +twice Marco spoke a few Samavian words, and the face of the man spoken +to flamed with joy. The Rat had time to see, as Marco had seen, that +many of the faces were not those of peasants. Some of them were clear +cut and subtle and of the type of scholars or nobles. It took a long +time for them all to kneel and kiss the lad's hand, but no man omitted +the ceremony; and when at last it was at an end, a strange silence +filled the cavern. They stood and gazed at each other with burning +eyes. + +The priest moved to Marco's side, and stood near the altar. He leaned +forward and took in his hand a cord which hung from the veiled +picture--he drew it and the curtain fell apart. There seemed to stand +gazing at them from between its folds a tall kingly youth with deep +eyes in which the stars of God were stilly shining, and with a smile +wonderful to behold. Around the heavy locks of his black hair the +long dead painter of missals had set a faint glow of light like a halo. + +"Son of Stefan Loristan," the old priest said, in a shaken voice, "it +is the Lost Prince! It is Ivor!" + +Then every man in the room fell on his knees. Even the men who had +upheld the archway of swords dropped their weapons with a crash and +knelt also. He was their saint--this boy! Dead for five hundred +years, he was their saint still. + +"Ivor! Ivor!" the voices broke into a heavy murmur. "Ivor! Ivor!" as +if they chanted a litany. + +Marco started forward, staring at the picture, his breath caught in his +throat, his lips apart. + +"But--but--" he stammered, "but if my father were as young as he is--he +would be LIKE him!" + +"When you are as old as he is, YOU will be like him--YOU!" said the +priest. And he let the curtain fall. + +The Rat stood staring with wide eyes from Marco to the picture and from +the picture to Marco. And he breathed faster and faster and gnawed his +finger ends. But he did not utter a word. He could not have done it, +if he tried. + +Then Marco stepped down from the dais as if he were in a dream, and the +old man followed him. The men with swords sprang to their feet and +made their archway again with a new clash of steel. The old man and +the boy passed under it together. Now every man's eyes were fixed on +Marco. At the heavy door by which he had entered, he stopped and +turned to meet their glances. He looked very young and thin and pale, +but suddenly his father's smile was lighted in his face. He said a few +words in Samavian clearly and gravely, saluted, and passed out. + +"What did you say to them?" gasped The Rat, stumbling after him as the +door closed behind them and shut in the murmur of impassioned sound. + +"There was only one thing to say," was the answer. "They are men--I am +only a boy. I thanked them for my father, and told them he would +never--never forget." + + + +XXVIII + +"EXTRA! EXTRA! EXTRA!" + +It was raining in London--pouring. It had been raining for two weeks, +more or less, generally more. When the train from Dover drew in at +Charing Cross, the weather seemed suddenly to have considered that it +had so far been too lenient and must express itself much more +vigorously. So it had gathered together its resources and poured them +forth in a deluge which surprised even Londoners. + +The rain so beat against and streamed down the windows of the +third-class carriage in which Marco and The Rat sat that they could not +see through them. + +They had made their homeward journey much more rapidly than they had +made the one on which they had been outward bound. It had of course +taken them some time to tramp back to the frontier, but there had been +no reason for stopping anywhere after they had once reached the +railroads. They had been tired sometimes, but they had slept heavily +on the wooden seats of the railway carriages. Their one desire was to +get home. No. 7 Philibert Place rose before them in its noisy +dinginess as the one desirable spot on earth. To Marco it held his +father. And it was Loristan alone that The Rat saw when he thought of +it. Loristan as he would look when he saw him come into the room with +Marco, and stand up and salute, and say: "I have brought him back, +sir. He has carried out every single order you gave him--every single +one. So have I." So he had. He had been sent as his companion and +attendant, and he had been faithful in every thought. If Marco would +have allowed him, he would have waited upon him like a servant, and +have been proud of the service. But Marco would never let him forget +that they were only two boys and that one was of no more importance +than the other. He had secretly even felt this attitude to be a sort +of grievance. It would have been more like a game if one of them had +been the mere servitor of the other, and if that other had blustered a +little, and issued commands, and demanded sacrifices. If the faithful +vassal could have been wounded or cast into a dungeon for his young +commander's sake, the adventure would have been more complete. But +though their journey had been full of wonders and rich with beauties, +though the memory of it hung in The Rat's mind like a background of +tapestry embroidered in all the hues of the earth with all the +splendors of it, there had been no dungeons and no wounds. After the +adventure in Munich their unimportant boyishness had not even been +observed by such perils as might have threatened them. As The Rat had +said, they had "blown like grains of dust" through Europe and had been +as nothing. And this was what Loristan had planned, this was what his +grave thought had wrought out. If they had been men, they would not +have been so safe. + +From the time they had left the old priest on the hillside to begin +their journey back to the frontier, they both had been given to long +silences as they tramped side by side or lay on the moss in the +forests. Now that their work was done, a sort of reaction had set in. +There were no more plans to be made and no more uncertainties to +contemplate. They were on their way back to No. 7 Philibert +Place--Marco to his father, The Rat to the man he worshipped. Each of +them was thinking of many things. Marco was full of longing to see his +father's face and hear his voice again. He wanted to feel the pressure +of his hand on his shoulder--to be sure that he was real and not a +dream. This last was because during this homeward journey everything +that had happened often seemed to be a dream. It had all been so +wonderful--the climber standing looking down at them the morning they +awakened on the Gaisburg; the mountaineer shoemaker measuring his foot +in the small shop; the old, old woman and her noble lord; the Prince +with his face turned upward as he stood on the balcony looking at the +moon; the old priest kneeling and weeping for joy; the great cavern +with the yellow light upon the crowd of passionate faces; the curtain +which fell apart and showed the still eyes and the black hair with the +halo about it! Now that they were left behind, they all seemed like +things he had dreamed. But he had not dreamed them; he was going back +to tell his father about them. And how GOOD it would be to feel his +hand on his shoulder! + +The Rat gnawed his finger ends a great deal. His thoughts were more +wild and feverish than Marco's. They leaped forward in spite of him. +It was no use to pull himself up and tell himself that he was a fool. +Now that all was over, he had time to be as great a fool as he was +inclined to be. But how he longed to reach London and stand face to +face with Loristan! The sign was given. The Lamp was lighted. What +would happen next? His crutches were under his arms before the train +drew up. + +"We're there! We're there!" he cried restlessly to Marco. They had no +luggage to delay them. They took their bags and followed the crowd +along the platform. The rain was rattling like bullets against the +high glassed roof. People turned to look at Marco, seeing the glow of +exultant eagerness in his face. They thought he must be some boy coming +home for the holidays and going to make a visit at a place he delighted +in. The rain was dancing on the pavements when they reached the +entrance. + +"A cab won't cost much," Marco said, "and it will take us quickly." + +They called one and got into it. Each of them had flushed cheeks, and +Marco's eyes looked as if he were gazing at something a long way +off--gazing at it, and wondering. + +"We've come back!" said The Rat, in an unsteady voice. "We've +been--and we've come back!" Then suddenly turning to look at Marco, +"Does it ever seem to you as if, perhaps, it--it wasn't true?" + +"Yes," Marco answered, "but it was true. And it's done." Then he added +after a second or so of silence, just what The Rat had said to himself, +"What next?" He said it very low. + +The way to Philibert Place was not long. When they turned into the +roaring, untidy road, where the busses and drays and carts struggled +past each other with their loads, and the tired-faced people hurried in +crowds along the pavement, they looked at them all feeling that they +had left their dream far behind indeed. But they were at home. + +It was a good thing to see Lazarus open the door and stand waiting +before they had time to get out of the cab. Cabs stopped so seldom +before houses in Philibert Place that the inmates were always prompt to +open their doors. When Lazarus had seen this one stop at the broken +iron