"THE LAMP IS LIGHTED!"
On his way home, Marco thought of nothing but the story he must tell his
father, the story the stranger who had been to Samavia had told The
Rat's father. He felt that it must be a true story and not merely an
invention. The Forgers of the Sword must be real men, and the hidden
subterranean caverns stacked through the centuries with arms must be
real, too. And if they were real, surely his father was one of those who
knew the secret. His thoughts ran very fast. The Rat's boyish invention
of the rising was only part of a game, but how natural it would be that
sometime--perhaps before long--there would be a real rising! Surely
there would be one if the Secret Party had grown so strong, and if many
weapons and secret friends in other countries were ready and waiting.
During all these years, hidden work and preparation would have been
going on continually, even though it was preparation for an unknown day.
A party which had lasted so long--which passed its oath on from
generation to generation--must be of a deadly determination.
What might it not have made ready in its caverns and secret
meeting-places! He longed to reach home and tell his father, at once,
all he had heard. He recalled to mind, word for word, all that The Rat
had been told, and even all he had added in his game, because--well,
because that seemed so real too, so real that it actually might be
useful.
But when he reached No. 7 Philibert Place, he found Loristan and Lazarus
very much absorbed in work. The door of the back sitting-room was locked
when he first knocked on it, and locked again as soon as he had entered.
There were many papers on the table, and they were evidently studying
them. Several of them were maps. Some were road maps, some maps of towns
and cities, and some of fortifications; but they were all maps of places
in Samavia. They were usually kept in a strong box, and when they were
taken out to be studied, the door was always kept locked.
Before they had their evening meal, these were all returned to the
strong box, which was pushed into a corner and had newspapers piled upon
it.
"When he arrives," Marco heard Loristan say to Lazarus, "we can show him
clearly what has been planned. He can see for himself."
His father spoke scarcely at all during the meal, and, though it was
not the habit of Lazarus to speak at such times unless spoken to, this
evening it seemed to Marco that he _looked_ more silent than he had
ever seen him look before. They were plainly both thinking anxiously of
deeply serious things. The story of the stranger who had been to Samavia
must not be told yet. But it was one which would keep.
Loristan did not say anything until Lazarus had removed the things from
the table and made the room as neat as possible. While that was being
done, he sat with his forehead resting on his hand, as if absorbed in
thought. Then he made a gesture to Marco.
"Come here, Comrade," he said.
Marco went to him.
"To-night some one may come to talk with me about grave things," he
said. "I think he will come, but I cannot be quite sure. It is important
that he should know that, when he comes, he will find me quite alone. He
will come at a late hour, and Lazarus will open the door quietly that no
one may hear. It is important that no one should see him. Some one must
go and walk on the opposite side of the street until he appears. Then
the one who goes to give warning must cross the pavement before him and
say in a low voice, 'The Lamp is lighted!' and at once turn quietly
away."
What boy's heart would not have leaped with joy at the mystery of it!
Even a common and dull boy who knew nothing of Samavia would have felt
jerky. Marco's voice almost shook with the thrill of his feeling.
"How shall I know him?" he said at once. Without asking at all, he knew
he was the "some one" who was to go.
"You have seen him before," Loristan answered. "He is the man who drove
in the carriage with the King."
"I shall know him," said Marco. "When shall I go?"
"Not until it is half-past one o'clock. Go to bed and sleep until
Lazarus calls you." Then he added, "Look well at his face before you
speak. He will probably not be dressed as well as he was when you saw
him first."
Marco went up-stairs to his room and went to bed as he was told, but
it was hard to go to sleep. The rattle and roaring of the road did not
usually keep him awake, because he had lived in the poorer quarter of
too many big capital cities not to be accustomed to noise. But to-night
it seemed to him that, as he lay and looked out at the lamplight, he
heard every bus and cab which went past. He could not help thinking of
the people who were in them, and on top of them, and of the people who
were hurrying along on the pavement outside the broken iron railings. He
was wondering what they would think if they knew that things connected
with the battles they read of in the daily papers were going on in one
of the shabby houses they scarcely gave a glance to as they went by
them. It must be something connected with the war, if a man who was a
great diplomat and the companion of kings came in secret to talk alone
with a patriot who was a Samavian. Whatever his father was doing was for
the good of Samavia, and perhaps the Secret Party knew he was doing it.
His heart almost beat aloud under his shirt as he lay on the lumpy
mattress thinking it over. He must indeed look well at the stranger
before he even moved toward him. He must be sure he was the right man.
