the top of
the mountain. It was the way she looked at--at His Highness."

"Say 'Marco,'" threw in Prince Ivor. "It's easier. He was my army,
Father."

Stefan Loristan's grave eyes melted.

"Say 'Marco,'" he said. "You were his army--and more--when we both
needed one. It was you who invented the Game!"

"Thanks, Your Majesty," said The Rat, reddening scarlet. "You do me
great honor! But he would never let me wait on him when we were
traveling. He said we were nothing but two boys. I suppose that's why
it's hard to remember, at first. But my mind went on working until
sometimes I was afraid I might let something out at the wrong time.
When we went down into the cavern, and I saw the Forgers of the Sword
go mad over him--I KNEW it must be true. But I didn't dare to speak. I
knew you meant us to wait; so I waited."

"You are a faithful friend," said the King, "and you have always obeyed
orders!"

A great moon was sailing in the sky that night--just such a moon as
had sailed among the torn rifts of storm clouds when the Prince at
Vienna had come out upon the balcony and the boyish voice had startled
him from the darkness of the garden below. The clearer light of this
night's splendor drew them out on a balcony also--a broad balcony of
white marble which looked like snow. The pure radiance fell upon all
they saw spread before them--the lovely but half-ruined city, the great
palace square with its broken statues and arches, the splendid ghost of
the unroofed cathedral whose High Altar was bare to the sky.

They stood and looked at it. There was a stillness in which all the
world might have ceased breathing.

"What next?" said Prince Ivor, at last speaking quietly and low. "What
next, Father?"

"Great things which will come, one by one," said the King, "if we hold
ourselves ready."

Prince Ivor turned his face from the lovely, white, broken city, and
put his brown hand on his father's arm.

"Upon the ledge that night--" he said, "Father, you remember--?" The
King was looking far away, but he bent his head:

"Yes. That will come, too," he said. "Can you repeat it?"

"Yes," said Ivor, "and so can the aide-de-camp. We've said it a
hundred times. We believe it's true. 'If the descendant of the Lost
Prince is brought back to rule in Samavia, he will teach his people the
Law of the One, from his throne. He will teach his son, and that son
will teach his son, and he will teach his. And through s