gate, he had known whom it brought. He had kept an eye on the +windows faithfully for many a day--even when he knew that it was too +soon, even if all was well, for any travelers to return. + +He bore himself with an air more than usually military and his salute +when Marco crossed the threshold was formal stateliness itself. But +his greeting burst from his heart. + +"God be thanked!" he said in his deep growl of joy. "God be thanked!" + +When Marco put forth his hand, he bent his grizzled head and kissed it +devoutly. + +"God be thanked!" he said again. + +"My father?" Marco began, "my father is out?" If he had been in the +house, he knew he would not have stayed in the back sitting-room. + +"Sir," said Lazarus, "will you come with me into his room? You, too, +sir," to The Rat. He had never said "sir" to him before. + +He opened the door of the familiar room, and the boys entered. The room +was empty. + +Marco did not speak; neither did The Rat. They both stood still in the +middle of the shabby carpet and looked up at the old soldier. Both had +suddenly the same feeling that the earth had dropped from beneath their +feet. Lazarus saw it and spoke fast and with tremor. He was almost as +agitated as they were. + +"He left me at your service--at your command"--he began. + +"Left you?" said Marco. + +"He left us, all three, under orders--to WAIT," said Lazarus. "The +Master has gone." + +The Rat felt something hot rush into his eyes. He brushed it away that +he might look at Marco's face. The shock had changed it very much. +Its glowing eager joy had died out, it had turned paler and his brows +were drawn together. For a few seconds he did not speak at all, and, +when he did speak, The Rat knew that his voice was steady only because +he willed that it should be so. + +"If he has gone," he said, "it is because he had a strong reason. It +was because he also was under orders." + +"He said that you would know that," Lazarus answered. "He was called +in such haste that he had not a moment in which to do more than write a +few words. He left them for you on his desk there." + +Marco walked over to the desk and opened the envelope which was lying +there. There were only a few lines on the sheet of paper inside and +they had evidently been written in the greatest haste. They were these: + +"The Life of my life--for Samavia." + +"He was called--to Samavia," Marco said, and the thought sent his blood +rushing through his veins. "He has gone to Samavia!" + +Lazarus drew his hand roughly across his eyes and his voice shook and +sounded hoarse. + +"There has been great disaffection in the camps of the Maranovitch," he +said. "The remnant of the army has gone mad. Sir, silence is still the +order, but who knows--who knows? God alone." + +He had not finished speaking before he turned his head as if listening +to sounds in the road. They were the kind of sounds which had broken +up The Squad, and sent it rushing down the passage into the street to +seize on a newspaper. There was to be heard a commotion of newsboys +shouting riotously some startling piece of news which had called out an +"Extra." + +The Rat heard it first and dashed to the front door. As he opened it a +newsboy running by shouted at the topmost power of his lungs the news +he had to sell: "Assassination of King Michael Maranovitch by his own +soldiers! Assassination of the Maranovitch! Extra! Extra! Extra!" + +When The Rat returned with a newspaper, Lazarus interposed between him +and Marco with great and respectful ceremony. "Sir," he said to Marco, +"I am at your command, but the Master left me with an order which I was +to repeat to you. He requested you NOT to read the newspapers until he +himself could see you again." + +Both boys fell back. + +"Not read the papers!" they exclaimed together. + +Lazarus had never before been quite so reverential and ceremonious. + +"Your pardon, sir," he said. "I may read them at your orders, and +report such things as it is well that you should know. There have been +dark tales told and there may be darker ones. He asked that you would +not read for yourself. If you meet again--when you meet again"--he +corrected himself hastily--"when you meet again, he says you will +understand. I am your servant. I will read and answer all such +questions as I can." + +The Rat handed him the paper and they returned to the back room +together. + +"You shall tell us what he would wish us to hear," Marco said. + +The news was soon told. The story was not a long one as exact details +had not yet reached London. It was briefly that the head of the +Maranovitch party had been put to death by infuriated soldiers of his +own army. It was an army drawn chiefly from a peasantry which did not +love its leaders, or wish to fight, and suffering and brutal treatment +had at last roused it to furious revolt. + +"What next?" said Marco. + +"If I were a Samavian--" began The Rat and then he stopped. + +Lazarus stood biting his lips, but staring stonily at the carpet. Not +The Rat alone but Marco also noted a grim change in him. It was grim +because it suggested that he was holding himself under an iron control. +It was as if while tortured by anxiety he had sworn not to allow +himself to look anxious and the resolve set his jaw hard and carved new +lines in his rugged face. Each boy thought this in secret, but did not +wish to put it into words. If he was anxious, he could only be so for +one reason, and each realized what the reason must be. Loristan had +gone to Samavia--to the torn and bleeding country filled with riot and +danger. If he had gone, it could only have been because its danger +called him and he went to face it at its worst. Lazarus had been left +behind to watch over them. Silence was still the order, and what he +knew he could not tell them, and perhaps he knew little more than that +a great life might be lost. + +Because his master was absent, the old soldier seemed to feel that he +must comfort himself with a greater ceremonial reverence than he had +ever shown before. He held himself within call, and at Marco's orders, +as it had been his custom to hold himself with regard to Loristan. The +ceremonious service even extended itself to The Rat, who appeared to +have taken a new place in his mind. He also seemed now to be a person +to be waited upon and replied to with dignity and formal respect. + +When the evening meal was served, Lazarus drew out Loristan's chair at +the head of the table and stood behind it with a majestic air. + +"Sir," he said to Marco, "the Master requested that you take his seat +at the table until--while he is not with you." + +Marco took the seat in silence. + + +At two o'clock in the morning, when the roaring road was still, the +light from the street lamp, shining into the small bedroom, fell on two +pale boy faces. The Rat sat up on his sofa bed in the old way with his +hands clasped round his knees. Marco lay flat on his hard pillow. +Neither of them had been to sleep and yet they had not talked a great +deal. Each had secretly guessed a good deal of what the other did not +say. + +"There is one thing we must remember," Marco had said, early in the +night. "We must not be afraid." + +"No," answered The Rat, almost fiercely, "we must not be afraid." + +"We are tired; we came back expecting to be able to tell it all to him. +We have always been looking forward to that. We never thought once +that he might be gone. And he WAS gone. Did you feel as if--" he +turned towards the sofa, "as if something had struck you on the chest?" + +"Yes," The Rat answered heavily. "Yes." + +"We weren't ready," said Marco. "He had never gone before; but we +ought to have known he might some day be--called. He went because he +was called. He told us to wait. We don't know what we are waiting +for, but we know that we must not be afraid. To let ourselves be +AFRAID would be breaking the Law." + +"The Law!" groaned The Rat, dropping his head on his hands, "I'd +forgotten about it." + +"Let us remember it," said Marco. "This is the time. 