“Father!” He said only that word.  He could say no more.  He knew he must not ask questions.  “Silence is still the order.”  But as they faced each other in their dingy room at the back of the shabby house on the side of the roaring common road—­as Lazarus stood stock-still behind his father’s chair and kept his eyes fixed on the empty coffee cups and the dry bread plate, and everything looked as poor as things always did—­there was a king of Samavia—­an Ivor Fedorovitch with the blood of the Lost Prince in his veins—­alive in some town or city this moment!  And Marco’s own father knew where he was!

He glanced at Lazarus, but, though the old soldier’s face looked as expressionless as if it were cut out of wood, Marco realized that he knew this thing and had always known it.  He had been a comrade at arms all his life.  He continued to stare at the bread plate.

Loristan spoke again and in an even lower voice.  “The Samavians who are patriots and thinkers,” he said, “formed themselves into a secret party about eighty years ago.  They formed it when they had no reason for hope, but they formed it because one of them discovered that an Ivor Fedorovitch was living.  He was head forester on a great estate in the Austrian Alps.  The nobleman he served had always thought him a mystery because he had the bearing and speech of a man who had not been born a servant, and his methods in caring for the forests and game were those of a man who was educated and had studied his subject.  But he never was familiar or assuming, and never professed superiority over any of his fellows.  He was a man of great stature, and was extraordinarily brave and silent.  The nobleman who was his master made a sort of companion of him when they hunted together.  Once he took him with him when he traveled to Samavia to hunt wild horses.  He found that he knew the country strangely well, and that he was familiar with Samavian hunting and customs.  Before he returned to Austria, the man obtained permission to go to the mountains alone.  He went among the shepherds and made friends among them, asking many questions.

“One night around a forest fire he heard the songs about the Lost Prince which had not been forgotten even after nearly five hundred years had passed.  The shepherds and herdsmen talked about Prince Ivor, and told old stories about him, and related the prophecy that he would come back and bring again Samavia’s good days.  He might come only in the body of one of his descendants, but it would be his spirit which came, because his spirit would never cease to love Samavia.  One very old shepherd tottered to his feet and lifted his face to the myriad stars bestrewn like jewels in the blue sky above the forest trees, and he wept and prayed aloud that the great God would send their king to them.  And the stranger huntsman stood upright also and lifted his face to the stars.  And, though he said no word, the herdsman nearest to him saw tears on his cheeks—­great,