The game he had amused himself with so long--the game of trying to
remember pictures and people and places clearly and in detail--had been
a wonderful training. If he could draw, he knew he could have made a
sketch of the keen-eyed, clever, aquiline face with the well-cut and
delicately close mouth, which looked as if it had been shut upon secrets
always--always. If he could draw, he found himself saying again. He
_could_ draw, though perhaps only roughly. He had often amused himself by
making sketches of things he wanted to ask questions about. He had even
drawn people's faces in his untrained way, and his father had said that
he had a crude gift for catching a likeness. Perhaps he could make a
sketch of this face which would show his father that he knew and would
recognize it.
He jumped out of bed and went to a table near the window. There was
paper and a pencil lying on it. A street lamp exactly opposite threw
into the room quite light enough for him to see by. He half knelt by the
table and began to draw. He worked for about twenty minutes steadily,
and he tore up two or three unsatisfactory sketches. The poor drawing
would not matter if he could catch that subtle look which was not
slyness but something more dignified and important. It was not
difficult to get the marked, aristocratic outline of the features.
A common-looking man with less pronounced profile would have been less
easy to draw in one sense. He gave his mind wholly to the recalling of
every detail which had photographed itself on his memory through its
trained habit. Gradually he saw that the likeness was becoming clearer.
It was not long before it was clear enough to be a striking one. Any one
who knew the man would recognize it. He got up, drawing a long and
joyful breath.
He did not put on his shoes, but crossed his room as noiselessly as
possible, and as noiselessly opened the door. He made no ghost of a
sound when he went down the stairs. The woman who kept the lodging-house
had gone to bed, and so had the other lodgers and the maid of all work.
All the lights were out except the one he saw a glimmer of under the
door of his father's room. When he had been a mere baby, he had been
taught to make a special sign on the door when he wished to speak to
Loristan. He stood still outside the back sitting-room and made it now.
It was a low scratching sound--two scratches and a soft tap. Lazarus
opened the door and looked troubled.
"It is not yet time, sir," he said very low.
"I know," Marco answered. "But I must show something to my father."
Lazarus let him in, and Loristan turned round from his writing-table
questioningly.
Marco went forward and laid the sketch down before him.
"Look at it," he said. "I remember him well enough to draw that. I
thought of it all at once--that I could make a sort of picture. Do you
think it is like him?" Loristan examined it closely.
"It is very like him," he answered. "You have made me feel entirely
safe. Thanks, Comrade. It was a good idea."
There was relief in the grip he gave the boy's hand, and Marco turned
away with an exultant feeling. Just as he reached the door, Loristan
said to him:
"Make the most of this gift. It is a gift. And it is true your mind has
had good training. The more you draw, the better. Draw everything you
can."
Neither the street lamps, nor the noises, nor his thoughts kept Marco
awake when he went back to bed. But before he settled himself upon his
pillow he gave himself certain orders. He had both read, and heard
Loristan say, that the mind can control the body when people once find
out that it can do so. He had tried experiments himself, and had found
out some curious things. One was that if he told himself to remember a
certain thing at a certain time, he usually found that he _did_ remember
it. Something in his brain seemed to remind him. He had often tried the
experiment of telling himself to awaken at a particular hour, and had
awakened almost exactly at the moment by the clock.
"I will sleep until one o'clock," he said as he shut his eyes. "Then I
will awaken and feel quite fresh. I shall not be sleepy at all."
He slept as soundly as a boy can sleep. And at one o'clock exactly he
awakened, and found the street lamp still throwing its light through the
window. He knew it was one o'clock, because there was a cheap little
round clock on the table, and he could see the time. He was quite fresh
and not at all sleepy. His experiment had succeeded again.
He got up and dressed. Then he went down-stairs as noiselessly as
before. He carried his shoes in his hands, as he meant to put them on
only when he reached the street. He made his sign at his father's door,
and it was Loristan who opened it.
"Shall I go now?" Marco asked.
"Yes. Walk slowly to the other side of the street. Look in every
direction. We do not know where he will come from. After you have given
him the sign, then come in and go to bed again."
Marco saluted as a soldier would have done on receiving an order.
Then, without a second's delay, he passed noiselessly out of the house.
Loristan turned back into the room and stood silently in the center of
it. The long lines of his handsome body looked particularly erect and
stately, and his eyes were glowing as if something deeply moved him.
"There grows a man for Samavia," he said to Lazarus, who watched him.
"God be thanked!"
Lazarus's voice was low and hoarse, and he saluted quite reverently.
"Your--sir!" he said. "God save the Prince!"