'Hate not. FEAR +not!'" He repeated the last words again and again. "Fear not! Fear +not," he said. "NOTHING can harm him." + +The Rat lifted his head, and looked at the bed sideways. + +"Did you think--" he said slowly--"did you EVER think that perhaps HE +knew where the descendant of the Lost Prince was?" + +Marco answered even more slowly. + +"If any one knew--surely he might. He has known so much," he said. + +"Listen to this!" broke forth The Rat. "I believe he has gone to TELL +the people. If he does--if he could show them--all the country would +run mad with joy. It wouldn't be only the Secret Party. All Samavia +would rise and follow any flag he chose to raise. They've prayed for +the Lost Prince for five hundred years, and if they believed they'd got +him once more, they'd fight like madmen for him. But there would not +be any one to fight. They'd ALL want the same thing! If they could +see the man with Ivor's blood in his veins, they'd feel he had come +back to them--risen from the dead. They'd believe it!" + +He beat his fists together in his frenzy of excitement. "It's the +time! It's the time!" he cried. "No man could let such a chance go +by! He MUST tell them--he MUST. That MUST be what he's gone for. He +knows--he knows--he's always known!" And he threw himself back on his +sofa and flung his arms over his face, lying there panting. + +"If it is the time," said Marco in a low, strained voice--"if it is, +and he knows--he will tell them." And he threw his arms up over his +own face and lay quite still. + +Neither of them said another word, and the street lamp shone in on them +as if it were waiting for something to happen. But nothing happened. +In time they were asleep. + + + +XXIX + +'TWIXT NIGHT AND MORNING + +After this, they waited. They did not know what they waited for, nor +could they guess even vaguely how the waiting would end. All that +Lazarus could tell them he told. He would have been willing to stand +respectfully for hours relating to Marco the story of how the period of +their absence had passed for his Master and himself. He told how +Loristan had spoken each day of his son, how he had often been pale +with anxiousness, how in the evenings he had walked to and fro in his +room, deep in thought, as he looked down unseeingly at the carpet. + +"He permitted me to talk of you, sir," Lazarus said. "I saw that he +wished to hear your name often. I reminded him of the times when you +had been so young that most children of your age would have been in the +hands of nurses, and yet you were strong and silent and sturdy and +traveled with us as if you were not a child at all--never crying when +you were tired and were not properly fed. As if you understood--as if +you understood," he added, proudly. "If, through the power of God a +creature can be a man at six years old, you were that one. Many a dark +day I have looked into your solemn, watching eyes, and have been half +afraid; because that a child should answer one's gaze so gravely seemed +almost an unearthly thing." + +"The chief thing I remember of those days," said Marco, "is that he was +with me, and that whenever I was hungry or tired, I knew he must be, +too." + +The feeling that they were "waiting" was so intense that it filled the +days with strangeness. When the postman's knock was heard at the door, +each of them endeavored not to start. A letter might some day come +which would tell them--they did not know what. But no letters came. +When they went out into the streets, they found themselves hurrying on +their way back in spite of themselves. Something might have happened. +Lazarus read the papers faithfully, and in the evening told Marco and +The Rat all the news it was "well that they should hear." But the +disorders of Samavia had ceased to occupy much space. They had become +an old story, and after the excitement of the assassination of Michael +Maranovitch had died out, there seemed to be a lull in events. +Michael's son had not dared to try to take his father's place, and +there were rumors that he also had been killed. The head of the +Iarovitch had declared himself king but had not been crowned because of +disorders in his own party. The country seemed existing in a nightmare +of suffering, famine and suspense. + +"Samavia is 'waiting' too," The Rat broke forth one night as they +talked together, "but it won't wait long--it can't. If I were a +Samavian and in Samavia--" + +"My father is a Samavian and he is in Samavia," Marco's grave young +voice interposed. + +The Rat flushed red as he realized what he had said. "What a fool I am!" +he groaned. "I--I beg your pardon--sir." He stood up when he said the last +words and added the "sir" as if he suddenly realized that there was a +distance between them which was something akin to the distance between +youth and maturity--but yet was not the same. + +"You are a good Samavian but--you forget," was Marco's answer. + +Lazarus' intense grimness increased with each day that passed. The +ceremonious respectfulness of his manner toward Marco increased also. +It seemed as if the more anxious he felt the more formal and stately +his bearing became. It was as though he braced his own courage by +doing the smallest things life in the back sitting-room required as if +they were of the dignity of services performed in a much larger place +and under much more imposing circumstances. The Rat found himself +feeling almost as if he were an equerry in a court, and that dignity +and ceremony were necessary on his own part. He began to experience a +sense of being somehow a person of rank, for whom doors were opened +grandly and who had vassals at his command. The watchful obedience of +fifty vassals embodied itself in the manner of Lazarus. + +"I am glad," The Rat said once, reflectively, "that, after all my +father was once--different. It makes it easier to learn things +perhaps. If he had not talked to me about people who--well, who had +never seen places like Bone Court--this might have been harder for me +to understand." + +When at last they managed to call The Squad together, and went to spend +a morning at the Barracks behind the churchyard, that body of armed men +stared at their commander in great and amazed uncertainty. They felt +that something had happened to him. They did not know what had +happened, but it was some experience which had made him mysteriously +different. He did not look like Marco, but in some extraordinary way +he seemed more akin to him. They only knew that some necessity in +Loristan's affairs had taken the two away from London and the Game. +Now they had come back, and they seemed older. + +At first, The Squad felt awkward and shuffled its feet uncomfortably. +After the first greetings it did not know exactly what to say. It was +Marco who saved the situation. + +"Drill us first," he said to The Rat, "then we can talk about the Game." + +"'Tention!" shouted The Rat, magnificently. And then they forgot +everything else and sprang into line. After the drill was ended, and +they sat in a circle on the broken flags, the Game became more +resplendent than it had ever been. + +"I've had time to read and work out new things," The Rat said. "Reading +is like traveling." + +Marco himself sat and listened, enthralled by the adroitness of the +imagination he displayed. Without revealing a single dangerous fact he +built up, of their journeyings and experiences, a totally new structure +of adventures which would have fired the whole being of any group of +lads. It was safe to describe places and people, and he so described +them that The Squad squirmed in its delight at feeling itself marching +in a procession attending the Emperor in Vienna; standing in line +before palaces; climbing, with knapsacks strapped tight, up precipitous +mountain roads; defending mountain-fortresses; and storming Samavian +castles. + +The Squad glowed and exulted. The Rat glowed and exulted himself. +Marco watched his sharp-featured, burning-eyed face with wonder and +admiration. This strange power of making things alive was, he knew, +what his father would call "genius." + +"Let's take the oath of 'legiance again," shouted Cad, when the Game +was over for the morning. + +"The papers never said nothin' more about the Lost Prince, but we are +all for him yet! Let's take it!" So they stood in line again, Marco +at the head, and renewed their oath. + +"The sword in my hand--for Samavia! + +"The heart in my breast--for Samavia! + +"The swiftness of my sight, the thought of my brain, the life of my +life--for Samavia. + +"Here grow twelve men--for Samavia. + +"God be thanked!" + +It was more solemn than it had been the first time. The Squad felt it +tremendously. Both Cad and Ben were conscious that thrills ran down +their spines into their boots. When Marco and The Rat left them, they +first stood at salute and then broke out into a ringing cheer. + +On their way home, The Rat asked Marco a question. + +"Did you see Mrs. Beedle standing at the top of the basement steps and +looking after us when we went out this morning?" + +Mrs. Beedle was the landlady of the lodgings at No. 7 Philibert Place. +She was a mysterious and dusty female, who lived in the "cellar +kitchen" part of the house and was seldom seen by her lodgers. + +"Yes," answered Marco, "I have seen her two or three times lately, and +I do not think I ever saw her before. My father has never seen her, +though Lazarus says she used to watch him round corners. Why is she +suddenly so curious about us?" + +"I'd like to know," said The Rat. "I've been trying to work it out. +Ever since we came back, she's been peeping round the door of the +kitchen stairs, or over balustrades, or through the cellar-kitchen +windows. I believe she wants to speak to you, and knows Lazarus won't +let her if he catches her at it. When Lazarus is about, she always +darts back." + +"What does she want to say?" said Marco. + +"I'd like to know," said The Rat again. + +When they reached No. 7 Philibert Place, they found out, because when +the door opened they saw at the top of cellar-kitchen stairs at the end +of the passage, the mysterious Mrs. Beedle, in her dusty black dress +and with a dusty black cap on, evidently having that minute mounted +from her subterranean hiding-place. She had come up the steps so +quickly that Lazarus had not yet seen her. + +"Young Master Loristan!" she called out authoritatively. Lazarus +wheeled about fiercely. + +"Silence!" he commanded. "How dare you address the young Master?" + +She snapped her fingers at him, and marched forward folding her arms +tightly. "You mind your own business," she said. "It's young Master +Loristan I'm speaking to, not his servant. It's time he was talked to +about this." + +"Silence, woman!" shouted Lazarus. + +"Let her speak," said Marco. "I want