and looked down, and then looked up again, speaking in a low
tone. "I have not looked for him," he said, "because--I believe I
know where he is."

Marco caught his breath.

"Father!" He said only that word. He could say no more. He knew he
must not ask questions. "Silence is still the order." But as they
faced each other in their dingy room at the back of the shabby house on
the side of the roaring common road--as Lazarus stood stock-still
behind his father's chair and kept his eyes fixed on the empty coffee
cups and the dry bread plate, and everything looked as poor as things
always did--there was a king of Samavia--an Ivor Fedorovitch with the
blood of the Lost Prince in his veins--alive in some town or city this
moment! And Marco's own father knew where he was!

He glanced at Lazarus, but, though the old soldier's face looked as
expressionless as if it were cut out of wood, Marco realized that he
knew this thing and had always known it. He had been a comrade at arms
all his life. He continued to stare at the bread plate.

Loristan spoke again and in an even lower voice. "The Samavians who
are patriots and thinkers," he said, "formed themselves into a secret
party about eighty years ago. They formed it when they had no reason
for hope, but they formed it because one of them discovered that an
Ivor Fedorovitch was living. He was head forester on a great estate in
the Austrian Alps. The nobleman he served had always thought him a
mystery because he had the bearing and speech of a man who had not been
born a servant, and his methods in caring for the forests and game were
those of a man who was educated and had studied his subject. But he
never was familiar or assuming, and never professed superiority over
any of his fellows. He was a man of great stature, and was
extraordinarily brave and silent. The nobleman who was his master made
a sort of companion of him when they hunted together. Once he took him
with him when he traveled to Samavia to hunt wild horses. He found
that he knew the country strangely well, and that he was familiar with
Samavian hunting and customs. Before he returned to Austria, the man
obtained permission to go to the mountains alone. He went among the
shepherds and made friends among them, asking many questions.

"One night around a forest fire he heard the songs about the Lost
Prince which had not been forgotten even after nearly five hundred
years had passed. The shepherds a