Chapter XXVIII. "Extra! Extra! Extra!"

The Lost Prince

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

It was raining in London--pouring. It had been raining for two
weeks, more or less, generally more. When the train from Dover drew
in at Charing Cross, the weather seemed suddenly to have considered
that it had so far been too lenient and must express itself much more
vigorously. So it had gathered together its resources and poured
them forth in a deluge which surprised even Londoners.

The rain so beat against and streamed down the windows of the
third-class carriage in which Marco and The Rat sat that they could
not see through them.

They had made their homeward journey much more rapidly than they
had made the one on which they had been outward bound. It had of
course taken them some time to tramp back to the frontier, but there
had been no reason for stopping anywhere after they had once reached
the railroads. They had been tired sometimes, but they had slept
heavily on the wooden seats of the railway carriages. Their one
desire was to get home. No. 7 Philibert Place rose before them in
its noisy dinginess as the one desirable spot on earth. To Marco it
held his father. And it was Loristan alone that The Rat saw when he
thought of it. Loristan as he would look when he saw him come into
the room with Marco, and stand up and salute, and say: "I have
brought him back, sir. He has carried out every single order you
gave him--every single one. So have I." So he had. He had been
sent as his companion and attendant, and he had been faithful in
every thought. If Marco would have allowed him, he would have waited
upon him like a servant, and have been proud of the service. But
Marco would never let him forget that they were only two boys and
that one was of no more importance than the other. He had secretly
even felt this attitude to be a sort of grievance. It would have
been more like a game if one of them had been the mere servitor of
the other, and if that other had blustered a little, and issued
commands, and demanded sacrifices. If the faithful vassal could have
been wounded or cast into a dungeon for his young commander's sake,
the adventure would have been more complete. But though their
journey had been full of wonders and rich with beauties, though the
memory of it hung in The Rat's mind like a background of tapestry
embroidered in all the hues of the earth with all the splendors of
it, there had been no dungeons and no wounds. After the adventure in
Munich their unimportant boyishness had not even been observed by
such perils as might have threatened them. As The Rat had said, they
had "blown like grains of dust" through Europe and had been as
nothing. And this was what Loristan had planned, this was what his
grave thought had wrought out. If they had been men, they would not
have been so safe.

From the time they had left the old priest on the hillside to
begin their journey back to the frontier, they both had been given to
long silences as they tramped side by side or lay on the moss in the
forests. Now that their work was done, a sort of reaction had set
in. There were no more plans to be made and no more uncertainties to
contemplate. They were on their way back to No. 7 Philibert
Place--Marco to his father, The Rat to the man he worshipped. Each
of them was thinking of many things. Marco was full of longing to
see his father's face and hear his voice again. He wanted to feel
the pressure of his hand on his shoulder--to be sure that he was real
and not a dream. This last was because during this homeward journey
everything that had happened often seemed to be a dream. It had all
been so wonderful--the climber standing looking down at them the
morning they awakened on the Gaisburg; the mountaineer shoemaker
measuring his foot in the small shop; the old, old woman and her
noble lord; the Prince with his face turned upward as he stood on the
balcony looking at the moon; the old priest kneeling and weeping for
joy; the great cavern with the yellow light upon the crowd of
passionate faces; the curtain which fell apart and showed the still
eyes and the black hair with the halo about it! Now that they were
left behind, they all seemed like things he had dreamed. But he had
not dreamed them; he was going back to tell his father about them.
And how good it would be to feel his hand on his shoulder!

The Rat gnawed his finger ends a great deal. His thoughts were
more wild and feverish than Marco's. They leaped forward in spite of
him. It was no use to pull himself up and tell himself that he was a
fool. Now that all was over, he had time to be as great a fool as he
was inclined to be. But how he longed to reach London and stand face
to face with Loristan! The sign was given. The Lamp was lighted.
What would happen next? His crutches were under his arms before the
train drew up.

"We're there! We're there!" he cried restlessly to Marco. They
had no luggage to delay them. They took their bags and followed the
crowd along the platform. The rain was rattling like bullets against
the high glassed roof. People turned to look at Marco, seeing the
glow of exultant eagerness in his face. They thought he must be some
boy coming home for the holidays and going to make a visit at a place
he delighted in. The rain was dancing on the pavements when they
reached the entrance.

"A cab won't cost much," Marco said, "and it will take us
quickly."

They called one and got into it. Each of them had flushed
cheeks, and Marco's eyes looked as if he were gazing at something a
long way off--gazing at it, and wondering.

