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Updated: June 18, 2025
But none knew it as it was told in a certain quiet but stately room in the palace, where the man once known only as "Stefan Loristan," but whom history would call the first King Ivor of Samavia, told his share of it to the boy whom Samavians had a strange and superstitious worship for, because he seemed so surely their Lost Prince restored in body and soul almost the kingly lad in the ancient portrait some of them half believed when he stood in the sunshine, with the halo about his head.
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.
And his son whom she had insulted was Samavia's idol because he had borne the Sign. And also that if she were in Samavia, and Marco chose to do it he could batter her wretched lodging-house to the ground and put her in a prison "and serve her jolly well right!" The next day passed, and the next; and then there came a letter.
If it's cold weather, it's bad enough but if it's fine weather, it's better than sleeping in the kind of place I'm used to. Comrade," to Marco, "are you ready?" He said "Comrade" as Loristan did, and somehow Marco did not resent it, because he was ready to labor for Samavia. It was only a game, but it made them comrades and was it really only a game, after all?
"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 grows a man for Samavia. "God be thanked!" Then Loristan put his hand on the child's shoulder, and his dark face looked almost fiercely proud. "From this hour," he said, "you and I are comrades at arms."
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.
"It is because they know he is a patriot, and patriots are respected," the boy had told himself. He himself wished to be a patriot, though he had never seen his own country of Samavia. He knew it well, however. His father had talked to him about it ever since that day when he had made the promises.
It must be something connected with the war, if a man who was a great diplomat and the companion of kings came in secret to talk alone with a patriot who was a Samavian. Whatever his father was doing was for the good of Samavia, and perhaps the Secret Party knew he was doing it. His heart almost beat aloud under his shirt as he lay on the lumpy mattress thinking it over.
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.
Some one must go and walk on the opposite side of the street until he appears. Then the one who goes to give warning must cross the pavement before him and say in a low voice, 'The Lamp is lighted! and at once turn quietly away." What boy's heart would not have leaped with joy at the mystery of it! Even a common and dull boy who knew nothing of Samavia would have felt jerky.
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