The Lost Prince

F >> Francis Hodgson Burnett >> The Lost Prince


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.