co can give it when people
are dropping money into his cap. We can pass from one country to
another and rouse everybody who is of the Secret Party. We'll work our
way into Samavia, and we'll be only two boys--and one a cripple--and
nobody will think we could be doing anything. We'll beg in great
cities and on the highroad."

"Where'll you get the money to travel?" said Cad.

"The Secret Party will give it to us, and we sha'n't need much. We
could beg enough, for that matter. We'll sleep under the stars, or
under bridges, or archways, or in dark corners of streets. I've done
it myself many a time when my father drove me out of doors. If it's
cold weather, it's bad enough but if it's fine weather, it's better
than sleeping in the kind of place I'm used to. Comrade," to Marco,
"are you ready?"

He said "Comrade" as Loristan did, and somehow Marco did not resent it,
because he was ready to labor for Samavia. It was only a game, but it
made them comrades--and was it really only a game, after all? His
excited voice and his strange, lined face made it singularly unlike one.

"Yes, Comrade, I am ready," Marco answered him.

"We shall be in Samavia when the fighting for the Lost Prince begins."
The Rat carried on his story with fire. "We may see a battle. We
might do something to help. We might carry messages under a rain of
bullets--a rain of bullets!" The thought so elated him that he forgot
his whisper and his voice rang out fiercely. "Boys have been in
battles before. We might find the Lost King--no, the Found King--and
ask him to let us be his servants. He could send us where he couldn't
send bigger people. I could say to him, 'Your Majesty, I am called
"The Rat," because I can creep through holes and into corners and dart
about. Order me into any danger and I will obey you. Let me die like
a soldier if I can't live like one.'"

Suddenly he threw his ragged coat sleeve up across his eyes. He had
wrought himself up tremendously with the picture of the rain of
bullets. And he felt as if he saw the King who had at last been found.
The next moment he uncovered his face.

"That's what we've got to do," he said. "Just that, if you want to
know. And a lot more. There's no end to it!"

Marco's thoughts were in a whirl. It ought not to be nothing but a
game. He grew quite hot all over. If the Secret Party wanted to send
messengers no one would think of suspecting, who could be more
harmless-lookin