“Son of Stefan Loristan,” the old priest said, in a shaken voice, “it is the Lost Prince!  It is Ivor!”

Then every man in the room fell on his knees.  Even the men who had upheld the archway of swords dropped their weapons with a crash and knelt also.  He was their saint—­this boy!  Dead for five hundred years, he was their saint still.

“Ivor!  Ivor!” the voices broke into a heavy murmur.  “Ivor!  Ivor!” as if they chanted a litany.

Marco started forward, staring at the picture, his breath caught in his throat, his lips apart.

“But—­but—­” he stammered, “but if my father were as young as he is—­he would be like him!”

“When you are as old as he is, you will be like him—­you!” said the priest.  And he let the curtain fall.

The Rat stood staring with wide eyes from Marco to the picture and from the picture to Marco.  And he breathed faster and faster and gnawed his finger ends.  But he did not utter a word.  He could not have done it, if he tried.

Then Marco stepped down from the dais as if he were in a dream, and the old man followed him.  The men with swords sprang to their feet and made their archway again with a new clash of steel.  The old man and the boy passed under it together.  Now every man’s eyes were fixed on Marco.  At the heavy door by which he had entered, he stopped and turned to meet their glances.  He looked very young and thin and pale, but suddenly his father’s smile was lighted in his face.  He said a few words in Samavian clearly and gravely, saluted, and passed out.

“What did you say to them?” gasped The Rat, stumbling after him as the door closed behind them and shut in the murmur of impassioned sound.

“There was only one thing to say,” was the answer.  “They are men—­I am only a boy.  I thanked them for my father, and told them he would never—­never forget.”

XXVIII

“EXTRA!  EXTRA!  EXTRA!”

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