“Do you know what I thought of, all at once?” he said in a shaky voice.  “I thought of that ‘Lost Prince’ one.  He only lived once.  Perhaps he didn’t live a long time.  Nobody knows.  But it’s five hundred years ago, and, just because he was the kind he was, every one that remembers him thinks of something fine.  It’s queer, but it does you good just to hear his name.  And if he has been training kings for Samavia all these centuries—­they may have been poor and nobody may have known about them, but they’ve been kings.  That’s what he did—­just by being alive a few years.  When I think of him and then think of—­the other—­there’s such an awful difference that—­yes—­I’m sorry.  For the first time.  I’m his son and I can’t care about him; but he’s too lonely—­I want to go.”

* * * * *

So it was that when the forlorn derelict was carried to the graveyard where nameless burdens on the city were given to the earth, a curious funeral procession followed him.  There were two tall and soldierly looking men and two boys, one of whom walked on crutches, and behind them were ten other boys who walked two by two.  These ten were a queer, ragged lot; but they had respectfully sober faces, held their heads and their shoulders well, and walked with a remarkably regular marching step.

It was the Squad; but they had left their “rifles” at home.

XI

“COME WITH ME”

When they came back from the graveyard, The Rat was silent all the way.  He was thinking of what had happened and of what lay before him.  He was, in fact, thinking chiefly that nothing lay before him—­nothing.  The certainty of that gave his sharp, lined face new lines and sharpness which made it look pinched and hard.

He had nothing before but a corner in a bare garret in which he could find little more than a leaking roof over his head—­when he was not turned out into the street.  But, if policemen asked him where he lived, he could say he lived in Bone Court with his father.  Now he couldn’t say it.

He got along very well on his crutches, but he was rather tired when they reached the turn in the street which led in the direction of his old haunts.  At any rate, they were haunts he knew, and he belonged to them more than he belonged elsewhere.  The Squad stopped at this particular corner because it led to such homes as they possessed.  They stopped in a body and looked at The Rat, and The Rat stopped also.  He swung himself to Loristan’s side, touching his hand to his forehead.

“Thank you, sir,” he said.  “Line and salute, you chaps!” And the Squad stood in line and raised their hands also.  “Thank you, sir.  Thank you, Marco.  Good-by.”

“Where are you going?” Loristan asked.

“I don’t know yet,” The Rat answered, biting his lips.

He and Loristan looked at each other a few moments in silence.  Both of them were thinking very hard.  In The Rat’s eyes there was a kind of desperate adoration.  He did not know what he should do when this man turned and walked away from him.  It would be as if the sun itself had dropped out of the heavens—­and The Rat had not thought of what the sun meant before.