Is that all?" asked the Hermit. "Was there nothing to prove that this
is the same child?" He said this in a loud voice so that every one
could hear.

"Proof!" cried Tonio, shaking his fist at John fiercely. "Who can
mistake him in that suit, the very one we gave him? Look at his mop of
yellow tow and his eye with the brown spot over it. No one who has
seen it could forget that spot. Ay, there is still another way to
prove him ours. I see the gleam of silver around his neck. He still
wears the chain and the bit of silver which he dares not remove,
because there is magic in it, they say. It was on his neck when the
fisherman found him. Look, and see if we do not say truth!"

John still stood motionless, looking in the Hermit's face. But at
these last words the old man stepped behind him and drew the silver
talisman from the boy's breast, laying it out on his green silk bosom,
where it glittered for all to see.

Cecco and Tonio and the Giant gave a cry of triumph. But from the
crowd behind them rose a murmur of different meaning. Men began to
crowd forward eagerly.

"Yes, look!" cried the Hermit, pointing at the medal. "The Cross of
the good man John, the friend of King Cyril! Which of you does not
know and love it?"

The murmur of the crowd swelled into a shout,--"Who is he? Who is the
lad? We will know!"

"Who but John," answered the Hermit, with kindling eyes. "Who but
John, the good man's son,--my brother's son. I know, for I christened
the child, and I saw the King hang this Cross about the baby's neck, a
Cross like the one he had given John himself. This is the child who
disappeared fourteen years ago. The King sent him away to be killed.
But the servant to whom the task fell was less cruel. The child was
set adrift on the ocean, and escaped as you have heard. Will you let
him be lost again?"

"No! No!" roared the crowd. "He shall not go! He shall not go!" And
they seized the three mountebanks and hustled them away.

With a shout the King's own guards rushed forward to help in this
matter. There was a cry at the back of the platform. The King had
fallen in a fit. But few at the moment were thinking of him. The
people were throwing up their caps and dancing joyously.

"John! John!" they shouted. "We knew the silver Cross which the holy
John always wore when he went about doing good to us. Oh, we remember
now! We shall never again forget! John! Hurrah for his son John!"