"We've come back!" said The Rat, in an unsteady voice. "We've
been--and we've come back!" Then suddenly turning to look at Marco,
"Does it ever seem to you as if, perhaps, it--it wasn't true?"

"Yes," Marco answered, "but it was true. And it's done." Then
he added after a second or so of silence, just what The Rat had said
to himself, "What next?" He said it very low.

The way to Philibert Place was not long. When they turned into
the roaring, untidy road, where the busses and drays and carts
struggled past each other with their loads, and the tired-faced
people hurried in crowds along the pavement, they looked at them all
feeling that they had left their dream far behind indeed. But they
were at home.

It was a good thing to see Lazarus open the door and stand
waiting before they had time to get out of the cab. Cabs stopped so
seldom before houses in Philibert Place that the inmates were always
prompt to open their doors. When Lazarus had seen this one stop at
the broken iron gate, he had known whom it brought. He had kept an
eye on the windows faithfully for many a day--even when he knew that
it was too soon, even if all was well, for any travelers to
return.

He bore himself with an air more than usually military and his
salute when Marco crossed the threshold was formal stateliness
itself. But his greeting burst from his heart.

"God be thanked!" he said in his deep growl of joy. "God be
thanked!"

When Marco put forth his hand, he bent his grizzled head and
kissed it devoutly.

"God be thanked!" he said again.

"My father?" Marco began, "my father is out?" If he had been in
the house, he knew he would not have stayed in the back
sitting-room.

"Sir," said Lazarus, "will you come with me into his room? You,
too, sir," to The Rat. He had never said "sir" to him before.

He opened the door of the familiar room, and the boys entered.
The room was empty.

Marco did not speak; neither did The Rat. They both stood still
in the middle of the shabby carpet and looked up at the old soldier.
Both had suddenly the same feeling that the earth had dropped from
beneath their feet. Lazarus saw it and spoke fast and with tremor.
He was almost as agitated as they were.

"He left me at your service--at your command"--he began.

"Left you?" said Marco.

"He left us, all three, under orders--to wait," said Lazarus.
"The Master has gone."

The Rat felt something hot rush into his eyes. He brushed it
away that he might look at Marco's face. The shock had changed it
very much. Its glowing eager joy had died out, it had turned paler
and his brows were drawn together. For a few seconds he did not
speak at all, and, when he did speak, The Rat knew that his voice was
steady only because he willed that it should be so.

"If he has gone," he said, "it is because he had a strong
reason. It was because he also was under orders."

"He said that you would know that," Lazarus answered. "He was
called in such haste that he had not a moment in which to do more
than write a few words. He left them for you on his desk there."

Marco walked over to the desk and opened the envelope which was
lying there. There were only a few lines on the sheet of paper
inside and they had evidently been written in the greatest haste.
They were these:

"The Life of my life--for Samavia."

"He was called--to Samavia," Marco said, and the thought sent
his blood rushing through his veins. "He has gone to Samavia!"

Lazarus drew his hand roughly across his eyes and his voice
shook and sounded hoarse.

"There has been great disaffection in the camps of the
Maranovitch," he said. "The remnant of the army has gone mad. Sir,
silence is still the order, but who knows--who knows? God alone."

He had not finished speaking before he turned his head as if
listening to sounds in the road. They were the kind of sounds which
had broken up The Squad, and sent it rushing down the passage into
the street to seize on a newspaper. There was to be heard a
commotion of newsboys shouting riotously some startling piece of news
which had called out an "Extra."

The Rat heard it first and dashed to the front door. As he
opened it a newsboy running by shouted at the topmost power of his
lungs the news he had to sell: "Assassination of King Michael
Maranovitch by his own soldiers! Assassination of the Maranovitch!
Extra! Extra! Extra!"

When The Rat returned with a newspaper, Lazarus interposed
between him and Marco with great and respectful ceremony. "Sir," he
said to Marco, "I am at your command, but the Master left me with an
order which I was to repeat to you. He requested you not to read the
newspapers until he himself could see you again."

Both boys fell back.

"Not read the papers!" they exclaimed together.

Lazarus had never before been quite so reverential and
ceremonious.

"Your pardon, sir," he said. "I may read them at your orders,
and report such things as it is well that you should know. There
have been dark tales told and there may be darker ones. He asked
that you would not read for yourself. If you meet again--when you
meet again"--he corrected himself hastily--"when you meet again, he
says you will understand. I am your servant. I will read and answer
all such questions as I can."

The Rat handed him the paper and they returned to the back room
together.

