Chapter XXVI. Across the Frontier

The Lost Prince

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

That one day, a week later, two tired and travel- worn
boy-mendicants should drag themselves with slow and weary feet across
the frontier line between Jiardasia and Samavia, was not an incident
to awaken suspicion or even to attract attention. War and hunger and
anguish had left the country stunned and broken. Since the worst had
happened, no one was curious as to what would befall them next. If
Jiardasia herself had become a foe, instead of a friendly neighbor,
and had sent across the border galloping hordes of soldiery, there
would only have been more shrieks, and home-burnings, and slaughter
which no one dare resist. But, so far, Jiardasia had remained
peaceful. The two boys--one of them on crutches--had evidently
traveled far on foot. Their poor clothes were dusty and
travel-stained, and they stopped and asked for water at the first hut
across the line. The one who walked without crutches had some coarse
bread in a bag slung over his shoulder, and they sat on the roadside
and ate it as if they were hungry. The old grandmother who lived
alone in the hut sat and stared at them without any curiosity. She
may have vaguely wondered why any one crossed into Samavia in these
days. But she did not care to know their reason. Her big son had
lived in a village which belonged to the Maranovitch and he had been
called out to fight for his lords. He had not wanted to fight and
had not known what the quarrel was about, but he was forced to obey.
He had kissed his handsome wife and four sturdy children, blubbering
aloud when he left them. His village and his good crops and his
house must be left behind. Then the Iarovitch swept through the
pretty little cluster of homesteads which belonged to their enemy.
They were mad with rage because they had met with great losses in a
battle not far away, and, as they swooped through, they burned and
killed, and trampled down fields and vineyards. The old woman's son
never saw either the burned walls of his house or the bodies of his
wife and children, because he had been killed himself in the battle
for which the Iarovitch were revenging themselves. Only the old
grandmother who lived in the hut near the frontier line and stared
vacantly at the passers-by remained alive. She wearily gazed at
people and wondered why she did not hear news from her son and her
grandchildren. But that was all.

When the boys were over the frontier and well on their way along
the roads, it was not difficult to keep out of sight if it seemed
necessary. The country was mountainous and there were deep and thick
forests by the way--forests so far-reaching and with such thick
undergrowth that full-grown men could easily have hidden themselves.
It was because of this, perhaps, that this part of the country had
seen little fighting. There was too great opportunity for secure
ambush for a foe. As the two travelers went on, they heard of burned
villages and towns destroyed, but they were towns and villages
nearer Melzarr and other fortress-defended cities, or they were in
the country surrounding the castles and estates of powerful nobles
and leaders. It was true, as Marco had said to the white-haired
personage, that the Maranovitch and Iarovitch had fought with the
savageness of hyenas until at last the forces of each side lay torn
and bleeding, their strength, their resources, their supplies
exhausted.

Each day left them weaker and more desperate. Europe looked on
with small interest in either party but with growing desire that the
disorder should end and cease to interfere with commerce. All this
and much more Marco and The Rat knew, but, as they made their
cautious way through byways of the maimed and tortured little
country, they learned other things. They learned that the stories of
its beauty and fertility were not romances. Its heaven-reaching
mountains, its immense plains of rich verdure on which flocks and
herds might have fed by thousands, its splendor of deep forest and
broad clear rushing rivers had a primeval majesty such as the first
human creatures might have found on earth in the days of the Garden
of Eden. The two boys traveled through forest and woodland when it
was possible to leave the road. It was safe to thread a way among
huge trees and tall ferns and young saplings. It was not always easy
but it was safe. Sometimes they saw a charcoal-burner's hut or a
shelter where a shepherd was hiding with the few sheep left to him.
Each man they met wore the same look of stony suffering in his face;
but, when the boys begged for bread and water, as was their habit, no
one refused to share the little he had. It soon became plain to them
that they were thought to be two young fugitives whose homes had
probably been destroyed and who were wandering about with no thought
but that of finding safety until the worst was over. That one of
them traveled on crutches added to their apparent helplessness, and
that he could not speak the language of the country made him more an
object of pity. The peasants did not know what language he spoke.
Sometimes a foreigner came to find work in this small town or that.
The poor lad might have come to the country with his father and
mother and then have been caught in the whirlpool of war and tossed
out on the world parent-less. But no one asked questions. Even in
their desolation they were silent and noble people who were too
courteous for curiosity.