to hear. What is it you wish to +say, Madam? My father is not here." + +"That's just what I want to find out about," put in the woman. "When is +he coming back?" + +"I do not know," answered Marco. + +"That's it," said Mrs. Beedle. "You're old enough to understand that +two big lads and a big fellow like that can't have food and lodgin's +for nothing. You may say you don't live high--and you don't--but +lodgin's are lodgin's and rent is rent. If your father's coming back +and you can tell me when, I mayn't be obliged to let the rooms over +your heads; but I know too much about foreigners to let bills run when +they are out of sight. Your father's out of sight. He," jerking her +head towards Lazarus, "paid me for last week. How do I know he will +pay me for this week!" + +"The money is ready," roared Lazarus. + +The Rat longed to burst forth. He knew what people in Bone Court said +to a woman like that; he knew the exact words and phrases. But they +were not words and phrases an aide-de-camp might deliver himself of in +the presence of his superior officer; they were not words and phrases +an equerry uses at court. He dare not ALLOW himself to burst forth. +He stood with flaming eyes and a flaming face, and bit his lips till +they bled. He wanted to strike with his crutches. The son of Stefan +Loristan! The Bearer of the Sign! There sprang up before his furious +eyes the picture of the luridly lighted cavern and the frenzied crowd +of men kneeling at this same boy's feet, kissing them, kissing his +hands, his garments, the very earth he stood upon, worshipping him, +while above the altar the kingly young face looked on with the nimbus +of light like a halo above it. If he dared speak his mind now, he felt +he could have endured it better. But being an aide-de-camp he could +not. + +"Do you want the money now?" asked Marco. "It is only the beginning of +the week and we do not owe it to you until the week is over. Is it +that you want to have it now?" + +Lazarus had become deadly pale. He looked huge in his fury, and he +looked dangerous. + +"Young Master," he said slowly, in a voice as deadly as his pallor, and +he actually spoke low, "this woman--" + +Mrs. Beedle drew back towards the cellar-kitchen steps. + +"There's police outside," she shrilled. "Young Master Loristan, order +him to stand back." + +"No one will hurt you," said Marco. "If you have the money here, +Lazarus, please give it to me." + +Lazarus literally ground his teeth. But he drew himself up and saluted +with ceremony. He put his hand in his breast pocket and produced an +old leather wallet. There were but a few coins in it. He pointed to a +gold one. + +"I obey you, sir--since I must--" he said, breathing hard. "That one +will pay her for the week." + +Marco took out the sovereign and held it out to the woman. + +"You hear what he says," he said. "At the end of this week if there is +not enough to pay for the next, we will go." + +Lazarus looked so like a hyena, only held back from springing by chains +of steel, that the dusty Mrs. Beedle was afraid to take the money. + +"If you say that I shall not lose it, I'll wait until the week's +ended," she said. "You're nothing but a lad, but you're like your +father. You've got a way that a body can trust. If he was here and +said he hadn't the money but he'd have it in time, I'd wait if it was +for a month. He'd pay it if he said he would. But he's gone; and two +boys and a fellow like that one don't seem much to depend on. But I'll +trust YOU." + +"Be good enough to take it," said Marco. And he put the coin in her +hand and turned into the back sitting-room as if he did not see her. + +The Rat and Lazarus followed him. + +"Is there so little money left?" said Marco. "We have always had very +little. When we had less than usual, we lived in poorer places and +were hungry if it was necessary. We know how to go hungry. One does +not die of it." + +The big eyes under Lazarus' beetling brows filled with tears. + +"No, sir," he said, "one does not die of hunger. But the insult--the +insult! That is not endurable." + +"She would not have spoken if my father had been here," Marco said. +"And it is true that boys like us have no money. Is there enough to +pay for another week?" + +"Yes, sir," answered Lazarus, swallowing hard as if he had a lump in +his throat, "perhaps enough for two--if we eat but little. If--if the +Master would accept money from those who would give it, he would alway +have had enough. But how could such a one as he? How could he? When +he went away, he thought--he thought that--" but there he stopped +himself suddenly. + +"Never mind," said Marco. "Never mind. We will go away the day we can +pay no more." + +"I can go out and sell newspapers," said The Rat's sharp voice. + +"I've done it before. Crutches help you to sell them. The platform +would sell 'em faster still. I'll go out on the platform." + +"I can sell newspapers, too," said Marco. + +Lazarus uttered an exclamation like a groan. + +"Sir," he cried, "no, no! Am I not here to go out and look for work? +I can carry loads. I can run errands." + +"We will all three begin to see what we can do," Marco said. + +Then--exactly as had happened on the day of their return from their +journey--there arose in the road outside the sound of newsboys +shouting. This time the outcry seemed even more excited than before. +The boys were running and yelling and there seemed more of them than +usual. And above all other words was heard "Samavia! Samavia!" But +to-day The Rat did not rush to the door at the first cry. He stood +still--for several seconds they all three stood still--listening. +Afterwards each one remembered and told the others that he had stood +still because some strange, strong feeling held him WAITING as if to +hear some great thing. + + * * * * * + +It was Lazarus who went out of the room first and The Rat and Marco +followed him. + +One of the upstairs lodgers had run down in haste and opened the door +to buy newspapers and ask questions. The newsboys were wild with +excitement and danced about as they shouted. The piece of news they +were yelling had evidently a popular quality. + +The lodger bought two papers and was handing out coppers to a lad who +was talking loud and fast. + +"Here's a go!" he was saying. "A Secret Party's risen up and taken +Samavia! 'Twixt night and mornin' they done it! That there Lost +Prince descendant 'as turned up, an' they've CROWNED him--'twixt night +and mornin' they done it! Clapt 'is crown on 'is 'ead, so's they'd +lose no time." And off he bolted, shouting, "'Cendant of Lost Prince! +'Cendant of Lost Prince made King of Samavia!" + +It was then that Lazarus, forgetting even ceremony, bolted also. He +bolted back to the sitting-room, rushed in, and the door fell to behind +him. + +Marco and The Rat found it shut when, having secured a newspaper, they +went down the passage. At the closed door, Marco stopped. He did not +turn the handle. From the inside of the room there came the sound of +big convulsive sobs and passionate Samavian words of prayer and +worshipping gratitude. + +"Let us wait," Marco said, trembling a little. "He will not want any +one to see him. Let us wait." + +His black pits of eyes looked immense, and he stood at his tallest, but +he was trembling slightly from head to foot. The Rat had begun to +shake, as if from an ague. His face was scarcely human in its fierce +unboyish emotion. + +"Marco! Marco!" his whisper was a cry. "That was what he went +for--BECAUSE HE KNEW!" + +"Yes," answered Marco, "that was what he went for." And his voice was +unsteady, as his body was. + +Presently the sobs inside the room choked themselves back suddenly. +Lazarus had remembered. They had guessed he had been leaning against +the wall during his outburst. Now it was evident that he stood +upright, probably shocked at the forgetfulness of his frenzy. + +So Marco turned the handle of the door and went into the room. He shut +the door behind him, and they all three stood together. + +When the Samavian gives way to his emotions, he is emotional indeed. +Lazarus looked as if a storm had swept over him. He had choked back +his sobs, but tears still swept down his cheeks. + +"Sir," he said hoarsely, "your pardon! It was as if a convulsion +seized me. I forgot everything--even my duty. Pardon, pardon!" And +there on the worn carpet of the dingy back sitting-room in the +Marylebone Road, he actually went on one knee and kissed the boy's hand +with adoration. + +"You mustn't ask pardon," said Marco. "You have waited so long, good +friend. You have given your life as my father has. You have known all +the suffering a boy has not lived long enough to understand. Your big +heart--your faithful heart--" his voice broke and he stood and looked +at him with an appeal which seemed to ask him to remember his boyhood +and understand the rest. + +"Don't kneel," he said next. "You mustn't kneel." And Lazarus, +kissing his hand again, rose to his feet. + +"Now--we shall HEAR!" said Marco. "Now the waiting will soon be over." + +"Yes, sir. Now, we shall receive commands!" Lazarus answered. + +The Rat held out the newspapers. + +"May we read them yet?" he asked. + +"Until further orders, sir," said Lazarus hurriedly and +apologetically--"until further orders, it is still better that I should +read them first." + + + +XXX + +THE GAME IS AT AN END + +So long as the history of Europe is written