The Complete Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Frances Hodgson Burnett

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ would at least have paid their poor homage to the King Ivor who would rule their children and bring back to Samavia her honor and her peace.

      “Ivor! Ivor!” they chanted like a prayer,—“Ivor! Ivor!” in their houses, by the roadside, in the streets.

      “The story of the Coronation in the shattered Cathedral, whose roof had been torn to fragments by bombs,” said an important London paper, “reads like a legend of the Middle Ages. But, upon the whole, there is in Samavia’s national character, something of the mediaeval, still.”

      Lazarus, having bought and read in his top floor room every newspaper recording the details which had reached London, returned to report almost verbatim, standing erect before Marco, the eyes under his shaggy brows sometimes flaming with exultation, sometimes filled with a rush of tears. He could not be made to sit down. His whole big body seemed to have become rigid with magnificence. Meeting Mrs. Beedle in the passage, he strode by her with an air so thunderous that she turned and scuttled back to her cellar kitchen, almost falling down the stone steps in her nervous terror. In such a mood, he was not a person to face without something like awe.

      In the middle of the night, The Rat suddenly spoke to Marco as if he knew that he was awake and would hear him.

      “He has given all his life to Samavia!” he said. “When you traveled from country to country, and lived in holes and corners, it was because by doing it he could escape spies, and see the people who must be made to understand. No one else could have made them listen. An emperor would have begun to listen when he had seen his face and heard his voice. And he could be silent, and wait for the right time to speak. He could keep still when other men could not. He could keep his face still—and his hands—and his eyes. Now all Samavia knows what he has done, and that he has been the greatest patriot in the world. We both saw what Samavians were like that night in the cavern. They will go mad with joy when they see his face!”

      “They have seen it now,” said Marco, in a low voice from his bed.

      Then there was a long silence, though it was not quite silence because The Rat’s breathing was so quick and hard.

      “He—must have been at that coronation!” he said at last. “The King—what will the King do to—repay him?”

      Marco did not answer. His breathing could be heard also. His mind was picturing that same coronation—the shattered, roofless cathedral, the ruins of the ancient and magnificent high altar, the multitude of kneeling, famine-scourged people, the battle-worn, wounded and bandaged soldiery! And the King! And his father! Where had his father stood when the King was crowned? Surely, he had stood at the King’s right hand, and the people had adored and acclaimed them equally!

      “King Ivor!” he murmured as if he were in a dream. “King Ivor!”

      The Rat started up on his elbow.

      “You will see him,” he cried out. “He’s not a dream any longer. The Game is not a game now—and it is ended—it is won! It was real—HE was real! Marco, I don’t believe you hear.”

      “Yes, I do,” answered Marco, “but it is almost more a dream than when it was one.”

      “The greatest patriot in the world is like a king himself!” raved The Rat. “If there is no bigger honor to give him, he will be made a prince—and Commander-in-Chief—and Prime Minister! Can’t you hear those Samavians shouting, and singing, and praying? You’ll see it all! Do you remember the mountain climber who was going to save the shoes he made for the Bearer of the Sign? He said a great day might come when one could show them to the people. It’s come! He’ll show them! I know how they’ll take it!” His voice suddenly dropped—as if it dropped into a pit. “You’ll see it all. But I shall not.”

      Then Marco awoke from his dream and lifted his head. “Why not?” he demanded. It sounded like a demand.

      “Because I know better than to expect it!” The Rat groaned. “You’ve taken me a long way, but you can’t take me to the palace of a king. I’m not such a fool as to think that, even of your father—”

      He broke off because Marco did more than lift his head. He sat upright.

      “You bore the Sign as much as I did,” he said. “We bore it together.”

      “Who would have listened to ME?” cried The Rat. “YOU were the son of Stefan Loristan.”

      “You were the friend of his son,” answered Marco. “You went at the command of Stefan Loristan. You were the ARMY of the son of Stefan Loristan. That I have told you. Where I go, you will go. We will say no more of this—not one word.”

      And he lay down again in the silence of a prince of the blood. And The Rat knew that he meant what he said, and that Stefan Loristan also would mean it. And because he was a boy, he began to wonder what Mrs. Beedle would do when she heard what had happened—what had been happening all the time a tall, shabby “foreigner” had lived in her dingy back sitting-room, and been closely watched lest he should go away without paying his rent, as shabby foreigners sometimes did. The Rat saw himself managing to poise himself very erect on his crutches while he told her that the shabby foreigner was—well, was at least the friend of a King, and had given him his crown—and would be made a prince and a Commander-in-Chief—and a Prime Minister—because there was no higher rank or honor to give him. And his son—whom she had insulted—was Samavia’s idol because he had borne the Sign. And also that if she were in Samavia, and Marco chose to do it he could batter her wretched lodging-house to the ground and put her in a prison—“and serve her jolly well right!”

      The next day passed, and the next; and then there came a letter. It was from Loristan, and Marco turned pale when Lazarus handed it to him. Lazarus and The Rat went out of the room at once, and left him to read it alone. It was evidently not a long letter, because it was not many minutes before Marco called them again into the room.

      “In a few days, messengers—friends of my father’s—will come to take us to Samavia. You and I and Lazarus are to go,” he said to The Rat.

      “God be thanked!” said Lazarus. “God be thanked!”

      Before the messengers came, it was the end of the week. Lazarus had packed their few belongings, and on Saturday Mrs. Beedle was to be seen hovering at the top of the cellar steps, when Marco and The Rat left the back sitting-room to go out.

      “You needn’t glare at me!” she said to Lazarus, who stood glowering at the door which he had opened for them. “Young Master Loristan, I want to know if you’ve heard when your father is coming back?”

      “He will not come back,” said Marco.

      “He won’t, won’t he? Well, how about next week’s rent?” said Mrs. Beedle. “Your man’s been packing up, I notice. He’s not got much to carry away, but it won’t pass through that front door until I’ve got what’s owing me. People that can pack easy think they can get away easy, and they’ll bear watching. The week’s up to-day.”

      Lazarus wheeled and faced her with a furious gesture. “Get back to your cellar, woman,” he commanded. “Get back under ground and stay there. Look at what is stopping before your miserable gate.”

      A carriage was stopping—a very perfect carriage of dark brown. The coachman and footman wore dark brown and gold liveries, and the footman had leaped down and opened the door with respectful alacrity. “They СКАЧАТЬ