"In the old days they were simple and stately and kind. All
doors were open to travelers. The master of the poorest hut uttered
a blessing and a welcome when a stranger crossed his threshold. It
was the custom of the country," Marco said. "I read about it in a
book of my father's. About most of the doors the welcome was carved
in stone. It was this--`The Blessing of the Son of God, and Rest
within these Walls.' "

"They are big and strong," said The Rat. "And they have good
faces. They carry themselves as if they had been drilled--both men
and women."

It was not through the blood-drenched part of the unhappy land
their way led them, but they saw hunger and dread in the villages
they passed. Crops which should have fed the people had been taken
from them for the use of the army; flocks and herds had been driven
away, and faces were gaunt and gray. Those who had as yet only lost
crops and herds knew that homes and lives might be torn from them at
any moment. Only old men and women and children were left to wait
for any fate which the chances of war might deal out to them.

When they were given food from some poor store, Marco would
offer a little money in return. He dare not excite suspicion by
offering much. He was obliged to let it be imagined that in his
flight from his ruined home he had been able to snatch at and secrete
some poor hoard which might save him from starvation. Often the
women would not take what he offered. Their journey was a hard and
hungry one. They must make it all on foot and there was little food
to be found. But each of them knew how to live on scant fare. They
traveled mostly by night and slept among the ferns and undergrowth
through the day. They drank from running brooks and bathed in them.
Moss and ferns made soft and sweet-smelling beds, and trees roofed
them. Sometimes they lay long and talked while they rested. And at
length a day came when they knew they were nearing their journey's
end.

"It is nearly over now," Marco said, after they had thrown
themselves down in the forest in the early hours of one dewy morning.
"He said `After Samavia, go back to London as quickly as you can
--as quickly as you can.' He said it twice. As if--something were
going to happen."

"Perhaps it will happen more suddenly than we think--the thing
he meant," answered The Rat.

Suddenly he sat up on his elbow and leaned towards Marco.

"We are in Samavia!" he said "We two are in Samavia! And we are
near the end!"

Marco rose on his elbow also. He was very thin as a result of
hard travel and scant feeding. His thinness made his eyes look
immense and black as pits. But they burned and were beautiful with
their own fire.

"Yes," he said, breathing quickly. "And though we do not know
what the end will be, we have obeyed orders. The Prince was next to
the last one. There is only one more. The old priest."

"I have wanted to see him more than I have wanted to see any of
the others," The Rat said.

"So have I," Marco answered. "His church is built on the side
of this mountain. I wonder what he will say to us."

Both had the same reason for wanting to see him. In his youth
he had served in the monastery over the frontier--the one which, till
it was destroyed in a revolt, had treasured the five-hundred-year-old
story of the beautiful royal lad brought to be hidden among the
brotherhood by the ancient shepherd. In the monastery the memory of
the Lost Prince was as the memory of a saint. It had been told that
one of the early brothers, who was a decorator and a painter, had
made a picture of him with a faint halo shining about his head. The
young acolyte who had served there must have heard wonderful legends.
But the monastery had been burned, and the young acolyte had in
later years crossed the frontier and become the priest of a few
mountaineers whose little church clung to the mountain side. He had
worked hard and faithfully and was worshipped by his people. Only
the secret Forgers of the Sword knew that his most ardent
worshippers were those with whom he prayed and to whom he gave
blessings in dark caverns under the earth, where arms piled
themselves and men with dark strong faces sat together in the dim
light and laid plans and wrought schemes.

This Marco and The Rat did not know as they talked of their
desire to see him.

"He may not choose to tell us anything," said Marco. "When we
have given him the Sign, he may turn away and say nothing as some of
the others did. He may have nothing to say which we should hear.
Silence may be the order for him, too."

It would not be a long or dangerous climb to the little church
on the rock. They could sleep or rest all day and begin it at
twilight. So after they had talked of the old priest and had eaten
their black bread, they settled themselves to sleep under cover of
the thick tall ferns.

It was a long and deep sleep which nothing disturbed. So few
human beings ever climbed the hill, except by the narrow rough path
leading to the church, that the little wild creatures had not learned
to be afraid of them. Once, during the afternoon, a hare hopping
along under the ferns to make a visit stopped by Marco's head, and,
after looking at him a few seconds with his lustrous eyes, began to
nibble the ends of his hair. He only did it from curiosity and
because he wondered if it might be a new kind of grass, but he did
not like it and stopped nibbling almost at once, after which he
looked at it again, moving the soft sensitive end of his nose rapidly
for a second or so, and then hopped away to attend to his own
affairs. A very large and handsome green stag-beetle crawled from
one end of The Rat's crutches to the other, but, having done it, he
went away also. Two or three times a bird, searching for his dinner
under the ferns, was surprised to find the two sleeping figures, but,
as they lay so quietly, there seemed nothing to be frightened about.
A beautiful little field mouse running past discovered that there
were crumbs lying about and ate all she could find on the moss.
After that she crept into Marco's pocket and found some excellent
ones and had quite a feast. But she disturbed nobody and the boys
slept on.

