e boy whom Samavians had a strange and superstitious worship
for, because he seemed so surely their Lost Prince restored in body and
soul--almost the kingly lad in the ancient portrait--some of them half
believed when he stood in the sunshine, with the halo about his head.

It was a wonderful and intense story, that of the long wanderings and
the close hiding of the dangerous secret. Among all those who had
known that a man who was an impassioned patriot was laboring for
Samavia, and using all the power of a great mind and the delicate
ingenuity of a great genius to gain friends and favor for his unhappy
country, there had been but one who had known that Stefan Loristan had
a claim to the Samavian throne. He had made no claim, he had
sought--not a crown--but the final freedom of the nation for which his
love had been a religion.

"Not the crown!" he said to the two young Bearers of the Sign as they
sat at his feet like schoolboys--"not a throne. 'The Life of my
life--for Samavia.' That was what I worked for--what we have all
worked for. If there had risen a wiser man in Samavia's time of need,
it would not have been for me to remind them of their Lost Prince. I
could have stood aside. But no man arose. The crucial moment
came--and the one man who knew the secret, revealed it. Then--Samavia
called, and I answered."

He put his hand on the thick, black hair of his boy's head.

"There was a thing we never spoke of together," he said. "I believed
always that your mother died of her bitter fears for me and the
unending strain of them. She was very young and loving, and knew that
there was no day when we parted that we were sure of seeing each other
alive again. When she died, she begged me to promise that your boyhood
and youth should not be burdened by the knowledge she had found it so
terrible to bear. I should have kept the secret from you, even if she
had not so implored me. I had never meant that you should know the
truth until you were a man. If I had died, a certain document would
have been sent to you which would have left my task in your hands and
made my plans clear. You would have known then that you also were a
Prince Ivor, who must take up his country's burden and be ready when
Samavia called. I tried to help you to train yourself for any task.
You never failed me."

"Your Majesty," said The Rat, "I began to work it out, and think it
must be true that night when we were with the old woman on