“These who are guarding the steps,” he said, quickly under his breath to The Rat, “are the Forgers of the Sword!”

There were rich uniforms everywhere when he entered the palace, and people who bowed almost to the ground as he passed.  He was very young to be confronted with such an adoring adulation and royal ceremony; but he hoped it would not last too long, and that after he had knelt to the King and kissed his hand, he would see his father and hear his voice.  Just to hear his voice again, and feel his hand on his shoulder!

Through the vaulted corridors, to the wide-opened doors of a magnificent room he was led at last.  The end of it seemed a long way off as he entered.  There were many richly dressed people who stood in line as he passed up toward the canopied dais.  He felt that he had grown pale with the strain of excitement, and he had begun to feel that he must be walking in a dream, as on each side people bowed low and curtsied to the ground.

He realized vaguely that the King himself was standing, awaiting his approach.  But as he advanced, each step bearing him nearer to the throne, the light and color about him, the strangeness and magnificence, the wildly joyous acclamation of the populace outside the palace, made him feel rather dazzled, and he did not clearly see any one single face or thing.

“His Majesty awaits you,” said a voice behind him which seemed to be Baron Rastka’s.  “Are you faint, sir?  You look pale.”

He drew himself together, and lifted his eyes.  For one full moment, after he had so lifted them, he stood quite still and straight, looking into the deep beauty of the royal face.  Then he knelt and kissed the hands held out to him—­kissed them both with a passion of boy love and worship.

The King had the eyes he had longed to see—­the King’s hands were those he had longed to feel again upon his shoulder—­the King was his father! the “Stefan Loristan” who had been the last of those who had waited and labored for Samavia through five hundred years, and who had lived and died kings, though none of them till now had worn a crown!

His father was the King!

* * * * *

It was not that night, nor the next, nor for many nights that the telling of the story was completed.  The people knew that their King and his son were rarely separated from each other; that the Prince’s suite of apartments were connected by a private passage with his father’s.  The two were bound together by an affection of singular strength and meaning, and their love for their people added to their feeling for each other.  In the history of what their past had been, there was a romance which swelled the emotional Samavian heart near to bursting.  By mountain fires, in huts, under the stars, in fields and in forests, all that was known of their story was told and retold a thousand times, with sobs of joy and prayer breaking in upon the tale.