"You shall tell us what he would wish us to hear," Marco
said.

The news was soon told. The story was not a long one as exact
details had not yet reached London. It was briefly that the head of
the Maranovitch party had been put to death by infuriated soldiers of
his own army. It was an army drawn chiefly from a peasantry which
did not love its leaders, or wish to fight, and suffering and brutal
treatment had at last roused it to furious revolt.

"What next?" said Marco.

"If I were a Samavian--" began The Rat and then he stopped.

Lazarus stood biting his lips, but staring stonily at the
carpet. Not The Rat alone but Marco also noted a grim change in him.
It was grim because it suggested that he was holding himself under
an iron control. It was as if while tortured by anxiety he had sworn
not to allow himself to look anxious and the resolve set his jaw hard
and carved new lines in his rugged face. Each boy thought this in
secret, but did not wish to put it into words. If he was anxious, he
could only be so for one reason, and each realized what the reason
must be. Loristan had gone to Samavia--to the torn and bleeding
country filled with riot and danger. If he had gone, it could only
have been because its danger called him and he went to face it at its
worst. Lazarus had been left behind to watch over them. Silence was
still the order, and what he knew he could not tell them, and perhaps
he knew little more than that a great life might be lost.

Because his master was absent, the old soldier seemed to feel
that he must comfort himself with a greater ceremonial reverance than
he had ever shown before. He held himself within call, and at
Marco's orders, as it had been his custom to hold himself with regard
to Loristan. The ceremonious service even extended itself to The
Rat, who appeared to have taken a new place in his mind. He also
seemed now to be a person to be waited upon and replied to with
dignity and formal respect.

When the evening meal was served, Lazarus drew out Loristan's
chair at the head of the table and stood behind it with a majestic
air.

"Sir," he said to Marco, "the Master requested that you take his
seat at the table until--while he is not with you."

Marco took the seat in silence.

At two o'clock in the morning, when the roaring road was still,
the light from the street lamp, shining into the small bedroom, fell
on two pale boy faces. The Rat sat up on his sofa bed in the old way
with his hands clasped round his knees. Marco lay flat on his hard
pillow. Neither of them had been to sleep and yet they had not
talked a great deal. Each had secretly guessed a good deal of what
the other did not say.

"There is one thing we must remember," Marco had said, early in
the night. "We must not be afraid."

"No," answered The Rat, almost fiercely, "we must not be
afraid."

"We are tired; we came back expecting to be able to tell it all
to him. We have always been looking forward to that. We never
thought once that he might be gone. And he was gone. Did you feel
as if--" he turned towards the sofa, "as if something had struck you
on the chest?"

"Yes," The Rat answered heavily. "Yes."

"We weren't ready," said Marco. "He had never gone before; but
we ought to have known he might some day be--called. He went because
he was called. He told us to wait. We don't know what we are
waiting for, but we know that we must not be afraid. To let
ourselves be afraid would be breaking the Law."

"The Law!" groaned The Rat, dropping his head on his hands, "I'd
forgotten about it."

"Let us remember it," said Marco. "This is the time. `Hate
not. Fear not!' " He repeated the last words again and again.
"Fear not! Fear not," he said. "Nothing can harm him."

The Rat lifted his head, and looked at the bed sideways.

"Did you think--" he said slowly--"did you ever think that
perhaps he knew where the descendant of the Lost Prince was?"

Marco answered even more slowly.

"If any one knew--surely he might. He has known so much," he
said.

"Listen to this!" broke forth The Rat. "I believe he has gone
to tell the people. If he does--if he could show them--all the
country would run mad with joy. It wouldn't be only the Secret
Party. All Samavia would rise and follow any flag he chose to raise.
They've prayed for the Lost Prince for five hundred years, and if
they believed they'd got him once more, they'd fight like madmen for
him. But there would not be any one to fight. They'd all want the
same thing! If they could see the man with Ivor's blood in his
veins, they'd feel he had come back to them--risen from the dead.
They'd believe it!"

He beat his fists together in his frenzy of excitement. "It's
the time! It's the time!" he cried. "No man could let such a chance
go by! He must tell them--he must. That must be what he's gone for.
He knows --he knows--he's always known!" And he threw himself back
on his sofa and flung his arms over his face, lying there panting.

"If it is the time," said Marco in a low, strained voice--"if it
is, and he knows--he will tell them." And he threw his arms up over
his own face and lay quite still.

Neither of them said another word, and the street lamp shone in
on them as if it were waiting for something to happen. But nothing
happened. In time they were asleep.