"Silence is still the order," was the first thought which flashed
through his mind. "Silence is still the order."
"What does it mean?" he said aloud.
"There isn't much of it. I wish there was more," The Rat said fretfully.
"Read and see. Of course they say it mayn't be true--but I believe it
is. They say that people think some one knows where he is--at least
where one of his descendants is. It'd be the same thing. He'd be the
real king. If he'd just show himself, it might stop all the fighting.
Just read."
Marco read, and his skin prickled as the blood went racing through
his body. But his face did not change. There was a sketch of the story
of the Lost Prince to begin with. It had been regarded by most people,
the article said, as a sort of legend. Now there was a definite rumor
that it was not a legend at all, but a part of the long past history
of Samavia. It was said that through the centuries there had always
been a party secretly loyal to the memory of this worshiped and lost
Fedorovitch. It was even said that from father to son, generation after
generation after generation, had descended the oath of fealty to him and
his descendants. The people had made a god of him, and now, romantic
as it seemed, it was beginning to be an open secret that some persons
believed that a descendant had been found--a Fedorovitch worthy of his
young ancestor--and that a certain Secret Party also held that, if he
were called back to the throne of Samavia, the interminable wars and
bloodshed would reach an end.
The Rat had begun to bite his nails fast.
"Do you believe he's found?" he asked feverishly. "_Don't you_? I do!"
"I wonder where he is, if it's true? I wonder! Where?" exclaimed Marco.
He could say that, and he might seem as eager as he felt.
The Squad all began to jabber at once. "Yus, where wos'e? There is no
knowin'. It'd be likely to be in some o' these furrin places. England'd
be too far from Samavia. 'Ow far off wos Samavia? Wos it in Roosha, or
where the Frenchies were, or the Germans? But wherever 'e wos, 'e'd be
the right sort, an' 'e'd be the sort a chap'd turn and look at in the
street."
The Rat continued to bite his nails.
"He might be anywhere," he said, his small fierce face glowing.
"That's what I like to think about. He might be passing in the street
outside there; he might be up in one of those houses," jerking his head
over his shoulder toward the backs of the inclosing dwellings. "Perhaps
he knows he's a king, and perhaps he doesn't. He'd know if what you said
yesterday was true--about the king always being made ready for Samavia."
"Yes, he'd know," put in Marco.
"Well, it'd be finer if he did," went on The Rat. "However poor and
shabby he was, he'd know the secret all the time. And if people sneered
at him, he'd sneer at them and laugh to himself. I dare say he'd walk
tremendously straight and hold his head up. If I was him, I'd like to
make people suspect a bit that I wasn't like the common lot o' them."
He put out his hand and pushed Marco excitedly. "Let's work out plots
for him!" he said. "That'd be a splendid game! Let's pretend we're the
Secret Party!"
He was tremendously excited. Out of the ragged pocket he fished a piece
of chalk. Then he leaned forward and began to draw something quickly on
the flagstones closest to his platform. The Squad leaned forward also,
quite breathlessly, and Marco leaned forward. The chalk was sketching a
roughly outlined map, and he knew what map it was, before The Rat spoke.
"That's a map of Samavia," he said. "It was in that piece of magazine
I told you about--the one where I read about Prince Ivor. I studied it
until it fell to pieces. But I could draw it myself by that time, so it
didn't matter. I could draw it with my eyes shut. That's the capital
city," pointing to a spot. "It's called Melzarr. The palace is there.
It's the place where the first of the Maranovitch killed the last of
the Fedorovitch--the bad chap that was Ivor's father. It's the palace
Ivor wandered out of singing the shepherds' song that early morning.
It's where the throne is that his descendant would sit upon to be
crowned--that he's _going_ to sit upon. I believe he is! Let's swear
he shall!" He flung down his piece of chalk and sat up. "Give me two
sticks. Help me to get up."
Two of the Squad sprang to their feet and came to him. Each snatched one
of the sticks from the stacked rifles, evidently knowing what he wanted.
Marco rose too, and watched with sudden, keen curiosity. He had thought
that The Rat could not stand up, but it seemed that he could, in a
fashion of his own, and he was going to do it. The boys lifted him by
his arms, set him against the stone coping of the iron railings of the
churchyard, and put a stick in each of his hands. They stood at his
side, but he supported himself.
"'E could get about if 'e 'ad the money to buy crutches!" said one
whose name was Cad, and he said it quite proudly. The queer thing that
Marco had noticed was that the ragamuffins were proud of The Rat, and
regarded him as their lord and master. "--'E could get about an' stand
as well as any one," added the other, and he said it in the tone of one
who boasts. His name was Ben.
"I'm going to stand now, and so are the rest of you," said The Rat.
"Squad! 'Tention! You at the head of the line," to Marco. They were in
line in a moment--straight, shoulders back, chins up. And Marco stood at
the head.
