see him at all, and still moved forward, thinking of the shepherds and
the prince. The well-dressed man began to walk still more slowly. When
he was quite close to Marco, he stopped and spoke to him--in the
Samavian language.

"What is your name?" he asked.

Marco's training from his earliest childhood had been an extraordinary
thing. His love for his father had made it simple and natural to him,
and he had never questioned the reason for it. As he had been taught to
keep silence, he had been taught to control the expression of his face
and the sound of his voice, and, above all, never to allow himself to
look startled. But for this he might have started at the extraordinary
sound of the Samavian words suddenly uttered in a London street by an
English gentleman. He might even have answered the question in Samavian
himself. But he did not. He courteously lifted his cap and replied in
English:

"Excuse me?"

The gentleman's clever eyes scrutinized him keenly. Then he also spoke
in English.

"Perhaps you do not understand? I asked your name because you are very
like a Samavian I know," he said.

"I am Marco Loristan," the boy answered him.

The man looked straight into his eyes and smiled.