"Yes," Loristan answered, after a moment's hesitation,--"when he is
found." And he went back to his table smiling his beautiful smile.
* * * * *
The wonder of silence in the deserted streets of a great city, after
midnight has hushed all the roar and tumult to rest, is an almost
unbelievable thing. The stillness in the depths of a forest or on a
mountain top is not so strange. A few hours ago, the tumult was rushing
past; in a few hours more, it will be rushing past again.
But now the street is a naked thing; a distant policeman's tramp on
the bare pavement has a hollow and almost fearsome sound. It seemed
especially so to Marco as he crossed the road. Had it ever been so empty
and deadly silent before? Was it so every night? Perhaps it was, when he
was fast asleep on his lumpy mattress with the light from a street lamp
streaming into the room. He listened for the step of the policeman on
night-watch, because he did not wish to be seen. There was a jutting
wall where he could stand in the shadow while the man passed. A
policeman would stop to look questioningly at a boy who walked up and
down the pavement at half-past one in the morning. Marco could wait
until he had gone by, and then come out into the light and look up and
down the road and the cross streets.
He heard his approaching footsteps in a few minutes, and was safely in
the shadows before he could be seen. When the policeman passed, he came
out and walked slowly down the road, looking on each side, and now and
then looking back. At first no one was in sight. Then a late hansom-cab
came tinkling along. But the people in it were returning from some
festivity, and were laughing and talking, and noticed nothing but their
own joking. Then there was silence again, and for a long time, as it
seemed to Marco, no one was to be seen. It was not really so long as it
appeared, because he was anxious. Then a very early vegetable-wagon on
the way from the country to Covent Garden Market came slowly lumbering
by with its driver almost asleep on his piles of potatoes and cabbages.
After it had passed, there was stillness and emptiness once more, until
the policeman showed himself again on his beat, and Marco slipped into
the shadow of the wall as he had done before.
When he came out into the light, he had begun to hope that the time
would not seem long to his father. It had not really been long, he told
himself, it had only seemed so. But his father's anxiousness would be
greater than his own could be. Loristan knew all that depended on the
coming of this great man who sat side by side with a king in his
carriage and talked to him as if he knew him well.
"It might be something which all Samavia is waiting to know--at least
all the Secret Party," Marco thought. "The Secret Party is Samavia,"--he
started at the sound of footsteps. "Some one is coming!" he said. "It is
a man."
It was a man who was walking up the road on the same side of the
pavement as his own. Marco began to walk toward him quietly but rather
rapidly. He thought it might be best to appear as if he were some boy
sent on a midnight errand--perhaps to call a doctor. Then, if it was a
stranger he passed, no suspicion would be aroused. Was this man as tall
as the one who had driven with the King? Yes, he was about the same
height, but he was too far away to be recognizable otherwise. He drew
nearer, and Marco noticed that he also seemed slightly to hasten his
footsteps. Marco went on. A little nearer, and he would be able to make
sure. Yes, now he was near enough. Yes, this man was the same height and
not unlike in figure, but he was much younger. He was not the one who
had been in the carriage with His Majesty. He was not more than thirty
years old. He began swinging his cane and whistling a music-hall song
softly as Marco passed him without changing his pace.
It was after the policeman had walked round his beat and disappeared for
the third time, that Marco heard footsteps echoing at some distance down
a cross street. After listening to make sure that they were approaching
instead of receding in another direction, he placed himself at a point
where he could watch the length of the thoroughfare. Yes, some one was
coming. It was a man's figure again. He was able to place himself rather
in the shadow so that the person approaching would not see that he was
being watched. The solitary walker reached a recognizable distance in
about two minutes' time. He was dressed in an ordinary shop-made suit of
clothes which was rather shabby and quite unnoticeable in its
appearance. His common hat was worn so that it rather shaded his face.
But even before he had crossed to Marco's side of the road, the boy had
clearly recognized him. It was the man who had driven with the King!
Chance was with Marco. The man crossed at exactly the place which made
it easy for the boy to step lightly from behind him, walk a few paces
by his side, and then pass directly before him across the pavement,
glancing quietly up into his face as he said in a low voice but
distinctly, the words "The Lamp is lighted," and without pausing a
second walk on his way down the road. He did not slacken his pace or
look back until he was some distance away. Then he glanced over his
shoulder, and saw that the figure had crossed the street and was inside
the railings. It was all right. His father would not be disappointed.
The great man had come.
He walked for about ten minutes, and then went home and to bed. But he
was obliged to tell himself to go to sleep several times before his eyes
closed for the rest of the night.