VII
``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.
