"IT IS NOT A GAME"
Loristan walked slowly up and down the back sitting-room and listened to
Marco, who sat by the small fire and talked.
"Go on," he said, whenever the boy stopped. "I want to hear it all. He's
a strange lad, and it's a splendid game."
Marco was telling him the story of his second and third visits to the
inclosure behind the deserted church-yard. He had begun at the
beginning, and his father had listened with a deep interest.
A year later, Marco recalled this evening as a thrilling memory, and as
one which would never pass away from him throughout his life. He would
always be able to call it all back. The small and dingy back room, the
dimness of the one poor gas-burner, which was all they could afford to
light, the iron box pushed into the corner with its maps and plans
locked safely in it, the erect bearing and actual beauty of the tall
form, which the shabbiness of worn and mended clothes could not hide or
dim. Not even rags and tatters could have made Loristan seem
insignificant or undistinguished. He was always the same. His eyes
seemed darker and more wonderful than ever in their remote
thoughtfulness and interest as he spoke.
"Go on," he said. "It is a splendid game. And it is curious. He has
thought it out well. The lad is a born soldier."
"It is not a game to him," Marco said. "And it is not a game to me. The
Squad is only playing, but with him it's quite different. He knows he'll
never really get what he wants, but he feels as if this was something
near it. He said I might show you the map he made. Father, look at it."
He gave Loristan the clean copy of The Rat's map of Samavia. The city of
Melzarr was marked with certain signs. They were to show at what points
The Rat--if he had been a Samavian general--would have attacked the
capital. As Marco pointed them out, he explained The Rat's reasons for
his planning.
Loristan held the paper for some minutes. He fixed his eyes on it
curiously, and his black brows drew themselves together.
"This is very wonderful!" he said at last. "He is quite right. They
might have got in there, and for the very reasons he hit on. How did he
learn all this?"
"He thinks of nothing else now," answered Marco. "He has always thought
of wars and made plans for battles. He's not like the rest of the Squad.
His father is nearly always drunk, but he is very well educated, and,
when he is only half drunk, he likes to talk. The Rat asks him questions
then, and leads him on until he finds out a great deal. Then he begs old
newspapers, and he hides himself in corners and listens to what people
are saying. He says he lies awake at night thinking it out, and he
thinks about it all the day. That was why he got up the Squad."
Loristan had continued examining the paper.
"Tell him," he said, when he refolded and handed it back, "that I
studied his map, and he may be proud of it. You may also tell him--" and
he smiled quietly as he spoke--"that in my opinion he is right. The
Iarovitch would have held Melzarr to-day if he had led them."
Marco was full of exultation.
"I thought you would say he was right. I felt sure you would. That is
what makes me want to tell you the rest," he hurried on.
"If you think he is right about the rest too--" He stopped awkwardly
because of a sudden wild thought which rushed upon him. "I don't know
what you will think," he stammered. "Perhaps it will seem to you as if
the game--as if that part of it could--could only be a game."
He was so fervent in spite of his hesitation that Loristan began to
watch him with sympathetic respect, as he always did when the boy was
trying to express something he was not sure of. One of the great bonds
between them was that Loristan was always interested in his boyish
mental processes--in the way in which his thoughts led him to any
conclusion.
"Go on," he said again. "I am like The Rat and I am like you. It has not
seemed quite like a game to me, so far."
He sat down at the writing-table and Marco, in his eagerness, drew
nearer and leaned against it, resting on his arms and lowering his
voice, though it was always their habit to speak at such a pitch that no
one outside the room they were in could distinguish what they said.
"It is The Rat's plan for giving the signal for a Rising," he said.
Loristan made a slight movement.
"Does he think there will be a Rising?" he asked.
"He says that must be what the Secret Party has been preparing for all
these years. And it must come soon. The other nations see that the
fighting must be put an end to even if they have to stop it themselves.
And if the real King is found--but when The Rat bought the newspaper
there was nothing in it about where he was. It was only a sort of rumor.
Nobody seemed to know anything." He stopped a few seconds, but he did
not utter the words which were in his mind. He did not say: "But _you_
know."
"And The Rat has a plan for giving the signal?" Loristan said.
Marco forgot his first feeling of hesitation. He began to see the plan
again as he had seen it when The Rat talked. He began to speak as The
Rat had spoken, forgetting that it was a game. He made even a clearer
picture than The Rat had made of the two vagabond boys--one of them
a cripple--making their way from one place to another, quite free
to carry messages or warnings where they chose, because they were so
insignificant and poor-looking that no one could think of them as
anything but waifs and strays, belonging to nobody and blown about by
the wind of poverty and chance. He felt as if he wanted to convince his
father that the plan was a possible one. He did not quite know why he
felt so anxious to win his approval of the scheme--as if it were
real--as if it could actually be done. But this feeling was what
inspired him to enter into new details and suggest possibilities.
"A boy who was a cripple and one who was only a street singer and a sort
of beggar could get almost anywhere," he said. "Soldiers would listen to
a singer if he sang good songs--and they might not be afraid to talk
before him. A strolling singer and a cripple would perhaps hear a great
many things it might be useful for the Secret Party to know. They might
even hear important things. Don't you think so?"
Before he had gone far with his story, the faraway look had fallen upon
Loristan's face--the look Marco had known so well all his life. He sat
turned a little sidewise from the boy, his elbow resting on the table
and his forehead on his hand. He looked down at the worn carpet at his
feet, and so he looked as he listened to the end. It was as if some new
thought were slowly growing in his mind as Marco went on talking and
enlarging on The Rat's plan. He did not even look up or change his
position as he answered, "Yes. I think so."
