The Lost Prince - Frances Hodgson Burnett (early readers TXT) 📗

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 heart 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. Tonight 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. “Tonight 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