The Lost Prince

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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.'"