IV
THE RAT
Marco would have wondered very much if he had heard the words,
but, as he did not hear them, he turned toward home wondering at
something else. A man who was in intimate attendance on a king
must be a person of importance. He no doubt knew many things not
only of his own ruler's country, but of the countries of other
kings. But so few had really known anything of poor little
Samavia until the newspapers had begun to tell them of the
horrors of its war--and who but a Samavian could speak its
language? It would be an interesting thing to tell his
father--that a man who knew the King had spoken to him in
Samavian, and had sent that curious message.
Later he found himself passing a side street and looked up it.
It was so narrow, and on either side of it were such old, tall,
and sloping-walled houses that it attracted his attention. It
looked as if a bit of old London had been left to stand while
newer places grew up and hid it from view. This was the kind of
street he liked to pass through for curiosity's sake. He knew
many of them in the old quarters of many cities. He had lived in
some of them. He could find his way home from the other end of
it. Another thing than its queerness attracted him. He heard a
clamor of boys' voices, and he wanted to see what they were
doing. Sometimes, when he had reached a new place and had had
that lonely feeling, he had followed some boyish clamor of play
or wrangling, and had found a temporary friend or so.
Half-way to the street's end there was an arched brick passage.
The sound of the voices came from there--one of them high, and
thinner and shriller than the rest. Marco tramped up to the arch
and looked down through the passage. It opened on to a gray
flagged space, shut in by the railings of a black, deserted, and
ancient graveyard behind a venerable church which turned its face
toward some other street. The boys were not playing, but
listening to one of their number who was reading to them from a
newspaper.
Marco walked down the passage and listened also, standing in the
dark arched outlet at its end and watching the boy who read. He
was a strange little creature with a big forehead, and deep eyes
which were curiously sharp. But this was not all. He had a
hunch back, his legs seemed small and crooked. He sat with them
crossed before him on a rough wooden platform set on low wheels,
on which he evidently pushed himself about. Near him were a
number of sticks stacked together as if they were rifles. One of
the first things that Marco noticed was that he had a savage
little face marked with lines as if he had been angry all his
life.
``Hold your tongues, you fools!'' he shrilled out to some boys
who interrupted him. ``Don't you want to know anything, you
ignorant swine?''
He was as ill-dressed as the rest of them, but he did not speak
in the Cockney dialect. If he was of the riffraff of the
streets, as his companions were, he was somehow different.
Then he, by chance, saw Marco, who was standing in the arched end
of the passage.
``What are you doing there listening?'' he shouted, and at once
stooped to pick up a stone and threw it at him. The stone hit
Marco's shoulder, but it did not hurt him much. What he did not
like was that another lad should want to throw something at him
before they had even exchanged boy-signs. He also did not like
the fact that two other boys promptly took the matter up by
bending down to pick up stones also.
He walked forward straight into the group and stopped close to
the hunchback.
``What did you do that for?'' he asked, in his rather deep young
voice.
He was big and strong-looking enough to suggest that he was not a
boy it would be easy to dispose of, but it was not that which
made the group stand still a moment to stare at him. It was
something in himself--half of it a kind of impartial lack of
anything like irritation at the stone-throwing. It was as if it
had not mattered to him in the least. It had not made him feel
angry or insulted. He was only rather curious about it. Because
he was clean, and his hair and his shabby clothes were brushed,
the first impression given by his appearance as he stood in the
archway was that he was a young ``toff'' poking his nose where it
was not wanted; but, as he drew near, they saw that the
well-brushed clothes were worn, and there were patches on his
shoes.
``What did you do that for?'' he asked, and he asked it merely as
if he wanted to find out the reason.
``I'm not going to have you swells dropping in to my club as if
it was your own,'' said the hunchback.
``I'm not a swell, and I didn't know it was a club,'' Marco
answered. ``I heard boys, and I thought I'd come and look. When
I heard you reading about Samavia, I wanted to hear.''
He looked at the reader with his silent-expressioned eyes.
``You needn't have thrown a stone,'' he added. ``They don't do
it at men's clubs. I'll go away.''
He turned about as if he were going, but, before he had taken
three steps, the hunchback hailed him unceremoniously.
``Hi!'' he called out. ``Hi, you!''
``What do you want?'' said Marco.
``I bet you don't know where Samavia is, or what they're fighting
about.'' The hunchback threw the words at him.
