The Lost Prince by Frances Hodgson Burnett (first ebook reader TXT) π
This was because of the promises he had made to his father, andthey had been the first thing he remembered. Not that he hadever regretted anything connected with his father. He threw hisblack head up as he thought of that. None of the other boys hadsuch a father, not one of them. His father was his idol and hischief. He had scarcely ever seen him when his clothes had notbeen poor and shabby, but he had also never seen him when,despite his worn coat and frayed linen, he had not stood outamong all others as more distinguished than the most noticeableof them. When he walked down a street, people turned to look athim even oftener than they turned to look at Marco, and the boyfelt as if it was not merely because he was a big man with ahandsome, dark face, but because he looked, somehow, as if he hadbeen born to command armies, and as if no one would think ofdisobeying him. Yet Marco had never seen him command any one,and they had always been poor, and shabbily dressed, and oftenenou
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βItβs queer what a difference it makes!β he said. βIt is almost like finding a window.β
The mere presence of these harmless living things was companionship. He sat down close to the low shelf and listened to the motherly purring, now and then speaking and putting out his hand to touch the warm fur. The phosphorescent light in the green eyes was a comfort in itself.
βWe shall get out of thisβboth of us,β he said. βWe shall not be here very long, Puss-cat.β
He was not troubled by the fear of being really hungry for some time. He was so used to eating scantily from necessity, and to passing long hours without food during his journeys, that he had proved to himself that fasting is not, after all, such a desperate ordeal as most people imagine. If you begin by expecting to feel famished and by counting the hours between your meals, you will begin to be ravenous. But he knew better.
The time passed slowly; but he had known it would pass slowly, and he had made up his mind not to watch it nor ask himself questions about it. He was not a restless boy, but, like his father, could stand or sit or lie still. Now and then he could hear distant rumblings of carts and vans passing in the street. There was a certain degree of companionship in these also. He kept his place near the cat and his hand where he could occasionally touch her. He could lift his eyes now and then to the place where the dim glimmer of something like light showed itself.
Perhaps the stillness, perhaps the darkness, perhaps the purring of the mother cat, probably all three, caused his thoughts to begin to travel through his mind slowly and more slowly. At last they ceased and he fell asleep. The mother cat purred for some time, and then fell asleep herself.
XV A SOUND IN A DREAMMarco slept peacefully for several hours. There was nothing to awaken him during that time. But at the end of it, his sleep was penetrated by a definite sound. He had dreamed of hearing a voice at a distance, and, as he tried in his dream to hear what it said, a brief metallic ringing sound awakened him outright. It was over by the time he was fully conscious, and at once he realized that the voice of his dream had been a real one, and was speaking still. It was the Lovely Personβs voice, and she was speaking rapidly, as if she were in the greatest haste. She was speaking through the door.
βYou will have to search for it,β was all he heard. βI have not a moment!β And, as he listened to her hurriedly departing feet, there came to him with their hastening echoes the words, βYou are too good for the cellar. I like you!β
He sprang to the door and tried it, but it was still locked. The feet ran up the cellar steps and through the upper hall, and the front door closed with a bang. The two people had gone away, as they had threatened. The voice had been excited as well as hurried. Something had happened to frighten them, and they had left the house in great haste.
Marco turned and stood with his back against the door. The cat had awakened and she was gazing at him with her green eyes. She began to purr encouragingly. She really helped Marco to think. He was thinking with all his might and trying to remember.
βWhat did she come for? She came for something,β he said to himself. βWhat did she say? I only heard part of it, because I was asleep. The voice in the dream was part of it. The part I heard was, `You will have to search for it. I have not a moment.β And as she ran down the passage, she called back, `You are too good for the cellar. I like you.β β He said the words over and over again and tried to recall exactly how they had sounded, and also to recall the voice which had seemed to be part of a dream but had been a real thing. Then he began to try his favorite experiment. As he often tried the experiment of commanding his mind to go to sleep, so he frequently experimented on commanding it to work for him βto help him to remember, to understand, and to argue about things clearly.