It was a bird's evening song which awakened them both. The bird
alighted on the branch of a tree near them and her trill was rippling
clear and sweet. The evening air had freshened and was fragrant with
hillside scents. When Marco first rolled over and opened his eyes,
he thought the most delicious thing on earth was to waken from sleep
on a hillside at evening and hear a bird singing. It seemed to make
exquisitely real to him the fact that he was in Samavia--that the
Lamp was lighted and his work was nearly done. The Rat awakened when
he did, and for a few minutes both lay on their backs without
speaking. At last Marco said, "The stars are coming out. We can
begin to climb, Aide-de-camp."

Then they both got up and looked at each other.

"The last one!" The Rat said. "To-morrow we shall be on our way
back to London--Number 7 Philibert Place. After all the places we've
been to--what will it look like?"

"It will be like wakening out of a dream," said Marco. "It's
not beautiful--Philibert Place. But he will be there," And it was as
if a light lighted itself in his face and shone through the very
darkness of it.

And The Rat's face lighted in almost exactly the same way. And
he pulled off his cap and stood bare-headed. "We've obeyed orders,"
he said. "We've not forgotten one. No one has noticed us, no one
has thought of us. We've blown through the countries as if we had
been grains of dust."

Marco's head was bared, too, and his face was still shining.
"God be thanked!" he said. "Let us begin to climb."

They pushed their way through the ferns and wandered in and out
through trees until they found the little path. The hill was thickly
clothed with forest and the little path was sometimes dark and steep;
but they knew that, if they followed it, they would at last come out
to a place where there were scarcely any trees at all, and on a crag
they would find the tiny church waiting for them. The priest might
not be there. They might have to wait for him, but he would be sure
to come back for morning Mass and for vespers, wheresoever he
wandered between times.

There were many stars in the sky when at last a turn of the
path showed them the church above them. It was little and built of
rough stone. It looked as if the priest himself and his scattered
flock might have broken and carried or rolled bits of the hill to put
it together. It had the small, round, mosque-like summit the Turks
had brought into Europe in centuries past. It was so tiny that it
would hold but a very small congregation--and close to it was a
shed-like house, which was of course the priest's.

The two boys stopped on the path to look at it.

"There is a candle burning in one of the little windows," said
Marco.

"There is a well near the door--and some one is beginning to
draw water," said The Rat, next. "It is too dark to see who it is.
Listen!"

They listened and heard the bucket descend on the chains, and
splash in the water. Then it was drawn up, and it seemed some one
drank long. Then they saw a dim figure move forward and stand still.
Then they heard a voice begin to pray aloud, as if the owner, being
accustomed to utter solitude, did not think of earthly hearers.

"Come," Marco said. And they went forward.

Because the stars were so many and the air so clear, the priest
heard their feet on the path, and saw them almost as soon as he heard
them. He ended his prayer and watched them coming. A lad on
crutches, who moved as lightly and easily as a bird--and a lad who,
even yards away, was noticeable for a bearing of his body which was
neither haughty nor proud but set him somehow aloof from every other
lad one had ever seen. A magnificent lad--though, as he drew near,
the starlight showed his face thin and his eyes hollow as if with
fatigue or hunger.

"And who is this one?" the old priest murmured to himself.
"Who?"

Marco drew up before him and made a respectful reverence. Then
he lifted his black head, squared his shoulders and uttered his
message for the last time.

"The Lamp is lighted, Father," he said. "The Lamp is
lighted."

The old priest stood quite still and gazed into his face. The
next moment he bent his head so that he could look at him closely.
It

seemed almost as if he were frightened and wanted to make sure
of something. At the moment it flashed through The Rat's mind that
the old, old woman on the mountain-top had looked frightened in
something the same way.

"I am an old man," he said. "My eyes are not good. If I had a
light"--and he glanced towards the house.

It was The Rat who, with one whirl, swung through the door and
seized the candle. He guessed what he wanted. He held it himself so
that the flare fell on Marco's face.

