ends in the most powerful
capitals, and working secretly for the future good of their own land.
Because Samavia is so small and uninfluential, it has taken a long time
but when King Maran and his family were assassinated and the war broke
out, there were great powers which began to say that if some king of
good blood and reliable characteristics were given the crown, he should
be upheld."

"HIS blood,"--Marco's intensity made his voice drop almost to a
whisper,--"HIS blood has been trained for five hundred years, Father!
If it comes true--" though he laughed a little, he was obliged to wink
his eyes hard because suddenly he felt tears rush into them, which no
boy likes--"the shepherds will have to make a new song--it will have to
be a shouting one about a prince going away and a king coming back!"

"They are a devout people and observe many an ancient rite and
ceremony. They will chant prayers and burn altar-fires on their
mountain sides," Loristan said. "But the end is not yet--the end is
not yet. Sometimes it seems that perhaps it is near--but God knows!"

Then there leaped back upon Marco the story he had to tell, but which
he had held back for the last--the story of the man who spoke Samavian
and drove in the carriage with the King. He knew now that it might
mean some important thing which he could not have before suspected.

"There is something I must tell you," he said.

He had learned to relate incidents in few but clear words when he
related them to his father. It had been part of his training. Loristan
had said that he might sometime have a story to tell when he had but
few moments to tell it in--some story which meant life or death to some
one. He told this one quickly and well. He made Loristan see the
well-dressed man with the deliberate manner and the keen eyes, and he
made him hear his voice when he said, "Tell your father that you are a
very well-trained lad."

"I am glad he said that. He is a man who knows what training is," said
Loristan. "He is a person who knows what all Europe is doing, and
almost all that it will do. He is an ambassador from a powerful and
great country. If he saw that you are a well-trained and fine lad, it
might--it might even be good for Samavia."

"Would it matter that _I_ was well-trained? COULD it matter to
Samavia?" Marco cried out.

Loristan paused for a moment--watching him gravely--looking him
over--his big, well-built boy's frame, his shabby clothes, a