"We're going to take an oath," said The Rat. "It's an oath of
allegiance. Allegiance means faithfulness to a thing--a king or a
country. Ours means allegiance to the King of Samavia. We don't know
where he is, but we swear to be faithful to him, to fight for him, to
plot for him, to _die_ for him, and to bring him back to his throne!" The
way in which he flung up his head when he said the word "die" was very
fine indeed. "We are the Secret Party. We will work in the dark and find
out things--and run risks--and collect an army no one will know anything
about until it is strong enough to suddenly rise at a secret signal, and
overwhelm the Maranovitch and Iarovitch, and seize their forts and
citadels. No one even knows we are alive. We are a silent, secret thing
that never speaks aloud!"
Silent and secret as they were, however, they spoke aloud at this
juncture. It was such a grand idea for a game, and so full of possible
larks, that the Squad broke into a howl of an exultant cheer.
"Hooray!" they yelled. "Hooray for the oath of 'legiance! 'Ray! 'ray!
'ray!"
"Shut up, you swine!" shouted The Rat. "Is that the way you keep
yourself secret? You'll call the police in, you fools! Look at _him_!"
pointing to Marco. "He's got some sense."
Marco, in fact, had not made any sound.
"Come here, you Cad and Ben, and put me back on my wheels," raged the
Squad's commander. "I'll not make up the game at all. It's no use with a
lot of fat-head, raw recruits like you."
The line broke and surrounded him in a moment, pleading and urging.
"Aw, Rat! We forgot. It's the primest game you've ever thought out! Rat!
Rat! Don't get a grouch on! We'll keep still, Rat! Primest lark of all
'll be the sneakin' about an' keepin' quiet. Aw, Rat! Keep it up!"
"Keep it up yourselves!" snarled The Rat.
"Not another cove of us could do it but you! Not one! There's no other
cove could think it out. You're the only chap that can think out things.
You thought out the Squad! That's why you're captain!"
This was true. He was the one who could invent entertainment for them,
these street lads who had nothing. Out of that nothing he could create
what excited them, and give them something to fill empty, useless, often
cold or wet or foggy, hours. That made him their captain and their
pride.
The Rat began to yield, though grudgingly. He pointed again to Marco,
who had not moved, but stood still at attention.
"Look at _him_!" he said. "He knows enough to stand where he's put until
he's ordered to break line. He's a soldier, he is--not a raw recruit
that don't know the goose-step. He's been in barracks before."
But after this outburst, he deigned to go on.
"Here's the oath," he said. "We swear to stand any torture and submit in
silence to any death rather than betray our secret and our king. We will
obey in silence and in secret. We will swim through seas of blood and
fight our way through lakes of fire, if we are ordered. Nothing shall
bar our way. All we do and say and think is for our country and our
king. If any of you have anything to say, speak out before you take the
oath."
He saw Marco move a little, and he made a sign to him.
"You," he said. "Have you something to say?"
Marco turned to him and saluted.
"Here stand ten men for Samavia. God be thanked!" he said. He dared say
that much, and he felt as if his father himself would have told him that
they were the right words.
The Rat thought they were. Somehow he felt that they struck home. He
reddened with a sudden emotion.
"Squad!" he said. "I'll let you give three cheers on that. It's for the
last time. We'll begin to be quiet afterward."
And to the Squad's exultant relief he led the cheer, and they were
allowed to make as much uproar as they liked. They liked to make a great
deal, and when it was at an end, it had done them good and made them
ready for business.
The Rat opened the drama at once. Never surely had there ever before
been heard a conspirator's whisper as hollow as his.
"Secret Ones," he said, "it is midnight. We meet in the depths of
darkness. We dare not meet by day. When we meet in the daytime, we
pretend not to know each other. We are meeting now in a Samavian city
where there is a fortress. We shall have to take it when the secret sign
is given and we make our rising. We are getting everything ready, so
that, when we find the king, the secret sign can be given."
"What is the name of the city we are in?" whispered Cad.
"It is called Larrina. It is an important seaport. We must take it as
soon as we rise. The next time we meet I will bring a dark lantern and
draw a map and show it to you."
It would have been a great advantage to the game if Marco could have
drawn for them the map he could have made, a map which would have shown
every fortress--every stronghold and every weak place. Being a boy, he
knew what excitement would have thrilled each breast, how they would
lean forward and pile question on question, pointing to this place and
to that. He had learned to draw the map before he was ten, and he had
drawn it again and again because there had been times when his father
had told him that changes had taken place. Oh, yes! he could have drawn
a map which would have moved them to a frenzy of joy. But he sat silent
and listened, only speaking when he asked a question, as if he knew
nothing more about Samavia than The Rat did. What a Secret Party they
were! They drew themselves together in the closest of circles; they
spoke in unearthly whispers.
"A sentinel ought to be posted at the end of the passage," Marco
whispered.
"Ben, take your gun!" commanded The Rat.
Ben rose stealthily, and, shouldering his weapon, crept on tiptoe to the
opening. There he stood on guard.
"My father says there's been a Secret Party in Samavia for a hundred
years," The Rat whispered.
"Who told him?" asked Marco.