The old priest drew nearer and nearer. He gasped for breath.
"You are the son of Stefan Loristan!" he cried. "It is his son who
brings the Sign."

He fell upon his knees and hid his face in his hands. Both the
boys heard him sobbing and praying--praying and sobbing at once.

They glanced at each other. The Rat was bursting with
excitement, but he felt a little awkward also and wondered what Marco
would do. An old fellow on his knees, crying, made a chap feel as if
he didn't know what to say. Must you comfort him or must you let him
go on?

Marco only stood quite still and looked at him with
understanding and gravity.

"Yes, Father, he said. "I am the son of Stefan Loristan, and I
have given the Sign to all. You are the last one. The Lamp is
lighted. I could weep for gladness, too."

The priest's tears and prayers ended. He rose to his feet--a
rugged-faced old man with long and thick white hair which fell on his
shoulders--and smiled at Marco while his eyes were still wet.

"You have passed from one country to another with the message?"
he said. "You were under orders to say those four words?"

"Yes, Father," answered Marco.

"That was all? You were to say no more?"

"I know no more. Silence has been the order since I took my
oath of allegiance when I was a child. I was not old enough to
fight, or serve, or reason about great things. All I could do was to
be silent, and to train myself to remember, and be ready when I was
called. When my father saw I was ready, he trusted me to go out and
give the Sign. He told me the four words. Nothing else."

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 let me call myself his aide-de-camp!" burst forth The Rat.
"I would be cut into inch-long strips for him."

Marco translated.

Then the priest looked at The Rat and slowly nodded his head.
"Yes," he said. "He knew best. He always knows best. That I
see."

"How did you know I was my father's son?" asked Marco. "You
have seen him?"

"No," was the answer; "but I have seen a picture which is said
to be his image--and you are the picture's self. It is, indeed, a
strange thing that two of God's creatures should be so alike. There
is a purpose in it." He led them into his bare small house and made
them rest, and drink goat's milk, and eat food. As he moved about
the hut-like place, there was a mysterious and exalted look on his
face.

"You must be refreshed before we leave here," he said at last.
"I am going to take you to a place hidden in the mountains where
there are men whose hearts will leap at the sight of you. To see you
will give them new power and courage and new resolve. To- night they
meet as they or their ancestors have met for centuries, but now they
are nearing the end of their waiting. And I shall bring them the son
of Stefan Loristan, who is the Bearer of the Sign!"

They ate the bread and cheese and drank the goat's milk he gave
them, but Marco explained that they did not need rest as they had
slept all day. They were prepared to follow him when he was
ready.

The last faint hint of twilight had died into night and the
stars were at their thickest when they set out together. The
white-haired old man took a thick knotted staff in his hand and led
the way. He knew it well, though it was a rugged and steep one with
no track to mark it. Sometimes they seemed to be walking around the
mountain, sometimes they were climbing, sometimes they dragged
themselves over rocks or fallen trees, or struggled through almost
impassable thickets; more than once they descended into ravines and,
almost at the risk of their lives, clambered and drew themselves with
the aid of the undergrowth up the other side. The Rat was called
upon to use all his prowess, and sometimes Marco and the priest
helped him across obstacles with the aid of his crutch.

"Haven't I shown to-night whether I'm a cripple or not?" he said
once to Marco. "You can tell him about this, can't you? And that
the crutches helped instead of being in the way?"

They had been out nearly two hours when they came to a place
where the undergrowth was thick and a huge tree had fallen crashing
down among it in some storm. Not far from the tree was an
outcropping rock. Only the top of it was to be seen above the heavy
tangle.

They had pushed their way through the jungle of bushes and young
saplings, led by their companion. They did not know where they would
be led next and were supposed to push forward further when the priest
stopped by the outcropping rock. He stood silent a few
minutes--quite motionless--as if he were listening to the forest and
the night. But there was utter stillness. There was not even a
breeze to stir a leaf, or a half-wakened bird to sleepily chirp.

He struck the rock with his staff--twice, and then twice
again.

Marco and The Rat stood with bated breath.

They did not wait long. Presently each of them found himself
leaning forward, staring with almost unbelieving eyes, not at the
priest or his staff, but at the rock itself!

It was moving! Yes, it moved. The priest stepped aside and it
slowly turned, as if worked by a lever. As it turned, it gradually
revealed a chasm of darkness dimly lighted, and the priest spoke to
Marco. "There are hiding-places like this all through Samavia," he
said. "Patience and misery have waited long in them. They are the
caverns of the Forgers of the Sword. Come!"