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

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,