``Yes, I do. It's north of Beltrazo and east of Jiardasia, and
they are fighting because one party has assassinated King Maran,
and the other will not let them crown Nicola Iarovitch. And why
should they? He's a brigand, and hasn't a drop of royal blood in
him.''
``Oh!'' reluctantly admitted the hunchback. ``You do know that
much, do you? Come back here.''
Marco turned back, while the boys still stared. It was as if two
leaders or generals were meeting for the first time, and the
rabble, looking on, wondered what would come of their encounter.
``The Samavians of the Iarovitch party are a bad lot and want
only bad things,'' said Marco, speaking first. ``They care
nothing for Samavia. They only care for money and the power to
make laws which will serve them and crush everybody else. They
know Nicola is a weak man, and that, if they can crown him king,
they can make him do what they like.''
The fact that he spoke first, and that, though he spoke in a
steady boyish voice without swagger, he somehow seemed to take it
for granted that they would listen, made his place for him at
once. Boys are impressionable creatures, and they know a leader
when they see him. The hunchback fixed glittering eyes on him.
The rabble began to murmur.
``Rat! Rat!'' several voices cried at once in good strong
Cockney. ``Arst 'im some more, Rat!''
``Is that what they call you?'' Marco asked the hunchback.
``It's what I called myself,'' he answered resentfully. `` `The
Rat.' Look at me! Crawling round on the ground like this! Look
at me!''
He made a gesture ordering his followers to move aside, and began
to push himself rapidly, with queer darts this side and that
round the inclosure. He bent his head and body, and twisted his
face, and made strange animal-like movements. He even uttered
sharp squeaks as he rushed here and there--as a rat might have
done when it was being hunted. He did it as if he were
displaying an accomplishment, and his followers' laughter was
applause.
``Wasn't I like a rat?'' he demanded, when he suddenly stopped.
``You made yourself like one on purpose,'' Marco answered. ``You
do it for fun.''
``Not so much fun,'' said The Rat. ``I feel like one. Every
one's my enemy. I'm vermin. I can't fight or defend myself
unless I bite. I can bite, though.'' And he showed two rows of
fierce, strong, white teeth, sharper at the points than human
teeth usually are. ``I bite my father when he gets drunk and
beats me. I've bitten him till he's learned to remember.'' He
laughed a shrill, squeaking laugh. ``He hasn't tried it for
three months--even when he was drunk-- and he's always drunk.''
Then he laughed again still more shrilly. ``He's a gentleman,''
he said. ``I'm a gentleman's son. He was a Master at a big
school until he was kicked out--that was when I was four and my
mother died. I'm thirteen now. How old are you?''
``I'm twelve,'' answered Marco.
The Rat twisted his face enviously.
``I wish I was your size! Are you a gentleman's son? You look
as if you were.''
``I'm a very poor man's son,'' was Marco's answer. ``My father
is a writer.''
``Then, ten to one, he's a sort of gentleman,'' said The Rat.
Then quite suddenly he threw another question at him. ``What's
the name of the other Samavian party?''
``The Maranovitch. The Maranovitch and the Iarovitch have been
fighting with each other for five hundred years. First one
dynasty rules, and then the other gets in when it has killed
somebody as it killed King Maran,'' Marco answered without
hesitation.
``What was the name of the dynasty that ruled before they began
fighting? The first Maranovitch assassinated the last of them,''
The Rat asked him.
``The Fedorovitch,'' said Marco. ``The last one was a bad
king.''
``His son was the one they never found again,'' said The Rat.
``The one they call the Lost Prince.''
Marco would have started but for his long training in exterior
self-control. It was so strange to hear his dream-hero spoken of
in this back alley in a slum, and just after he had been thinking
of him.
``What do you know about him?'' he asked, and, as he did so, he
saw the group of vagabond lads draw nearer.
``Not much. I only read something about him in a torn magazine I
found in the street,'' The Rat answered. ``The man that wrote
about him said he was only part of a legend, and he laughed at
people for believing in him. He said it was about time that he
should turn up again if he intended to. I've invented things
about him because these chaps like to hear me tell them. They're
only stories.''
``We likes 'im,'' a voice called out, ``becos 'e wos the right
sort; 'e'd fight, 'e would, if 'e was in Samavia now.''
Marco rapidly asked himself how much he might say. He decided
and spoke to them all.
``He is not part of a legend. He's part of Samavian history,''
he said. ``I know something about him too.''
``How did you find it out?'' asked The Rat.
