The Lost Prince by Frances Hodgson Burnett (best e ink reader for manga .TXT) đ
- Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
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When The Rat returned with a newspaper, Lazarus interposed between him and Marco with great and respectful ceremony. âSir,â he said to Marco, âI 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.â
Both boys fell back.
âNot read the papers!â they exclaimed together.
Lazarus had never before been quite so reverential and ceremonious.
âYour pardon, sir,â he said. âI 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 againâwhen you meet againââhe corrected himself hastilyââwhen you meet again, he says you will understand. I am your servant. I will read and answer all such questions as I can.â
The Rat handed him the paper and they returned to the back room together.
âYou shall tell us what he would wish us to hear,â 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.
âWhat next?â said Marco.
âIf I were a Samavianââ 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 Samaviaâto 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 Marcoâs 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 Loristanâs chair at the head of the table and stood behind it with a majestic air.
âSir,â he said to Marco, âthe Master requested that you take his seat at the table untilâwhile he is not with you.â
Marco took the seat in silence.
At two oâclock 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.
âThere is one thing we must remember,â Marco had said, early in the night. âWe must not be afraid.â
âNo,â answered The Rat, almost fiercely, âwe must not be afraid.â
âWe 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 ifââ he turned towards the sofa, âas if something had struck you on the chest?â
âYes,â The Rat answered heavily. âYes.â
âWe werenât ready,â said Marco. âHe had never gone before; but we ought to have known he might some day beâcalled. He went because he was called. He told us to wait. We donât 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.â
âThe Law!â groaned The Rat, dropping his head on his hands, âIâd forgotten about it.â
âLet us remember it,â said Marco. âThis is the time. `Hate not. FEAR not!â â He repeated the last words again and again. âFear not! Fear not,â he said. âNOTHING can harm him.â
The Rat lifted his head, and looked at the bed sideways.
âDid you thinkââ he said slowlyââdid you EVER think that perhaps HE knew where the descendant of the Lost Prince was?â
Marco answered even more slowly.
âIf any one knewâsurely he might. He has known so much,â he said.
âListen to this!â broke forth The Rat. âI believe he has gone to TELL the people. If he doesâif he could show themâall the country would run mad with joy. It wouldnât be only the Secret Party. All Samavia would rise and follow any flag he chose to raise. Theyâve prayed for the Lost Prince for five hundred years, and if they believed theyâd got him once more, theyâd fight like madmen for him. But there would not be any one to fight. Theyâd ALL want the same thing! If they could see the man with Ivorâs blood in his veins, theyâd feel he had come back to themârisen from the dead. Theyâd believe it!â
He beat his fists together in his frenzy of excitement. âItâs the time! Itâs the time!â he cried. âNo man could let such a chance go by! He MUST tell themâhe MUST. That MUST be what heâs gone for. He knows âhe knowsâheâs always known!â And he threw himself back on his sofa and flung his arms over his face, lying there panting.
âIf it is the time,â said Marco in a low, strained voiceââif it is, and he knowsâhe will tell them.â 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.
XXIXâTWIXT NIGHT AND MORNING
After this, they waited. They did not know what they waited for, nor could they guess even vaguely how the waiting would end. All that Lazarus could tell them he told. He would have been willing to stand respectfully for hours relating to Marco the story of how the period of their absence had passed for his Master and himself. He told how Loristan had spoken each day of his son, how he had often been pale with anxiousness, how in the evenings he had walked to and fro in his room, deep in thought, as he looked down unseeingly at the carpet.
âHe permitted me to talk of you, sir,â Lazarus said. âI saw that he wished to hear your name often. I reminded him of the times when you had been so young that most children of your age would have been in the hands of nurses, and yet you were strong and silent and sturdy and traveled with us as if you were not a child at allânever crying when you were tired and were not properly fed. As if you understoodâas if you understood,â he added, proudly. âIf, through the power of God a creature can be a man at six years old, you were that one. Many a dark day I have looked into your solemn, watching eyes, and have been half afraid; because that a child should answer oneâs gaze so gravely seemed almost an unearthly thing.â
âThe chief thing I remember of those days,â said Marco, âis that he was with me, and that whenever I was hungry or tired, I knew he must be, too.â
The feeling that they were âwaitingâ was so intense that it filled the days with strangeness. When the postmanâs knock was heard at the door, each of them endeavored not to start. A letter might some day come which would tell themâthey did not know what. But no letters came. When they went out into the streets, they found themselves hurrying on their way back in spite of themselves. Something might have happened. Lazarus read the papers faithfully, and in the evening told Marco and The Rat all the news it was âwell that they should hear.â But the disorders 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. Michaelâs son had not dared to try to take his fatherâs 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.
âSamavia is `waitingâ too,â The Rat broke forth one night as they talked together, âbut it wonât wait longâit canât. If I were a Samavian and in Samaviaââ
âMy father is a Samavian and he is in Samavia,â Marcoâs grave young voice interposed. The Rat flushed red as he realized what he had said. âWhat a fool I am!â he groaned. âIâI beg your pardonâ sir.â He stood up when he said the last words and added the âsirâ as if he suddenly realized that there was a distance between them which was something akin to the distance between youth and maturityâ but yet was not the same.
âYou are a good Samavian butâyou forget,â was Marcoâs answer.
Lazarusâ 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.
âI am glad,â The Rat said once, reflectively, âthat, after all my father was onceâdifferent. It makes it easier to learn things perhaps. If he had not talked to me about people whoâwell, who had never seen places like Bone Courtâthis might have been harder for me to understand.â
When at last they managed to call The Squad together,
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