But, because of the deep and growing thought in his face, Marco's
courage increased. His first fear that this part of the planning might
seem so bold and reckless that it would only appear to belong to a
boyish game, gradually faded away for some strange reason. His father
had said that the first part of The Rat's imaginings had not seemed
quite like a game to him, and now--even now--he was not listening as if
he were listening to the details of mere exaggerated fancies. It was as
if the thing he was hearing was not wildly impossible. Marco's knowledge
of Continental countries and of methods of journeying helped him to
enter into much detail and give realism to his plans.
"Sometimes we could pretend we knew nothing but English," he said.
"Then, though The Rat could not understand, I could. I should always
understand in each country. I know the cities and the places we should
want to go to. I know how boys like us live, and so we should not do
anything which would make the police angry or make people notice us.
If any one asked questions, I would let them believe that I had met The
Rat by chance, and we had made up our minds to travel together because
people gave more money to a boy who sang if he was with a cripple. There
was a boy who used to play the guitar in the streets of Rome, and he
always had a lame girl with him, and every one knew it was for that
reason. When he played, people looked at the girl and were sorry for her
and gave her soldi. You remember."
"Yes, I remember. And what you say is true," Loristan answered.
Marco leaned forward across the table so that he came closer to him.
The tone in which the words were said made his courage leap like a
flame. To be allowed to go on with this boldness was to feel that he was
being treated almost as if he were a man. If his father had wished to
stop him, he could have done it with one quiet glance, without uttering
a word. For some wonderful reason he did not wish him to cease talking.
He was willing to hear what he had to say--he was even interested.
"You are growing older," he had said the night he had revealed the
marvelous secret. "Silence is still the order, but you are man enough to
be told more."
Was he man enough to be thought worthy to help Samavia in any small
way--even with boyish fancies which might contain a germ of some thought
which older and wiser minds might make useful? Was he being listened to
because the plan, made as part of a game, was not an impossible one--if
two boys who could be trusted could be found? He caught a deep breath as
he went on, drawing still nearer and speaking so low that his tone was
almost a whisper.
"If the men of the Secret Party have been working and thinking for
so many years--they have prepared everything. They know by this time
exactly what must be done by the messengers who are to give the signal.
They can tell them where to go and how to know the secret friends who
must be warned. If the orders could be written and given to--to some one
who has--who has learned to remember things!" He had begun to breathe so
quickly that he stopped for a moment.
Loristan looked up. He looked directly into his eyes.
"Some one who has been _trained_ to remember things?" he said.
"Some one who has been trained," Marco went on, catching his breath
again. "Some one who does not forget--who would never forget--never!
That one, even if he were only twelve--even if he were only ten--could
go and do as he was told."
Loristan put his hand on his shoulder.
"Comrade," he said, "you are speaking as if you were ready to go
yourself."
Marco's eyes looked bravely straight into his, but he said not one word.
"Do you know what it would mean, Comrade?" his father went on. "You are
right. It is not a game. And you are not thinking of it as one. But have
you thought how it would be if something betrayed you--and you were set
up against a wall to be _shot_?"
Marco stood up quite straight. He tried to believe he felt the wall
against his back.
"If I were shot, I should be shot for Samavia," he said. "And for _you_,
Father."
Even as he was speaking, the front door-bell rang and Lazarus evidently
opened it. He spoke to some one, and then they heard his footsteps
approaching the back sitting-room.
"Open the door," said Loristan, and Marco opened it.
"There is a boy who is a cripple here, sir," the old soldier said. "He
asked to see Master Marco."
"If it is The Rat," said Loristan, "bring him in here. I wish to see
him."
Marco went down the passage to the front door. The Rat was there, but he
was not upon his platform. He was leaning upon an old pair of crutches,
and Marco thought he looked wild and strange. He was white, and somehow
the lines of his face seemed twisted in a new way. Marco wondered if
something had frightened him, or if he felt ill.
"Rat," he began, "my father--"
"I've come to tell you about _my_ father," The Rat broke in without
waiting to hear the rest, and his voice was as strange as his pale face.
"I don't know why I've come, but I--I just wanted to. He's dead!"
"Your father?" Marco stammered. "He's--"
"He's dead," The Rat answered shakily. "I told you he'd kill himself.
He had another fit and he died in it. I knew he would, one of these days.
I told him so. He knew he would himself. I stayed with him till he was
dead--and then I got a bursting headache and I felt sick--and I thought
about you."
Marco made a jump at him because he saw he was suddenly shaking as if he
were going to fall. He was just in time, and Lazarus, who had been
looking on from the back of the passage, came forward. Together they
held him up.
"I'm not going to faint," he said weakly, "but I felt as if I was. It
was a bad fit, and I had to try and hold him. I was all by myself. The
people in the other attic thought he was only drunk, and they wouldn't
come in. He's lying on the floor there, dead."
"Come and see my father," Marco said. "He'll tell us what do do.
Lazarus, help him."
"I can get on by myself," said The Rat. "Do you see my crutches? I did
something for a pawnbroker last night, and he gave them to me for pay."
But though he tried to speak carelessly, he had plainly been horribly
shaken and overwrought. His queer face was yellowish white still, and he
was trembling a little.
Marco led the way into the back sitting-room. In the midst of its shabby
gloom and under the dim light Loristan was standing in one of his still,
attentive attitudes. He was waiting for them.
"Father, this is The Rat," the boy began. The Rat stopped short and
rested on his crutches, staring at the tall, reposeful figure with
widened eyes.
"Is that your father?" he said to Marco. And then added, with a jerky
half-laugh, "He's not much like mine, is he?"
X