The Frances Hodgson Burnett MEGAPACK ®. Frances Hodgson Burnett

of Samavia had ceased to occupy much space. They had become an old story, and after the excitement of the assassination of Michael Maranovitch had died out, there seemed to be a lull in events. Michael’s son had not dared to try to take his father’s place, and there were rumors that he also had been killed. The head of the Iarovitch had declared himself king but had not been crowned because of disorders in his own party. The country seemed existing in a nightmare of suffering, famine and suspense.

      “Samavia is ‘waiting’ too,” The Rat broke forth one night as they talked together, “but it won’t wait long—it can’t. If I were a Samavian and in Samavia—”

      “My father is a Samavian and he is in Samavia,” Marco’s grave young voice interposed.

      The Rat flushed red as he realized what he had said. “What a fool I am!” he groaned. “I—I beg your pardon—sir.” He stood up when he said the last words and added the “sir” as if he suddenly realized that there was a distance between them which was something akin to the distance between youth and maturity—but yet was not the same.

      “You are a good Samavian but—you forget,” was Marco’s answer.

      Lazarus’ intense grimness increased with each day that passed. The ceremonious respectfulness of his manner toward Marco increased also. It seemed as if the more anxious he felt the more formal and stately his bearing became. It was as though he braced his own courage by doing the smallest things life in the back sitting-room required as if they were of the dignity of services performed in a much larger place and under much more imposing circumstances. The Rat found himself feeling almost as if he were an equerry in a court, and that dignity and ceremony were necessary on his own part. He began to experience a sense of being somehow a person of rank, for whom doors were opened grandly and who had vassals at his command. The watchful obedience of fifty vassals embodied itself in the manner of Lazarus.

      “I am glad,” The Rat said once, reflectively, “that, after all my father was once—different. It makes it easier to learn things perhaps. If he had not talked to me about people who—well, who had never seen places like Bone Court—this might have been harder for me to understand.”

      When at last they managed to call The Squad together, and went to spend a morning at the Barracks behind the churchyard, that body of armed men stared at their commander in great and amazed uncertainty. They felt that something had happened to him. They did not know what had happened, but it was some experience which had made him mysteriously different. He did not look like Marco, but in some extraordinary way he seemed more akin to him. They only knew that some necessity in Loristan’s affairs had taken the two away from London and the Game. Now they had come back, and they seemed older.

      At first, The Squad felt awkward and shuffled its feet uncomfortably. After the first greetings it did not know exactly what to say. It was Marco who saved the situation.

      “Drill us first,” he said to The Rat, “then we can talk about the Game.”

      “’Tention!” shouted The Rat, magnificently. And then they forgot everything else and sprang into line. After the drill was ended, and they sat in a circle on the broken flags, the Game became more resplendent than it had ever been.

      “I’ve had time to read and work out new things,” The Rat said. “Reading is like traveling.”

      Marco himself sat and listened, enthralled by the adroitness of the imagination he displayed. Without revealing a single dangerous fact he built up, of their journeyings and experiences, a totally new structure of adventures which would have fired the whole being of any group of lads. It was safe to describe places and people, and he so described them that The Squad squirmed in its delight at feeling itself marching in a procession attending the Emperor in Vienna; standing in line before palaces; climbing, with knapsacks strapped tight, up precipitous mountain roads; defending mountain-fortresses; and storming Samavian castles.

      The Squad glowed and exulted. The Rat glowed and exulted himself. Marco watched his sharp-featured, burning-eyed face with wonder and admiration. This strange power of making things alive was, he knew, what his father would call “genius.”

      “Let’s take the oath of ’legiance again,” shouted Cad, when the Game was over for the morning.

      “The papers never said nothin’ more about the Lost Prince, but we are all for him yet! Let’s take it!” So they stood in line again, Marco at the head, and renewed their oath.

      “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 grow twelve men—for Samavia.

      “God be thanked!”

      It was more solemn than it had been the first time. The Squad felt it tremendously. Both Cad and Ben were conscious that thrills ran down their spines into their boots. When Marco and The Rat left them, they first stood at salute and then broke out into a ringing cheer.

      On their way home, The Rat asked Marco a question.

      “Did you see Mrs. Beedle standing at the top of the basement steps and looking after us when we went out this morning?”

      Mrs. Beedle was the landlady of the lodgings at No. 7 Philibert Place. She was a mysterious and dusty female, who lived in the “cellar kitchen” part of the house and was seldom seen by her lodgers.

      “Yes,” answered Marco, “I have seen her two or three times lately, and I do not think I ever saw her before. My father has never seen her, though Lazarus says she used to watch him round corners. Why is she suddenly so curious about us?”

      “I’d like to know,” said The Rat. “I’ve been trying to work it out. Ever since we came back, she’s been peeping round the door of the kitchen stairs, or over balustrades, or through the cellar-kitchen windows. I believe she wants to speak to you, and knows Lazarus won’t let her if he catches her at it. When Lazarus is about, she always darts back.”

      “What does she want to say?” said Marco.

      “I’d like to know,” said The Rat again.

      When they reached No. 7 Philibert Place, they found out, because when the door opened they saw at the top of cellar-kitchen stairs at the end of the passage, the mysterious Mrs. Beedle, in her dusty black dress and with a dusty black cap on, evidently having that minute mounted from her subterranean hiding-place. She had come up the steps so quickly that Lazarus had not yet seen her.

      “Young Master Loristan!” she called out authoritatively. Lazarus wheeled about fiercely.

      “Silence!” he commanded. “How dare you address the young Master?”

      She snapped her fingers at him, and marched forward folding her arms tightly. “You mind your own business,” she said. “It’s young Master Loristan I’m speaking to, not his servant. It’s time he was talked to about this.”

      “Silence, woman!” shouted Lazarus.

      “Let her speak,” said Marco. “I want to hear. What is it you wish to say, Madam? My father is not here.”

      “That’s just what I want to find out about,” put in the woman. “When is he coming back?”

      “I do not know,” answered Marco.

      “That’s it,” said Mrs. Beedle. “You’re old enough to understand that two big lads and a big fellow like that can’t have food and lodgin’s for nothing. You may say you don’t live high—and you don’t—but lodgin’s are lodgin’s and rent is rent. If your father’s coming back and you can tell me when, I mayn’t be obliged to let the rooms over your heads; but I know too much about foreigners to let bills run when they are out of sight. Your father’s out of sight. He,” jerking her head towards Lazarus, “paid me for last week. How do I know he will pay me for this week!”

      “The money