The Complete Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Frances Hodgson Burnett

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СКАЧАТЬ will all three begin to see what we can do,” Marco said.

      Then—exactly as had happened on the day of their return from their journey—there arose in the road outside the sound of newsboys shouting. This time the outcry seemed even more excited than before. The boys were running and yelling and there seemed more of them than usual. And above all other words was heard “Samavia! Samavia!” But to-day The Rat did not rush to the door at the first cry. He stood still—for several seconds they all three stood still—listening. Afterwards each one remembered and told the others that he had stood still because some strange, strong feeling held him WAITING as if to hear some great thing.

      It was Lazarus who went out of the room first and The Rat and Marco followed him.

      One of the upstairs lodgers had run down in haste and opened the door to buy newspapers and ask questions. The newsboys were wild with excitement and danced about as they shouted. The piece of news they were yelling had evidently a popular quality.

      The lodger bought two papers and was handing out coppers to a lad who was talking loud and fast.

      “Here’s a go!” he was saying. “A Secret Party’s risen up and taken Samavia! ‘Twixt night and mornin’ they done it! That there Lost Prince descendant ‘as turned up, an’ they’ve CROWNED him—‘twixt night and mornin’ they done it! Clapt ‘is crown on ‘is ‘ead, so’s they’d lose no time.” And off he bolted, shouting, “‘Cendant of Lost Prince! ‘Cendant of Lost Prince made King of Samavia!”

      It was then that Lazarus, forgetting even ceremony, bolted also. He bolted back to the sitting-room, rushed in, and the door fell to behind him.

      Marco and The Rat found it shut when, having secured a newspaper, they went down the passage. At the closed door, Marco stopped. He did not turn the handle. From the inside of the room there came the sound of big convulsive sobs and passionate Samavian words of prayer and worshipping gratitude.

      “Let us wait,” Marco said, trembling a little. “He will not want any one to see him. Let us wait.”

      His black pits of eyes looked immense, and he stood at his tallest, but he was trembling slightly from head to foot. The Rat had begun to shake, as if from an ague. His face was scarcely human in its fierce unboyish emotion.

      “Marco! Marco!” his whisper was a cry. “That was what he went for—BECAUSE HE KNEW!”

      “Yes,” answered Marco, “that was what he went for.” And his voice was unsteady, as his body was.

      Presently the sobs inside the room choked themselves back suddenly. Lazarus had remembered. They had guessed he had been leaning against the wall during his outburst. Now it was evident that he stood upright, probably shocked at the forgetfulness of his frenzy.

      So Marco turned the handle of the door and went into the room. He shut the door behind him, and they all three stood together.

      When the Samavian gives way to his emotions, he is emotional indeed. Lazarus looked as if a storm had swept over him. He had choked back his sobs, but tears still swept down his cheeks.

      “Sir,” he said hoarsely, “your pardon! It was as if a convulsion seized me. I forgot everything—even my duty. Pardon, pardon!” And there on the worn carpet of the dingy back sitting-room in the Marylebone Road, he actually went on one knee and kissed the boy’s hand with adoration.

      “You mustn’t ask pardon,” said Marco. “You have waited so long, good friend. You have given your life as my father has. You have known all the suffering a boy has not lived long enough to understand. Your big heart—your faithful heart—” his voice broke and he stood and looked at him with an appeal which seemed to ask him to remember his boyhood and understand the rest.

      “Don’t kneel,” he said next. “You mustn’t kneel.” And Lazarus, kissing his hand again, rose to his feet.

      “Now—we shall HEAR!” said Marco. “Now the waiting will soon be over.”

      “Yes, sir. Now, we shall receive commands!” Lazarus answered.

      The Rat held out the newspapers.

      “May we read them yet?” he asked.

      “Until further orders, sir,” said Lazarus hurriedly and apologetically—“until further orders, it is still better that I should read them first.”

      XXX

THE GAME IS AT AN END

      So long as the history of Europe is written and read, the unparalleled story of the Rising of the Secret Party in Samavia will stand out as one of its most startling and romantic records. Every detail connected with the astonishing episode, from beginning to end, was romantic even when it was most productive of realistic results. When it is related, it always begins with the story of the tall and kingly Samavian youth who walked out of the palace in the early morning sunshine singing the herdsmen’s song of beauty of old days. Then comes the outbreak of the ruined and revolting populace; then the legend of the morning on the mountain side, and the old shepherd coming out of his cave and finding the apparently dead body of the beautiful young hunter. Then the secret nursing in the cavern; then the jolting cart piled with sheepskins crossing the frontier, and ending its journey at the barred entrance of the monastery and leaving its mysterious burden behind. And then the bitter hate and struggle of dynasties, and the handful of shepherds and herdsmen meeting in their cavern and binding themselves and their unborn sons and sons’ sons by an oath never to be broken. Then the passing of generations and the slaughter of peoples and the changing of kings,—and always that oath remembered, and the Forgers of the Sword, at their secret work, hidden in forests and caves. Then the strange story of the uncrowned kings who, wandering in other lands, lived and died in silence and seclusion, often laboring with their hands for their daily bread, but never forgetting that they must be kings, and ready,—even though Samavia never called. Perhaps the whole story would fill too many volumes to admit of it ever being told fully.

      But history makes the growing of the Secret Party clear,—though it seems almost to cease to be history, in spite of its efforts to be brief and speak only of dull facts, when it is forced to deal with the Bearing of the Sign by two mere boys, who, being blown as unremarked as any two grains of dust across Europe, lit the Lamp whose flame so flared up to the high heavens that as if from the earth itself there sprang forth Samavians by the thousands ready to feed it—Iarovitch and Maranovitch swept aside forever and only Samavians remaining to cry aloud in ardent praise and worship of the God who had brought back to them their Lost Prince. The battle-cry of his name had ended every battle. Swords fell from hands because swords were not needed. The Iarovitch fled in terror and dismay; the Maranovitch were nowhere to be found. Between night and morning, as the newsboy had said, the standard of Ivor was raised and waved from palace and citadel alike. From mountain, forest and plain, from city, village and town, its followers flocked to swear allegiance; broken and wounded legions staggered along the roads to join and kneel to it; women and children followed, weeping with joy and chanting songs of praise. The Powers held out their scepters to the lately prostrate and ignored country. Train-loads of food and supplies of all things needed began to cross the frontier; the aid of nations was bestowed. Samavia, at peace to till its land, to raise its flocks, to mine its ores, would be able to pay all back. Samavia in past centuries had been rich enough to make great loans, and had stored such harvests as warring countries had been glad to call upon. The story of the crowning of the King had been the wildest of all—the multitude of ecstatic people, famished, in rags, and many of them weak with wounds, СКАЧАТЬ