and read, the unparalleled +story of the Rising of the Secret Party in Samavia will stand out as +one of its most startling and romantic records. Every detail connected +with the astonishing episode, from beginning to end, was romantic even +when it was most productive of realistic results. When it is related, +it always begins with the story of the tall and kingly Samavian youth +who walked out of the palace in the early morning sunshine singing the +herdsmen's song of beauty of old days. Then comes the outbreak of the +ruined and revolting populace; then the legend of the morning on the +mountain side, and the old shepherd coming out of his cave and finding +the apparently dead body of the beautiful young hunter. Then the +secret nursing in the cavern; then the jolting cart piled with +sheepskins crossing the frontier, and ending its journey at the barred +entrance of the monastery and leaving its mysterious burden behind. +And then the bitter hate and struggle of dynasties, and the handful of +shepherds and herdsmen meeting in their cavern and binding themselves +and their unborn sons and sons' sons by an oath never to be broken. +Then the passing of generations and the slaughter of peoples and the +changing of kings,--and always that oath remembered, and the Forgers of +the Sword, at their secret work, hidden in forests and caves. Then the +strange story of the uncrowned kings who, wandering in other lands, +lived and died in silence and seclusion, often laboring with their +hands for their daily bread, but never forgetting that they must be +kings, and ready,--even though Samavia never called. Perhaps the whole +story would fill too many volumes to admit of it ever being told fully. + +But history makes the growing of the Secret Party clear,--though it +seems almost to cease to be history, in spite of its efforts to be +brief and speak only of dull facts, when it is forced to deal with the +Bearing of the Sign by two mere boys, who, being blown as unremarked as +any two grains of dust across Europe, lit the Lamp whose flame so +flared up to the high heavens that as if from the earth itself there +sprang forth Samavians by the thousands ready to feed it--Iarovitch and +Maranovitch swept aside forever and only Samavians remaining to cry +aloud in ardent praise and worship of the God who had brought back to +them their Lost Prince. The battle-cry of his name had ended every +battle. Swords fell from hands because swords were not needed. The +Iarovitch fled in terror and dismay; the Maranovitch were nowhere to be +found. Between night and morning, as the newsboy had said, the +standard of Ivor was raised and waved from palace and citadel alike. +From mountain, forest and plain, from city, village and town, its +followers flocked to swear allegiance; broken and wounded legions +staggered along the roads to join and kneel to it; women and children +followed, weeping with joy and chanting songs of praise. The Powers +held out their scepters to the lately prostrate and ignored country. +Train-loads of food and supplies of all things needed began to cross +the frontier; the aid of nations was bestowed. Samavia, at peace to +till its land, to raise its flocks, to mine its ores, would be able to +pay all back. Samavia in past centuries had been rich enough to make +great loans, and had stored such harvests as warring countries had been +glad to call upon. The story of the crowning of the King had been the +wildest of all--the multitude of ecstatic people, famished, in rags, +and many of them weak with wounds, kneeling at his feet, praying, as +their one salvation and security, that he would go attended by them to +their bombarded and broken cathedral, and at its high altar let the +crown be placed upon his head, so that even those who perhaps must die +of their past sufferings would at least have paid their poor homage to +the King Ivor who would rule their children and bring back to Samavia +her honor and her peace. + +"Ivor! Ivor!" they chanted like a prayer,--"Ivor! Ivor!" in their +houses, by the roadside, in the streets. + +"The story of the Coronation in the shattered Cathedral, whose roof had +been torn to fragments by bombs," said an important London paper, +"reads like a legend of the Middle Ages. But, upon the whole, there is +in Samavia's national character, something of the mediaeval, still." + + +Lazarus, having bought and read in his top floor room every newspaper +recording the details which had reached London, returned to report +almost verbatim, standing erect before Marco, the eyes under his shaggy +brows sometimes flaming with exultation, sometimes filled with a rush +of tears. He could not be made to sit down. His whole big body seemed +to have become rigid with magnificence. Meeting Mrs. Beedle in the +passage, he strode by her with an air so thunderous that she turned and +scuttled back to her cellar kitchen, almost falling down the stone +steps in her nervous terror. In such a mood, he was not a person to +face without something like awe. + +In the middle of the night, The Rat suddenly spoke to Marco as if he +knew that he was awake and would hear him. + +"He has given all his life to Samavia!" he said. "When you traveled +from country to country, and lived in holes and corners, it was because +by doing it he could escape spies, and see the people who must be made +to understand. No one else could have made them listen. An emperor +would have begun to listen when he had seen his face and heard his +voice. And he could be silent, and wait for the right time to speak. +He could keep still when other men could not. He could keep his face +still--and his hands--and his eyes. Now all Samavia knows what he has +done, and that he has been the greatest patriot in the world. We both +saw what Samavians were like that night in the cavern. They will go +mad with joy when they see his face!" + +"They have seen it now," said Marco, in a low voice from his bed. + +Then there was a long silence, though it was not quite silence because +The Rat's breathing was so quick and hard. + +"He--must have been at that coronation!" he said at last. "The +King--what will the King do to--repay him?" + +Marco did not answer. His breathing could be heard also. His mind was +picturing that same coronation--the shattered, roofless cathedral, the +ruins of the ancient and magnificent high altar, the multitude of +kneeling, famine-scourged people, the battle-worn, wounded and bandaged +soldiery! And the King! And his father! Where had his father stood +when the King was crowned? Surely, he had stood at the King's right +hand, and the people had adored and acclaimed them equally! + +"King Ivor!" he murmured as if he were in a dream. "King Ivor!" + +The Rat started up on his elbow. + +"You will see him," he cried out. "He's not a dream any longer. The +Game is not a game now--and it is ended--it is won! It was real--HE was +real! Marco, I don't believe you hear." + +"Yes, I do," answered Marco, "but it is almost more a dream than when +it was one." + +"The greatest patriot in the world is like a king himself!" raved The +Rat. "If there is no bigger honor to give him, he will be made a +prince--and Commander-in-Chief--and Prime Minister! Can't you hear +those Samavians shouting, and singing, and praying? You'll see it +all! Do you remember the mountain climber who was going to save the +shoes he made for the Bearer of the Sign? He said a great day might +come when one could show them to the people. It's come! He'll show +them! I know how they'll take it!" His voice suddenly dropped--as if +it dropped into a pit. "You'll see it all. But I shall not." + +Then Marco awoke from his dream and lifted his head. "Why not?" he +demanded. It sounded like a demand. + +"Because I know better than to expect it!" The Rat groaned. "You've +taken me a long way, but you can't take me to the palace of a king. +I'm not such a fool as to think that, even if your father--" + +He broke off because Marco did more than lift his head. He sat upright. + +"You bore the Sign as much as I did," he said. "We bore it together." + +"Who would have listened to ME?" cried The Rat. "YOU were the son of +Stefan Loristan." + +"You were the friend of his son," answered Marco. "You went at the +command of Stefan Loristan. You were the ARMY of the son of Stefan +Loristan. That I have told you. Where I go, you will go. We will say +no more of this--not one word." + +And he lay down again in the silence of a prince of the blood. And The +Rat knew that he meant what he said, and that Stefan Loristan also +would mean it. And because he was a boy, he began to wonder what Mrs. +Beedle would do when she heard what had happened--what had been +happening all the time a tall, shabby "foreigner" had lived in her +dingy back sitting-room, and been closely watched lest he should go +away without paying his rent, as shabby foreigners sometimes did. The +Rat saw himself managing to poise himself very erect on his crutches +while he told her that the shabby foreigner was--well, was at least the +friend of a King, and had given him his crown--and would be made a +prince and a Commander-in-Chief--and a Prime Minister--because there +was no higher rank or honor to give him. And his son--whom she had +insulted--was Samavia's idol because he had borne the Sign. And also +that if she were in Samavia, and Marco chose to do it he could batter +her wretched lodging-house to