``Because my father's a writer, he's obliged to have books and
papers, and he knows things. I like to read, and I go into the
free libraries. You can always get books and papers there. Then
I ask my father questions. All the newspapers are full of things
about Samavia just now.'' Marco felt that this was an
explanation which betrayed nothing. It was true that no one
could open a newspaper at this period without seeing news and
stories of Samavia.
The Rat saw possible vistas of information opening up before him.
``Sit down here,'' he said, ``and tell us what you know about
him. Sit down, you fellows.''
There was nothing to sit on but the broken flagged pavement, but
that was a small matter. Marco himself had sat on flags or bare
ground often enough before, and so had the rest of the lads. He
took his place near The Rat, and the others made a semicircle in
front of them. The two leaders had joined forces, so to speak,
and the followers fell into line at ``attention.''
Then the new-comer began to talk. It was a good story, that of
the Lost Prince, and Marco told it in a way which gave it
reality. How could he help it? He knew, as they could not, that
it was real. He who had pored over maps of little Samavia since
his seventh year, who had studied them with his father, knew it
as a country he could have found his way to any part of if he had
been dropped in any forest or any mountain of it. He knew every
highway and byway, and in the capital city of Melzarr could
almost have made his way blindfolded. He knew the palaces and
the forts, the churches, the poor streets and the rich ones. His
father had once shown him a plan of the royal palace which they
had studied together until the boy knew each apartment and
corridor in it by heart. But this he did not speak of. He knew
it was one of the things to be silent about. But of the
mountains and the emerald velvet meadows climbing their sides and
only ending where huge bare crags and peaks began, he could
speak. He could make pictures of the wide fertile plains where
herds of wild horses fed, or raced and sniffed the air; he could
describe the fertile valleys where clear rivers ran and flocks of
sheep pastured on deep sweet grass. He could speak of them
because he could offer a good enough reason for his knowledge of
them. It was not the only reason he had for his knowledge, but
it was one which would serve well enough.
``That torn magazine you found had more than one article about
Samavia in it,'' he said to The Rat. ``The same man wrote four.
I read them all in a free library. He had been to Samavia, and
knew a great deal about it. He said it was one of the most
beautiful countries he had ever traveled in--and the most
fertile. That's what they all say of it.''
The group before him knew nothing of fertility or open country.
They only knew London back streets and courts. Most of them had
never traveled as far as the public parks, and in fact scarcely
believed in their existence. They were a rough lot, and as they
had stared at Marco at first sight of him, so they continued to
stare at him as he talked. When he told of the tall Samavians
who had been like giants centuries ago, and who had hunted the
wild horses and captured and trained them to obedience by a sort
of strong and gentle magic, their mouths fell open. This was the
sort of thing to allure any boy's imagination.
``Blimme, if I wouldn't 'ave liked ketchin' one o' them 'orses,''
broke in one of the audience, and his exclamation was followed by
a dozen of like nature from the others. Who wouldn't have liked
``ketchin' one''?
When he told of the deep endless-seeming forests, and of the
herdsmen and shepherds who played on their pipes and made songs
about high deeds and bravery, they grinned with pleasure without
knowing they were grinning. They did not really know that in
this neglected, broken-flagged inclosure, shut in on one side by
smoke- blackened, poverty-stricken houses, and on the other by a
deserted and forgotten sunken graveyard, they heard the rustle of
green forest boughs where birds nested close, the swish of the
summer wind in the river reeds, and the tinkle and laughter and
rush of brooks running.
They heard more or less of it all through the Lost Prince story,
because Prince Ivor had loved lowland woods and mountain forests
and all out-of-door life. When Marco pictured him tall and
strong- limbed and young, winning all the people when he rode
smiling among them, the boys grinned again with unconscious
pleasure.
``Wisht 'e 'adn't got lost!'' some one cried out.
When they heard of the unrest and dissatisfaction of the
Samavians, they began to get restless themselves. When Marco
reached the part of the story in which the mob rushed into the
palace and demanded their prince from the king, they ejaculated
scraps of bad language. ``The old geezer had got him hidden
somewhere in some dungeon, or he'd killed him out an' out--that's
what he'd been up to!'' they clamored. ``Wisht the lot of us had
been there then--wisht we 'ad. We'd 'ave give' 'im wot for,
anyway!''
``An' 'im walkin' out o' the place so early in the mornin' just
singin' like that! 'E 'ad 'im follered an' done for!'' they
decided with various exclamations of boyish wrath. Somehow, the
fact that the handsome royal lad had strolled into the morning
sunshine singing made them more savage. Their language was
extremely bad at this point.
