relate a story
which most people consider a kind of legend. It is that almost a
hundred years after the prince was lost, an old shepherd told a story
his long-dead father had confided to him in secret just before he died.
The father had said that, going out in the early morning on the
mountain side, he had found in the forest what he at first thought to
be the dead body of a beautiful, boyish, young huntsman. Some enemy
had plainly attacked him from behind and believed he had killed him.
He was, however, not quite dead, and the shepherd dragged him into a
cave where he himself often took refuge from storms with his flocks.
Since there was such riot and disorder in the city, he was afraid to
speak of what he had found; and, by the time he discovered that he was
harboring the prince, the king had already been killed, and an even
worse man had taken possession of his throne, and ruled Samavia with a
blood-stained, iron hand. To the terrified and simple peasant the
safest thing seemed to get the wounded youth out of the country before
there was any chance of his being discovered and murdered outright, as
he would surely be. The cave in which he was hidden was not far from
the frontier, and while he was still so weak that he was hardly
conscious of what befell him, he was smuggled across it in a cart
loaded with sheepskins, and left with some kind monks who did not know
his rank or name. The shepherd went back to his flocks and his
mountains, and lived and died among them, always in terror of the
changing rulers and their savage battles with each other. The
mountaineers said among themselves, as the generations succeeded each
other, that the Lost Prince must have died young, because otherwise he
would have come back to his country and tried to restore its good,
bygone days."

"Yes, he would have come," Marco said.

"He would have come if he had seen that he could help his people,"
Loristan answered, as if he were not reflecting on a story which was
probably only a kind of legend. "But he was very young, and Samavia
was in the hands of the new dynasty, and filled with his enemies. He
could not have crossed the frontier without an army. Still, I think he
died young."

It was of this story that Marco was thinking as he walked, and perhaps
the thoughts that filled his mind expressed themselves in his face in
some way which attracted attention. As he was nearing Buckingham
Palace, a distinguished-looking well-dressed