the ground and put her in a prison--"and +serve her jolly well right!" + +The next day passed, and the next; and then there came a letter. It was +from Loristan, and Marco turned pale when Lazarus handed it to him. +Lazarus and The Rat went out of the room at once, and left him to read +it alone. It was evidently not a long letter, because it was not many +minutes before Marco called them again into the room. + +"In a few days, messengers--friends of my father's--will come to take +us to Samavia. You and I and Lazarus are to go," he said to The Rat. + +"God be thanked!" said Lazarus. "God be thanked!" + +Before the messengers came, it was the end of the week. Lazarus had +packed their few belongings, and on Saturday Mrs. Beedle was to be seen +hovering at the top of the cellar steps, when Marco and The Rat left +the back sitting-room to go out. + +"You needn't glare at me!" she said to Lazarus, who stood glowering at +the door which he had opened for them. "Young Master Loristan, I want +to know if you've heard when your father is coming back?" + +"He will not come back," said Marco. + +"He won't, won't he? Well, how about next week's rent?" said Mrs. +Beedle. "Your man's been packing up, I notice. He's not got much to +carry away, but it won't pass through that front door until I've got +what's owing me. People that can pack easy think they can get away +easy, and they'll bear watching. The week's up to-day." + +Lazarus wheeled and faced her with a furious gesture. "Get back to +your cellar, woman," he commanded. "Get back under ground and stay +there. Look at what is stopping before your miserable gate." + +A carriage was stopping--a very perfect carriage of dark brown. The +coachman and footman wore dark brown and gold liveries, and the footman +had leaped down and opened the door with respectful alacrity. "They +are friends of the Master's come to pay their respects to his son," +said Lazarus. "Are their eyes to be offended by the sight of you?" + +"Your money is safe," said Marco. "You had better leave us." + +Mrs. Beedle gave a sharp glance at the two gentlemen who had entered +the broken gate. They were of an order which did not belong to +Philibert Place. They looked as if the carriage and the dark brown and +gold liveries were every-day affairs to them. + +"At all events, they're two grown men, and not two boys without a +penny," she said. "If they're your father's friends, they'll tell me +whether my rent's safe or not." + +The two visitors were upon the threshold. They were both men of a +certain self-contained dignity of type; and when Lazarus opened wide +the door, they stepped into the shabby entrance hall as if they did not +see it. They looked past its dinginess, and past Lazarus, and The Rat, +and Mrs. Beedle--THROUGH them, as it were,--at Marco. + +He advanced towards them at once. + +"You come from my father!" he said, and gave his hand first to the +elder man, then to the younger. + +"Yes, we come from your father. I am Baron Rastka--and this is the +Count Vorversk," said the elder man, bowing. + +"If they're barons and counts, and friends of your father's, they are +well-to-do enough to be responsible for you," said Mrs. Beedle, rather +fiercely, because she was somewhat over-awed and resented the fact. +"It's a matter of next week's rent, gentlemen. I want to know where +it's coming from." + +The elder man looked at her with a swift cold glance. He did not speak +to her, but to Lazarus. "What is she doing here?" he demanded. + +Marco answered him. "She is afraid we cannot pay our rent," he said. +"It is of great importance to her that she should be sure." + +"Take her away," said the gentleman to Lazarus. He did not even glance +at her. He drew something from his coat-pocket and handed it to the +old soldier. "Take her away," he repeated. And because it seemed as if +she were not any longer a person at all, Mrs. Beedle actually shuffled +down the passage to the cellar-kitchen steps. Lazarus did not leave +her until he, too, had descended into the cellar kitchen, where he +stood and towered above her like an infuriated giant. + +"To-morrow he will be on his way to Samavia, miserable woman!" he said. +"Before he goes, it would be well for you to implore his pardon." + +But Mrs. Beedle's point of view was not his. She had recovered some of +her breath. + +"I don't know where Samavia is," she raged, as she struggled to set her +dusty, black cap straight. "I'll warrant it's one of these little +foreign countries you can scarcely see on the map--and not a decent +English town in it! He can go as soon as he likes, so long as he pays +his rent before he does it. Samavia, indeed! You talk as if he was +Buckingham Palace!" + + + +XXXI + +"THE SON OF STEFAN LORISTAN" + +When a party composed of two boys attended by a big soldierly +man-servant and accompanied by two distinguished-looking, elderly men, +of a marked foreign type, appeared on the platform of Charing Cross +Station they attracted a good deal of attention. In fact, the good +looks and strong, well-carried body of the handsome lad with the thick +black hair would have caused eyes to turn towards him even if he had +not seemed to be regarded as so special a charge by those who were with +him. But in a country where people are accustomed to seeing a certain +manner and certain forms observed in the case of persons--however +young--who are set apart by the fortune of rank and distinction, and +where the populace also rather enjoys the sight of such demeanor, it +was inevitable that more than one quick-sighted looker-on should +comment on the fact that this was not an ordinary group of individuals. + +"See that fine, big lad over there!" said a workman, whose head, with a +pipe in its mouth, stuck out of a third-class smoking carriage window. +"He's some sort of a young swell, I'll lay a shillin'! Take a look at +him," to his mate inside. + +The mate took a look. The pair were of the decent, +polytechnic-educated type, and were shrewd at observation. + +"Yes, he's some sort of young swell," he summed him up. "But he's not +English by a long chalk. He must be a young Turk, or Russian, sent +over to be educated. His suite looks like it. All but the +ferret-faced chap on crutches. Wonder what he is!" + +A good-natured looking guard was passing, and the first man hailed him. + +"Have we got any swells traveling with us this morning?" he asked, +jerking his head towards the group. "That looks like it. Any one +leaving Windsor or Sandringham to cross from Dover to-day?" + +The man looked at the group curiously for a moment and then shook his +head. + +"They do look like something or other," he answered, "but no one knows +anything about them. Everybody's safe in Buckingham Palace and +Marlborough House this week. No one either going or coming." + +No observer, it is true, could have mistaken Lazarus for an ordinary +attendant escorting an ordinary charge. If silence had not still been +strictly the order, he could not have restrained himself. As it was, +he bore himself like a grenadier, and stood by Marco as if across his +dead body alone could any one approach the lad. + +"Until we reach Melzarr," he had said with passion to the two +gentlemen,--"until I can stand before my Master and behold him embrace +his son--BEHOLD him--I implore that I may not lose sight of him night +or day. On my knees, I implore that I may travel, armed, at his side. +I am but his servant, and have no right to occupy a place in the same +carriage. But put me anywhere. I will be deaf, dumb, blind to all but +himself. Only permit me to be near enough to give my life if it is +needed. Let me say to my Master, 'I never left him.'" + +"We will find a place for you," the elder man said, "and if you are so +anxious, you may sleep across his threshold when we spend the night at +a hotel." + +"I will not sleep!" said Lazarus. "I will watch. Suppose there should +be demons of Maranovitch loose and infuriated in Europe? Who knows!" + +"The Maranovitch and Iarovitch who have not already sworn allegiance to +King Ivor are dead on battlefields. The remainder are now Fedorovitch +and praising God for their King," was the answer Baron Rastka made him. + +But Lazarus kept his guard unbroken. When he occupied the next +compartment to the one in which Marco traveled, he stood in the +corridor throughout the journey. When they descended at any point to +change trains, he followed close at the boy's heels, his fierce eyes on +every side at once and his hand on the weapon hidden in his broad +leather belt. When they stopped to rest in some city, he planted +himself in a chair by the bedroom door of his charge, and if he slept +he was not aware that nature had betrayed him into doing so. + +If the journey made by the young Bearers of the Sign had been a strange +one, this was strange by its very contrast. Throughout that +pilgrimage, two uncared-for waifs in worn clothes had traveled from one +place to another, sometimes in third- or fourth-class continental +railroad carriages, sometimes in jolting diligences, sometimes in +peasants' carts, sometimes on foot by side roads and mountain paths, +and forest ways. Now, two well-dressed boys in the charge of two men +of the class whose orders are obeyed, journeyed in compartments +reserved for them, their traveling appurtenances supplying every +comfort that luxury could provide. + +The Rat had not known that there were people