The fact that he spoke first, and that, though he spoke in a steady boyish voice without swagger, he somehow seemed to take it for granted that they would listen, made his place for him at once. Boys are impressionable creatures, and they know a leader when they see him. The hunchback fixed glittering eyes on him.
The rabble began to murmur.
“Rat! Rat!'' several voices cried at once in good strong Cockney. “Arst 'im some more, Rat!''
“Is that what they call you?'' Marco asked the hunchback.
“It's what I called myself,'' he answered resentfully. “ `The Rat.' Look at me! Crawling round on the ground like this! Look at me!''
He made a gesture ordering his followers to move aside, and began to push himself rapidly, with queer darts this side and that round the inclosure. He bent his head and body, and twisted his face, and made strange animal-like movements. He even uttered sharp squeaks as he rushed here and there--as a rat might have done when it was being hunted. He did it as if he were displaying an accomplishment, and his followers' laughter was applause.
“Wasn't I like a rat?'' he demanded, when he suddenly stopped.
“You made yourself like one on purpose,'' Marco answered. “You do it for fun.''
“Not so much fun,'' said The Rat. “I feel like one. Every one's my enemy. I'm vermin. I can't fight or defend myself unless I bite. I can bite, though.'' And he showed two rows of fierce, strong, white teeth, sharper at the points than human teeth usually are. “I bite my father when he gets drunk and beats me. I've bitten him till he's learned to remember.'' He laughed a shrill, squeaking laugh. “He hasn't tried it for three months--even when he was drunk-- and he's always drunk.''
Then he laughed again still more shrilly. “He's a gentleman,'' he said. “I'm a gentleman's son. He was a Master at a big school until he was kicked out--that was when I was four and my mother died. I'm thirteen now. How old are you?''
“I'm twelve,'' answered Marco.
The Rat twisted his face enviously.
“I wish I was your size! Are you a gentleman's son? You look as if you were.''
“I'm a very poor man's son,'' was Marco's answer. “My father is a writer.''
“Then, ten to one, he's a sort of gentleman,'' said The Rat.
Then quite suddenly he threw another question at him. “What's the name of the other Samavian party?''
“The Maranovitch. The Maranovitch and the Iarovitch have been fighting with each other for five hundred years. First one dynasty rules, and then the other gets in when it has killed somebody as it killed King Maran,'' Marco answered without hesitation.
“What was the name of the dynasty that ruled before they began fighting? The first Maranovitch assassinated the last of them,''
The Rat asked him.
“The Fedorovitch,'' said Marco. “The last one was a bad king.''
“His son was the one they never found again,'' said The Rat.
“The one they call the Lost Prince.''
Marco would have started but for his long training in exterior self-control. It was so strange to hear his dream-hero spoken of in this back alley in a slum, and just after he had been thinking of him.
“What do you know about him?'' he asked, and, as he did so, he saw the group of vagabond lads draw nearer.
“Not much. I only read something about him in a torn magazine Ifound in the street,'' The Rat answered. “The man that wrote about him said he was only part of a legend, and he laughed at people for believing in him. He said it was about time that he should turn up again if he intended to. I've invented things about him because these chaps like to hear me tell them. They're only stories.''
“We likes 'im,'' a voice called out, “becos 'e wos the right sort; 'e'd fight, 'e would, if 'e was in Samavia now.''
Marco rapidly asked himself how much he might say. He decided and spoke to them all.
“He is not part of a legend. He's part of Samavian history,'' he said. “I know something about him too.''
“How did you find it out?'' asked The Rat.
“Because my father's a writer, he's obliged to have books and papers, and he knows things. I like to read, and I go into the free libraries. You can always get books and papers there. Then I ask my father questions. All the newspapers are full of things about Samavia just now.'' Marco felt that this was an explanation which betrayed nothing. It was true that no one could open a newspaper at this period without seeing news and stories of Samavia.
The Rat saw possible vistas of information opening up before him.
“Sit down here,'' he said, “and tell us what you know about him. Sit down, you fellows.''
There was nothing to sit on but the broken flagged pavement, but that was a small matter. Marco himself had sat on flags or bare ground often enough before, and so had the rest of the lads. He took his place near The Rat, and the others made a semicircle in front of them. The two leaders had joined forces, so to speak, and the followers fell into line at “attention.''