"A man who has been in Samavia," answered The Rat. "He said it was the
most wonderful Secret Party in the world, because it has worked and
waited so long, and never given up, though it has had no reason for
hoping. It began among some shepherds and charcoal-burners who bound
themselves by an oath to find the Lost Prince and bring him back to
the throne. There were too few of them to do anything against the
Maranovitch, and when the first lot found they were growing old,
they made their sons take the same oath. It has been passed on from
generation to generation, and in each generation the band has grown. No
one really knows how large it is now, but they say that there are people
in nearly all the countries in Europe who belong to it in dead secret,
and are sworn to help it when they are called. They are only waiting.
Some are rich people who will give money, and some are poor ones who
will slip across the frontier to fight or to help to smuggle in arms.
They even say that for all these years there have been arms made in
caves in the mountains, and hidden there year after year. There are men
who are called Forgers of the Sword, and they, and their fathers, and
grandfathers, and great-grandfathers have always made swords and stored
them in caverns no one knows of, hidden caverns underground."
Marco spoke aloud the thought which had come into his mind as he
listened, a thought which brought fear to him. "If the people in the
streets talk about it, they won't be hidden long."
"It isn't common talk, my father says. Only very few have guessed, and
most of them think it is part of the Lost Prince legend," said The Rat.
"The Maranovitch and Iarovitch laugh at it. They have always been great
fools. They're too full of their own swagger to think anything can
interfere with them."
"Do you talk much to your father?" Marco asked him.
The Rat showed his sharp white teeth in a grin.
"I know what you're thinking of," he said. "You're remembering that I
said he was always drunk. So he is, except when he's only _half_ drunk.
And when he's _half_ drunk, he's the most splendid talker in London. He
remembers everything he has ever learned or read or heard since he was
born. I get him going and listen. He wants to talk and I want to hear.
I found out almost everything I know in that way. He didn't know he was
teaching me, but he was. He goes back into being a gentleman when he's
half drunk."
"If--if you care about the Samavians, you'd better ask him not to tell
people about the Secret Party and the Forgers of the Sword," suggested
Marco.
The Rat started a little.
"That's true!" he said. "You're sharper than I am. It oughtn't to be
blabbed about, or the Maranovitch might hear enough to make them stop
and listen. I'll get him to promise. There's one queer thing about him,"
he added very slowly, as if he were thinking it over, "I suppose it's
part of the gentleman that's left in him. If he makes a promise, he
never breaks it, drunk or sober."
"Ask him to make one," said Marco. The next moment he changed the
subject because it seemed the best thing to do. "Go on and tell us what
our own Secret Party is to do. We're forgetting," he whispered.
The Rat took up his game with renewed keenness. It was a game which
attracted him immensely because it called upon his imagination and held
his audience spellbound, besides plunging him into war and strategy.
"We're preparing for the rising," he said. "It must come soon. We've
waited so long. The caverns are stacked with arms. The Maranovitch and
the Iarovitch are fighting and using all their soldiers, and now is our
time." He stopped and thought, his elbows on his knees. He began to bite
his nails again.
"The Secret Signal must be given," he said. Then he stopped again, and
the Squad held its breath and pressed nearer with a softly shuffling
sound. "Two of the Secret Ones must be chosen by lot and sent forth," he
went on; and the Squad almost brought ruin and disgrace upon itself by
wanting to cheer again, and only just stopping itself in time. "Must be
chosen _by lot_," The Rat repeated, looking from one face to another.
"Each one will take his life in his hand when he goes forth. He may have
to die a thousand deaths, but he must go. He must steal in silence and
disguise from one country to another. Wherever there is one of the
Secret Party, whether he is in a hovel or on a throne, the messengers
must go to him in darkness and stealth and give him the sign. It will
mean, 'The hour has come. God save Samavia!'"
"God save Samavia!" whispered the Squad, excitedly. And, because they
saw Marco raise his hand to his forehead, every one of them saluted.
They all began to whisper at once.
"Let's draw lots now. Let's draw lots, Rat. Don't let's 'ave no
waitin'."
The Rat began to look about him with dread anxiety. He seemed to be
examining the sky.
"The darkness is not as thick as it was," he whispered. "Midnight has
passed. The dawn of day will be upon us. If any one has a piece of paper
or a string, we will draw the lots before we part."
Cad had a piece of string, and Marco had a knife which could be used to
cut it into lengths. This The Rat did himself. Then, after shutting his
eyes and mixing them, he held them in his hand ready for the drawing.
"The Secret One who draws the longest lot is chosen. The Secret One who
draws the shortest is chosen," he said solemnly.
The drawing was as solemn as his tone. Each boy wanted to draw either
the shortest lot or the longest one. The heart of each thumped somewhat
as he drew his piece of string.
When the drawing was at an end, each showed his lot. The Rat had drawn
the shortest piece of string, and Marco had drawn the longest one.
"Comrade!" said The Rat, taking his hand. "We will face death and danger
together!"
"God save Samavia!" answered Marco.
And the game was at an end for the day. The primest thing, the Squad
said, The Rat had ever made up for them. "'E wos a wonder, he wos!"