But if it was bad here, it became worse when the old shepherd
found the young huntsman's half-dead body in the forest. He HAD
``bin `done for' IN THE BACK! 'E'd bin give' no charnst.
G-r-r-r!'' they groaned in chorus. ``Wisht'' THEY'D ``bin there
when 'e'd bin 'it!'' They'd `` 'ave done fur somebody''
themselves. It was a story which had a queer effect on them. It
made them think they saw things; it fired their blood; it set
them wanting to fight for ideals they knew nothing
about--adventurous things, for instance, and high and noble young
princes who were full of the possibility of great and good deeds.
Sitting upon the broken flagstones of the bit of ground behind
the deserted graveyard, they were suddenly dragged into the world
of romance, and noble young princes and great and good deeds
became as real as the sunken gravestones, and far more
interesting.
And then the smuggling across the frontier of the unconscious
prince in the bullock cart loaded with sheepskins! They held
their breaths. Would the old shepherd get him past the line!
Marco, who was lost in the recital himself, told it as if he had
been present. He felt as if he had, and as this was the first
time he had ever told it to thrilled listeners, his imagination
got him in its grip, and his heart jumped in his breast as he was
sure the old man's must have done when the guard stopped his cart
and asked him what he was carrying out of the country. He knew
he must have had to call up all his strength to force his voice
into steadiness.
And then the good monks! He had to stop to explain what a monk
was, and when he described the solitude of the ancient monastery,
and its walled gardens full of flowers and old simples to be used
for healing, and the wise monks walking in the silence and the
sun, the boys stared a little helplessly, but still as if they
were vaguely pleased by the picture.
And then there was no more to tell--no more. There it broke off,
and something like a low howl of dismay broke from the
semicircle.
``Aw!'' they protested, ``it 'adn't ought to stop there! Ain't
there no more? Is that all there is?''
``It's all that was ever known really. And that last part might
only be a sort of story made up by somebody. But I believe it
myself.''
The Rat had listened with burning eyes. He had sat biting his
finger-nails, as was a trick of his when he was excited or angry.
``Tell you what!'' he exclaimed suddenly. ``This was what
happened. It was some of the Maranovitch fellows that tried to
kill him. They meant to kill his father and make their own man
king, and they knew the people wouldn't stand it if young Ivor
was alive. They just stabbed him in the back, the fiends! I
dare say they heard the old shepherd coming, and left him for
dead and ran.''
``Right, oh! That was it!'' the lads agreed. ``Yer right there,
Rat!''
``When he got well,'' The Rat went on feverishly, still biting
his nails, ``he couldn't go back. He was only a boy. The other
fellow had been crowned, and his followers felt strong because
they'd just conquered the country. He could have done nothing
without an army, and he was too young to raise one. Perhaps he
thought he'd wait till he was old enough to know what to do. I
dare say he went away and had to work for his living as if he'd
never been a prince at all. Then perhaps sometime he married
somebody and had a son, and told him as a secret who he was and
all about Samavia.'' The Rat began to look vengeful. ``If I'd
bin him I'd have told him not to forget what the Maranovitch had
done to me. I'd have told him that if I couldn't get back the
throne, he must see what he could do when he grew to be a man.
And I'd have made him swear, if he got it back, to take it out of
them or their children or their children's children in torture
and killing. I'd have made him swear not to leave a Maranovitch
alive. And I'd have told him that, if he couldn't do it in his
life, he must pass the oath on to his son and his son's son, as
long as there was a Fedorovitch on earth. Wouldn't you?'' he
demanded hotly of Marco.
Marco's blood was also hot, but it was a different kind of blood,
and he had talked too much to a very sane man.
``No,'' he said slowly. ``What would have been the use? It
wouldn't have done Samavia any good, and it wouldn't have done
him any good to torture and kill people. Better keep them alive
and make them do things for the country. If you're a patriot,
you think of the country.'' He wanted to add ``That's what my
father says,'' but he did not.
``Torture 'em first and then attend to the country,'' snapped The
Rat. ``What would you have told your son if you'd been Ivor?''
``I'd have told him to learn everything about Samavia--and all
the things kings have to know--and study things about laws and
other countries--and about keeping silent--and about governing
himself as if he were a general commanding soldiers in battle--so
that he would never do anything he did not mean to do or could be
ashamed of doing after it was over. And I'd have asked him to
tell his son's sons to tell their sons to learn the same things.
So, you see, however long the time was, there would always be a
king getting ready for Samavia--when Samavia really wanted him.