who traveled in such a +manner; that wants could be so perfectly foreseen; that railroad +officials, porters at stations, the staff of restaurants, could be by +magic transformed into active and eager servants. To lean against the +upholstered back of a railway carriage and in luxurious ease look +through the window at passing beauties, and then to find books at your +elbow and excellent meals appearing at regular hours, these unknown +perfections made it necessary for him at times to pull himself together +and give all his energies to believing that he was quite awake. Awake +he was, and with much on his mind "to work out,"--so much, indeed, that +on the first day of the journey he had decided to give up the struggle, +and wait until fate made clear to him such things as he was to be +allowed to understand of the mystery of Stefan Loristan. + +What he realized most clearly was that the fact that the son of Stefan +Loristan was being escorted in private state to the country his father +had given his life's work to, was never for a moment forgotten. The +Baron Rastka and Count Vorversk were of the dignity and courteous +reserve which marks men of distinction. Marco was not a mere boy to +them, he was the son of Stefan Loristan; and they were Samavians. They +watched over him, not as Lazarus did, but with a gravity and +forethought which somehow seemed to encircle him with a rampart. +Without any air of subservience, they constituted themselves his +attendants. His comfort, his pleasure, even his entertainment, were +their private care. The Rat felt sure they intended that, if possible, +he should enjoy his journey, and that he should not be fatigued by it. +They conversed with him as The Rat had not known that men ever +conversed with boys,--until he had met Loristan. It was plain that +they knew what he would be most interested in, and that they were aware +he was as familiar with the history of Samavia as they were themselves. +When he showed a disposition to hear of events which had occurred, they +were as prompt to follow his lead as they would have been to follow the +lead of a man. That, The Rat argued with himself, was because Marco had +lived so intimately with his father that his life had been more like a +man's than a boy's and had trained him in mature thinking. He was very +quiet during the journey, and The Rat knew he was thinking all the time. + +The night before they reached Melzarr, they slept at a town some hours +distant from the capital. They arrived at midnight and went to a quiet +hotel. + +"To-morrow," said Marco, when The Rat had left him for the night, +"to-morrow, we shall see him! God be thanked!" + +"God be thanked!" said The Rat, also. And each saluted the other +before they parted. + +In the morning, Lazarus came into the bedroom with an air so solemn +that it seemed as if the garments he carried in his hands were part of +some religious ceremony. + +"I am at your command, sir," he said. "And I bring you your uniform." + +He carried, in fact, a richly decorated Samavian uniform, and the first +thing Marco had seen when he entered was that Lazarus himself was in +uniform also. His was the uniform of an officer of the King's Body +Guard. + +"The Master," he said, "asks that you wear this on your entrance to +Melzarr. I have a uniform, also, for your aide-de-camp." + +When Rastka and Vorversk appeared, they were in uniforms also. It was a +uniform which had a touch of the Orient in its picturesque splendor. A +short fur-bordered mantle hung by a jeweled chain from the shoulders, +and there was much magnificent embroidery of color and gold. + +"Sir, we must drive quickly to the station," Baron Rastka said to +Marco. "These people are excitable and patriotic, and His Majesty +wishes us to remain incognito, and avoid all chance of public +demonstration until we reach the capital." They passed rather +hurriedly through the hotel to the carriage which awaited them. The +Rat saw that something unusual was happening in the place. Servants +were scurrying round corners, and guests were coming out of their rooms +and even hanging over the balustrades. + +As Marco got into his carriage, he caught sight of a boy about his own +age who was peeping from behind a bush. Suddenly he darted away, and +they all saw him tearing down the street towards the station as fast as +his legs would carry him. + +But the horses were faster than he was. The party reached the station, +and was escorted quickly to its place in a special saloon-carriage +which awaited it. As the train made its way out of the station, Marco +saw the boy who had run before them rush on to the platform, waving his +arms and shouting something with wild delight. The people who were +standing about turned to look at him, and the next instant they had all +torn off their caps and thrown them up in the air and were shouting +also. But it was not possible to hear what they said. + +"We were only just in time," said Vorversk, and Baron Rastka nodded. + +The train went swiftly, and stopped only once before they reached +Melzarr. This was at a small station, on the platform of which stood +peasants with big baskets of garlanded flowers and evergreens. They +put them on the train, and soon both Marco and The Rat saw that +something unusual was taking place. At one time, a man standing on the +narrow outside platform of the carriage was plainly seen to be securing +garlands and handing up flags to men who worked on the roof. + +"They are doing something with Samavian flags and a lot of flowers and +green things!" cried The Rat, in excitement. + +"Sir, they are decorating the outside of the carriage," Vorversk said. +"The villagers on the line obtained permission from His Majesty. The +son of Stefan Loristan could not be allowed to pass their homes without +their doing homage." + +"I understand," said Marco, his heart thumping hard against his +uniform. "It is for my father's sake." + + +At last, embowered, garlanded, and hung with waving banners, the train +drew in at the chief station at Melzarr. + +"Sir," said Rastka, as they were entering, "will you stand up that the +people may see you? Those on the outskirts of the crowd will have the +merest glimpse, but they will never forget." + +Marco stood up. The others grouped themselves behind him. There arose +a roar of voices, which ended almost in a shriek of joy which was like +the shriek of a tempest. Then there burst forth the blare of brazen +instruments playing the National Hymn of Samavia, and mad voices joined +in it. + +If Marco had not been a strong boy, and long trained in self-control, +what he saw and heard might have been almost too much to be borne. +When the train had come to a full stop, and the door was thrown open, +even Rastka's dignified voice was unsteady as he said, "Sir, lead the +way. It is for us to follow." + +And Marco, erect in the doorway, stood for a moment, looking out upon +the roaring, acclaiming, weeping, singing and swaying multitude--and +saluted just as he had saluted The Squad, looking just as much a boy, +just as much a man, just as much a thrilling young human being. + +Then, at the sight of him standing so, it seemed as if the crowd went +mad--as the Forgers of the Sword had seemed to go mad on the night in +the cavern. The tumult rose and rose, the crowd rocked, and leapt, +and, in its frenzy of emotion, threatened to crush itself to death. +But for the lines of soldiers, there would have seemed no chance for +any one to pass through it alive. + +"I am the son of Stefan Loristan," Marco said to himself, in order to +hold himself steady. "I am on my way to my father." + +Afterward, he was moving through the line of guarding soldiers to the +entrance, where two great state-carriages stood; and there, outside, +waited even a huger and more frenzied crowd than that left behind. He +saluted there again, and again, and again, on all sides. It was what +they had seen the Emperor do in Vienna. He was not an Emperor, but he +was the son of Stefan Loristan who had brought back the King. + +"You must salute, too," he said to The Rat, when they got into the +state carriage. "Perhaps my father has told them. It seems as if they +knew you." + +The Rat had been placed beside him on the carriage seat. He was +inwardly shuddering with a rapture of exultation which was almost +anguish. The people were looking at him--shouting at him--surely it +seemed like it when he looked at the faces nearest in the crowd. +Perhaps Loristan-- + +"Listen!" said Marco suddenly, as the carriage rolled on its way. +"They are shouting to us in Samavian, 'The Bearers of the Sign!' That +is what they are saying now. 