βReason this out for me,β he said to it now, quite naturally and calmly. βShow me what it means.β
What did she come for? It was certain that she was in too great a hurry to be able, without a reason, to spare the time to come. What was the reason? She had said she liked him. Then she came because she liked him. If she liked him, she came to do something which was not unfriendly. The only good thing she could do for him was something which would help him to get out of the cellar. She had said twice that he was too good for the cellar. If he had been awake, he would have heard all she said and have understood what she wanted him to do or meant to do for him. He must not stop even to think of that. The first words he had heardβwhat had they been? They had been less clear to him than her last because he had heard them only as he was awakening. But he thought he was sure that they had been, βYou will have to search for it.β Search for it. For what? He thought and thought. What must he search for?
He sat down on the floor of the cellar and held his head in his hands, pressing his eyes so hard that curious lights floated before them.
βTell me! Tell me!β he said to that part of his being which the Buddhist anchorite had said held all knowledge and could tell a man everything if he called upon it in the right spirit.
And in a few minutes, he recalled something which seemed so much a part of his sleep that he had not been sure that he had not dreamed it. The ringing sound! He sprang up on his feet with a little gasping shout. The ringing sound! It had been the ring of metal, striking as it fell. Anything made of metal might have sounded like that. She had thrown something made of metal into the cellar. She had thrown it through the slit in the bricks near the door. She liked him, and said he was too good for his prison. She had thrown to him the only thing which could set him free. She had thrown him the KEY of the cellar!
For a few minutes the feelings which surged through him were so full of strong excitement that they set his brain in a whirl. He knew what his father would sayβthat would not do. If he was to think, he must hold himself still and not let even joy overcome him. The key was in the black little cellar, and he must find it in the dark. Even the woman who liked him enough to give him a chance of freedom knew that she must not open the door and let him out. There must be a delay. He would have to find the key himself, and it would be sure to take time. The chances were that they would be at a safe enough distance before he could get out.
βI will kneel down and crawl on my hands and knees,β he said.
βI will crawl back and forth and go over every inch of the floor with my hands until I find it. If I go over every inch, I shall find it.β
So he kneeled down and began to crawl, and the cat watched him and purred.
βWe shall get out, Puss-cat,β he said to her. βI told you we should.β
He crawled from the door to the wall at the side of the shelves, and then he crawled back again. The key might be quite a small one, and it was necessary that he should pass his hands over every inch, as he had said. The difficulty was to be sure, in the darkness, that he did not miss an inch. Sometimes he was not sure enough, and then he went over the ground again. He crawled backward and forward, and he crawled forward and backward. He crawled crosswise and lengthwise, he crawled diagonally, and he crawled round and round. But he did not find the key. If he had had only a little light, but he had none. He was so absorbed in his search that he did not know he had been engaged in it for several hours, and that it was the middle of the night. But at last he realized that he must stop for a rest, because his knees were beginning to feel bruised, and the skin of his hands was sore as a result of the rubbing on the flags. The cat and her kittens had gone to sleep and awakened again two or three times.
βBut it is somewhere!β he said obstinately. βIt is inside the cellar. I heard something fall which was made of metal. That was the ringing sound which awakened me.β
When he stood up, he found his body ached and he was very tired. He stretched himself and exercised his arms and legs.
βI wonder how long I have been crawling about,β he thought. βBut the key is in the cellar. It is in the cellar.β
He sat down near the cat and her family, and, laying his arm on the shelf above her, rested his head on it. He began to think of another experiment.
βI am so tired, I believe I shall go to sleep again. `Thought which Knows Allβ ββhe was quoting something the hermit had said to Loristan in their midnight talkββThought which Knows All! Show me this little thing. Lead me to it when I awake.β
And he did fall asleep, sound and fast.
He did not know that he slept all the rest of
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