discovered and murdered outright, as he would surely be. The cave in
which he was hidden was not far from the frontier, and while he was
still so weak that he was hardly conscious of what befell him, he was
smuggled across it in a cart loaded with sheepskins, and left with some
kind monks who did not know his rank or name. The shepherd went back to
his flocks and his mountains, and lived and died among them, always in
terror of the changing rulers and their savage battles with each other.
The mountaineers said among themselves, as the generations succeeded
each other, that the Lost Prince must have died young, because otherwise
he would have come back to his country and tried to restore its good,
bygone days."

"Yes, he would have come," Marco said.

"He would have come if he had seen that he could help his people,"
Loristan answered, as if he were not reflecting on a story which was
probably only a kind of legend. "But he was very young, and Samavia was
in the hands of the new dynasty, and filled with his enemies. He could
not have crossed the frontier without an army. Still, I think he died
young."

[Illustration: He was the man who had spoken to him in Samavian.]

It was of this story that Marco was thinking as he walked, and perhaps
the thoughts that filled his mind expressed themselves in his face in
some way which attracted attention. As he was nearing Buckingham Palace,
a distinguished-looking well-dressed man with clever eyes caught sight
of him, and, after looking at him keenly, slackened his pace as he
approached him from the opposite direction. An observer might have
thought he saw something which puzzled and surprised him. Marco didn't