'The Bearers of the Sign.'" + +They were being taken to the Palace. That Baron Rastka and Count +Vorversk had explained in the train. His Majesty wished to receive +them. Stefan Loristan was there also. + +The city had once been noble and majestic. It was somewhat Oriental, +as its uniforms and national costumes were. There were domed and +pillared structures of white stone and marble, there were great arches, +and city gates, and churches. But many of them were half in ruins +through war, and neglect, and decay. They passed the half-unroofed +cathedral, standing in the sunshine in its great square, still in all +its disaster one of the most beautiful structures in Europe. In the +exultant crowd were still to be seen haggard faces, men with bandaged +limbs and heads or hobbling on sticks and crutches. The richly colored +native costumes were most of them worn to rags. But their wearers had +the faces of creatures plucked from despair to be lifted to heaven. + +"Ivor! Ivor!" they cried; "Ivor! Ivor!" and sobbed with rapture. + +The Palace was as wonderful in its way as the white cathedral. The +immensely wide steps of marble were guarded by soldiers. The huge +square in which it stood was filled with people whom the soldiers held +in check. + +"I am his son," Marco said to himself, as he descended from the state +carriage and began to walk up the steps which seemed so enormously wide +that they appeared almost like a street. Up he mounted, step by step, +The Rat following him. And as he turned from side to side, to salute +those who made deep obeisance as he passed, he began to realize that he +had seen their faces before. + +"These who are guarding the steps," he said, quickly under his breath +to The Rat, "are the Forgers of the Sword!" + +There were rich uniforms everywhere when he entered the palace, and +people who bowed almost to the ground as he passed. He was very young +to be confronted with such an adoring adulation and royal ceremony; +but he hoped it would not last too long, and that after he had knelt to +the King and kissed his hand, he would see his father and hear his +voice. Just to hear his voice again, and feel his hand on his shoulder! + +Through the vaulted corridors, to the wide-opened doors of a +magnificent room he was led at last. The end of it seemed a long way +off as he entered. There were many richly dressed people who stood in +line as he passed up toward the canopied dais. He felt that he had +grown pale with the strain of excitement, and he had begun to feel that +he must be walking in a dream, as on each side people bowed low and +curtsied to the ground. + +He realized vaguely that the King himself was standing, awaiting his +approach. But as he advanced, each step bearing him nearer to the +throne, the light and color about him, the strangeness and +magnificence, the wildly joyous acclamation of the populace outside the +palace, made him feel rather dazzled, and he did not clearly see any +one single face or thing. + +"His Majesty awaits you," said a voice behind him which seemed to be +Baron Rastka's. "Are you faint, sir? You look pale." + +He drew himself together, and lifted his eyes. For one full moment, +after he had so lifted them, he stood quite still and straight, looking +into the deep beauty of the royal face. Then he knelt and kissed the +hands held out to him--kissed them both with a passion of boy love and +worship. + +The King had the eyes he had longed to see--the King's hands were those +he had longed to feel again upon his shoulder--the King was his father! +the "Stefan Loristan" who had been the last of those who had waited and +labored for Samavia through five hundred years, and who had lived and +died kings, though none of them till now had worn a crown! + +His father was the King! + +It was not that night, nor the next, nor for many nights that the +telling of the story was completed. The people knew that their King +and his son were rarely separated from each other; that the Prince's +suite of apartments were connected by a private passage with his +father's. The two were bound together by an affection of singular +strength and meaning, and their love for their people added to their +feeling for each other. In the history of what their past had been, +there was a romance which swelled the emotional Samavian heart near to +bursting. By mountain fires, in huts, under the stars, in fields and +in forests, all that was known of their story was told and retold a +thousand times, with sobs of joy and prayer breaking in upon the tale. + +But none knew it as it was told in a certain quiet but stately room in +the palace, where the man once known only as "Stefan Loristan," but +whom history would call the first King Ivor of Samavia, told his share +of it to the boy whom Samavians had a strange and superstitious worship +for, because he seemed so surely their Lost Prince restored in body and +soul--almost the kingly lad in the ancient portrait--some of them half +believed when he stood in the sunshine, with the halo about his head. + +It was a wonderful and intense story, that of the long wanderings and +the close hiding of the dangerous secret. Among all those who had +known that a man who was an impassioned patriot was laboring for +Samavia, and using all the power of a great mind and the delicate +ingenuity of a great genius to gain friends and favor for his unhappy +country, there had been but one who had known that Stefan Loristan had +a claim to the Samavian throne. He had made no claim, he had +sought--not a crown--but the final freedom of the nation for which his +love had been a religion. + +"Not the crown!" he said to the two young Bearers of the Sign as they +sat at his feet like schoolboys--"not a throne. 'The Life of my +life--for Samavia.' That was what I worked for--what we have all +worked for. If there had risen a wiser man in Samavia's time of need, +it would not have been for me to remind them of their Lost Prince. I +could have stood aside. But no man arose. The crucial moment +came--and the one man who knew the secret, revealed it. Then--Samavia +called, and I answered." + +He put his hand on the thick, black hair of his boy's head. + +"There was a thing we never spoke of together," he said. "I believed +always that your mother died of her bitter fears for me and the +unending strain of them. She was very young and loving, and knew that +there was no day when we parted that we were sure of seeing each other +alive again. When she died, she begged me to promise that your boyhood +and youth should not be burdened by the knowledge she had found it so +terrible to bear. I should have kept the secret from you, even if she +had not so implored me. I had never meant that you should know the +truth until you were a man. If I had died, a certain document would +have been sent to you which would have left my task in your hands and +made my plans clear. You would have known then that you also were a +Prince Ivor, who must take up his country's burden and be ready when +Samavia called. I tried to help you to train yourself for any task. +You never failed me." + +"Your Majesty," said The Rat, "I began to work it out, and think it +must be true that night when we were with the old woman on the top of +the mountain. It was the way she looked at--at His Highness." + +"Say 'Marco,'" threw in Prince Ivor. "It's easier. He was my army, +Father." + +Stefan Loristan's grave eyes melted. + +"Say 'Marco,'" he said. "You were his army--and more--when we both +needed one. It was you who invented the Game!" + +"Thanks, Your Majesty," said The Rat, reddening scarlet. "You do me +great honor! But he would never let me wait on him when we were +traveling. He said we were nothing but two boys. I suppose that's why +it's hard to remember, at first. But my mind went on working until +sometimes I was afraid I might let something out at the wrong time. +When we went down into the cavern, and I saw the Forgers of the Sword +go mad over him--I KNEW it must be true. But I didn't dare to speak. I +knew you meant us to wait; so I waited." + +"You are a faithful friend," said the King, "and you have always obeyed +orders!" + +A great moon was sailing in the sky that night--just such a moon as +had sailed among the torn rifts of storm clouds when the Prince at +Vienna had come out upon the balcony and the boyish voice had startled +him from the darkness of the garden below. The clearer light of this +night's splendor drew them out on a balcony also--a broad balcony of +white marble which looked like snow. The pure radiance fell upon all +they saw spread before them--the lovely but half-ruined city, the great +palace square with its broken statues and arches, the splendid ghost of +the unroofed cathedral whose High Altar was bare to the sky. + +They stood and looked at it. There was a stillness in which all the +world might have ceased breathing. + +"What next?" said Prince Ivor, at last speaking quietly and low. "What +next, Father?" + +"Great things which will come, one by one," said the King, "if we hold +ourselves ready." + +Prince Ivor turned his face from the lovely, white, broken city, and +put his brown hand on his father's arm. + +"Upon the ledge that night--" he said, "Father, you remember--?" The +King was looking far away, but he bent his head: + +"Yes. That will come, too," he said. "Can you repeat it?" + +"Yes," said Ivor, "and so can the aide-de-camp. We've said it a +hundred times. We believe it's true. 'If the descendant of the Lost +Prince is brought back to rule in Samavia, he will teach his people the +Law of the One, from his throne. He will teach his son, and that son +will teach his son, and he will teach his. And through such as these, +the whole world will learn the Order and the Law.'" + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Lost Prince, by Frances Hodgson Burnett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST PRINCE *** + +***** This file should be named 384.txt or 384.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/384/ + +Produced by Charles Keller. HTML version by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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