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Updated: September 15, 2025
The old man watched him with a wondering face. "If Stefan Loristan does not know best," he said, "who does?" "He always knows," answered Marco proudly. "Always." He waved his hand like a young king toward The Rat. He wanted each man they met to understand the value of The Rat. "He chose for me this companion," he added. "I have done nothing alone."
He looked down at the chalk map drawn on the flagstones. "You know that map well," he said. "Even I can see that it is Samavia. What is the Secret Party doing?" "The messengers are trying to find a way in," answered Marco. "We can get in there," said The Rat, pointing with a crutch. "There's a forest where we could hide and find out things." "Reconnoiter," said Loristan, looking down. "Yes.
Did I not?" He was so eager that he looked more like a boy than ever. But his young strength and courage were splendid to see. Loristan knew him through and through and read every boyish thought of his. "Yes," he answered slowly. "You did your part and now if I drew back you would feel that I had failed you failed you." "You!" Marco breathed it proudly.
He is busy, and I must not disturb him." Lazarus was patching an old coat as he often patched things even shoes sometimes. When Marco spoke, he stood up at once to answer him. He was very obstinate and particular about certain forms of manner. Nothing would have obliged him to remain seated when Loristan or Marco was near him.
Marco was quite a little fellow at the time, but he understood the solemnity of them, and felt that he was being honored as if he were a man. "When you are a man, you shall know all you wish to know," Loristan said. "Now you are a child, and your mind must not be burdened. But you must do your part. A child sometimes forgets that words may be dangerous. You must promise never to forget this.
"I believe that is true," answered Loristan. He was pale that night and there was a shadow on his face. His eyes held a great longing as they rested on Marco. It was a yearning which had a sort of dread in it. Lazarus also did not seem quite himself. He was red instead of pale, and his movements were uncertain and restless.
The King had the eyes he had longed to see the King's hands were those he had longed to feel again upon his shoulder the King was his father! the "Stefan Loristan" who had been the last of those who had waited and labored for Samavia through five hundred years, and who had lived and died kings, though none of them till now had worn a crown! His father was the King!
There is only one man in the world who has the right to the throne and I don't know whether he is in the world or not. But I believe he is! I do!" Loristan looked at his hot twelve-year-old face with a reflective curiousness. He saw that the flame which had leaped up in him had leaped without warning just as a fierce heart-beat might have shaken him. "You mean ?" he suggested softly.
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!"
And the handsome eyes held their keen look of questioning. "He'd be a brave soldier if he could stand," said Marco, thinking him over. "But he might be cruel." "A lad who might make a brave soldier cannot be disdained, but a man who is cruel is a fool. Tell him that from me," Loristan answered. "He wastes force his own and the force of the one he treats cruelly. Only a fool wastes force."
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