And he would be a real king.''
He stopped himself suddenly and looked at the staring semicircle.
``I didn't make that up myself,'' he said. ``I have heard a man
who reads and knows things say it. I believe the Lost Prince
would have had the same thoughts. If he had, and told them to
his son, there has been a line of kings in training for Samavia
for five hundred years, and perhaps one is walking about the
streets of Vienna, or Budapest, or Paris, or London now, and he'd
be ready if the people found out about him and called him.''
``Wisht they would!'' some one yelled.
``It would be a queer secret to know all the time when no one
else knew it,'' The Rat communed with himself as it were, ``that
you were a king and you ought to be on a throne wearing a crown.
I wonder if it would make a chap look different?''
He laughed his squeaky laugh, and then turned in his sudden way
to Marco:
``But he'd be a fool to give up the vengeance. What is your
name?''
``Marco Loristan. What's yours? It isn't The Rat really.''
``It's Jem RATcliffe. That's pretty near. Where do you live?''
``No. 7 Philibert Place.''
``This club is a soldiers' club,'' said The Rat. ``It's called
the Squad. I'm the captain. 'Tention, you fellows! Let's show
him.''
The semicircle sprang to its feet. There were about twelve lads
altogether, and, when they stood upright, Marco saw at once that
for some reason they were accustomed to obeying the word of
command with military precision.
``Form in line!'' ordered The Rat.
They did it at once, and held their backs and legs straight and
their heads up amazingly well. Each had seized one of the sticks
which had been stacked together like guns.
The Rat himself sat up straight on his platform. There was
actually something military in the bearing of his lean body. His
voice lost its squeak and its sharpness became commanding.
He put the dozen lads through the drill as if he had been a smart
young officer. And the drill itself was prompt and smart enough
to have done credit to practiced soldiers in barracks. It made
Marco involuntarily stand very straight himself, and watch with
surprised interest.
``That's good!'' he exclaimed when it was at an end. ``How did
you learn that?''
The Rat made a savage gesture.
``If I'd had legs to stand on, I'd have been a soldier!'' he
said. ``I'd have enlisted in any regiment that would take me. I
don't care for anything else.''
Suddenly his face changed, and he shouted a command to his
followers.
``Turn your backs!'' he ordered.
And they did turn their backs and looked through the railings of
the old churchyard. Marco saw that they were obeying an order
which was not new to them. The Rat had thrown his arm up over
his eyes and covered them. He held it there for several moments,
as if he did not want to be seen. Marco turned his back as the
rest had done. All at once he understood that, though The Rat
was not crying, yet he was feeling something which another boy
would possibly have broken down under.
``All right!'' he shouted presently, and dropped his
ragged-sleeved arm and sat up straight again.
``I want to go to war!'' he said hoarsely. ``I want to fight! I
want to lead a lot of men into battle! And I haven't got any
legs. Sometimes it takes the pluck out of me.''
``You've not grown up yet!'' said Marco. ``You might get strong.
No one knows what is going to happen. How did you learn to drill
the club?''
``I hang about barracks. I watch and listen. I follow soldiers.
If I could get books, I'd read about wars. I can't go to
libraries as you can. I can do nothing but scuffle about like a
rat.''
``I can take you to some libraries,'' said Marco. ``There are
places where boys can get in. And I can get some papers from my
father.''
``Can you?'' said The Rat. ``Do you want to join the club?''
``Yes!'' Marco answered. ``I'll speak to my father about it.''
He said it because the hungry longing for companionship in his
own mind had found a sort of response in the queer hungry look in
The Rat's eyes. He wanted to see him again. Strange creature as
he was, there was attraction in him. Scuffling about on his low
wheeled platform, he had drawn this group of rough lads to him
and made himself their commander. They obeyed him; they listened
to his stories and harangues about war and soldiering; they let
him drill them and give them orders. Marco knew that, when he
told his father about him, he would be interested. The boy
wanted to hear what Loristan would say.
``I'm going home now,'' he said. ``If you're going to be here
to- morrow, I will try to come.''
``We shall be here,'' The Rat answered. ``It's our barracks.''
Marco drew himself up smartly and made his salute as if to a
superior officer. Then he wheeled about and marched through the
brick archway, and the sound of his boyish tread was as regular
and decided as if he had been a man keeping time with his
regiment.
``He's been drilled himself,'' said The Rat. ``He knows as much
as I do.''
And he sat up and stared down the passage with new interest.
