the manner of a noble. But that, as Loristan had said with a tired
smile, had been before they had had time to outlive and forget the
Garden of Eden. Five hundred years ago, there had succeeded to the
throne a king who was bad and weak. His father had lived to be ninety
years old, and his son had grown tired of waiting in Samavia for his
crown. He had gone out into the world, and visited other countries and
their courts. When he returned and became king, he lived as no Samavian
king had lived before. He was an extravagant, vicious man of furious
temper and bitter jealousies. He was jealous of the larger courts and
countries he had seen, and tried to introduce their customs and their
ambitions. He ended by introducing their worst faults and vices. There
arose political quarrels and savage new factions. Money was squandered
until poverty began for the first time to stare the country in the face.
The big Samavians, after their first stupefaction, broke forth into
furious rage. There were mobs and riots, then bloody battles. Since it
was the king who had worked this wrong, they would have none of him.
They would depose him and make his son king in his place. It was at
this part of the story that Marco was always most deeply interested.
The young prince was totally unlike his father. He was a true royal
Samavian. He was bigger and stronger for his age than any man in the
country, and he was as handsome as a young Viking god. More than this,
he had a lion's heart, and before he was sixteen, the shepherds and
herdsmen had already begun to make songs about his young valor, and
his kingly courtesy, and generous kindness. Not only the shepherds and
herdsmen sang them, but the people in the streets. The king, his father,
had always been jealous of him, even when he was only a beautiful,
stately child whom the people roared with joy to see as he rode through
the streets. When he returned from his journeyings and found him a
splendid youth, he detested him. When the people began to clamor and
demand that he himself should abdicate, he became insane with rage, and