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.
