‘Learn these faces,’ he said, ‘until you would know each one of them at once wheresoever you met it. Fix them upon your mind, so that it will be impossible for you to forget them. You must be able to sketch any one of them and recall the city or town or neighbourhood connected with it.’
Even this was still called ‘the game’, but Marco began to know in his secret heart that it was so much more, that his hand sometimes trembled with excitement as he made his sketches over and over again. To make each one many times was the best way to imbed it in his memory. The Rat knew, too, though he had no reason for knowing, but mere instinct. He used to lie awake in the night and think it over and remember what Loristan had said of the time coming when Marco might need a comrade in his work. What was his work to be? It was to be something like ‘the game’. And they were being prepared for it. And though Marco often lay awake on his bed when The Rat lay awake on his sofa, neither boy spoke to the other of the thing his mind dwelt on. And Marco worked as he had never worked before. The game was very exciting when he could prove his prowess. The four gathered together at night in the back sitting room. Lazarus was obliged to be with them because a second judge was needed. Loristan would mention the name of a place, perhaps a street in Paris or a hotel in Vienna, and Marco would at once make a rapid sketch of the face under whose photograph the name of the locality had been written. It was not long before he could begin his sketch without more than a moment’s hesitation. And yet even when this had become the case, they still played the game night after night. There was a great hotel near the Place de la Concorde in Paris, of which Marco felt he should never hear the name during all his life without there starting up before his mental vision a tall woman with fierce black eyes and a delicate high-bridged nose across which the strong eyebrows almost met. In Vienna there was a palace which would always bring back at once a pale cold-faced man with a heavy blonde lock which fell over his forehead. A certain street in Munich meant a stout genial old aristocrat with a sly smile; a village in Bavaria, a peasant with a vacant and simple countenance. A curled and smoothed man who looked like a hairdresser brought up a place in an Austrian mountain town. He knew them all as he knew his own face and No. 7 Philibert Place.
But still night after night the game was played.
Then came a night when, out of a deep sleep, he was awakened by Lazarus touching him. He had so long been secretly ready to answer any call that he sat up straight in bed at the first touch.
‘Dress quickly and come downstairs,’ Lazarus said. ‘The Prince is here and wishes to speak with you.’
Marco made no answer but got out of bed and began to slip on his clothes.
Lazarus touched The Rat.
The Rat was as ready as Marco and sat upright as he had done.
‘Come down with the young Master,’ he commanded. ‘It is necessary that you should be seen and spoken to.’ And having given the order he went away. No one heard the shoeless feet of the two boys as they stole down the stairs.
An elderly man in ordinary clothes, but with an unmistakable face, was sitting quietly talking to Loristan who with a gesture called both forward.
‘The Prince has been much interested in what I have told him of your game,’ he said in his lowest voice. ‘He wishes to see you make your sketches, Marco.’
Marco looked very straight into the Prince’s eyes which were fixed intently on him as he made his bow.
‘His Highness does me honour,’ he said, as his father might have said it. He went to the table at once and took from a drawer his pencils and pieces of cardboard.
‘I should know he was your son and a Samavian,’ the Prince remarked.
Then his keen and deep-set eyes turned themselves on the boy with the crutches.
‘This,’ said Loristan, ‘is the one who calls himself The Rat. He is one of us.’
The Rat saluted.
‘Please tell him, sir,’ he whispered, ‘that the crutches don’t matter.’
‘He has trained himself to an extraordinary activity,’ Loristan said. ‘He can do anything.’
The keen eyes were still taking The Rat in.
‘They are an advantage,’ said the Prince at last.
Lazarus had nailed together a light, rough easel which Marco used in making his sketches when the game was played. Lazarus was standing in state at the door, and he came forward, brought the easel from its corner, and arranged the necessary drawing materials upon it.
Marco stood near it and waited the pleasure of his father and his visitor. They were speaking together in low tones and he waited several minutes. What The Rat noticed was what he had noticed before – that the big boy could stand still in perfect ease and silence. It was not necessary for him to say things or to ask questions – to look at people as if he felt restless if they did not speak to or notice him. He did not seem to require notice, and The Rat felt vaguely that, young as he was, this very freedom from any anxiety to be looked at or addressed made him somehow look like a great gentleman.
Loristan and the Prince advanced to where he stood.
‘L’Hotel de Marigny,’ Loristan said.
Marco began to sketch rapidly. He began the portrait of the handsome woman with the delicate high-bridged nose and the black brows which almost met. As he did it, the Prince drew nearer and watched the work over his shoulder. It did not take very long and, when it was finished, the inspector turned, and after giving Loristan a long and strange look, nodded twice.
‘It is a remarkable thing,’ he said. ‘In that rough sketch she is not to be mistaken.’
Loristan bent his head.
Then he mentioned the name of another street in another place – and Marco sketched again. This time it was the peasant with the simple face. The Prince bowed again. Then Loristan gave another name, and after that another and another; and Marco did his work until it was at an end, and Lazarus stood near with a handful of sketches which he had silently taken charge of as each was laid aside.
‘You would know these faces wheresoever you saw them?’ said the Prince. ‘If you passed one in Bond Street or in the Marylebone Road, you would recognise it at once?’
‘As I know yours, sir,’ Marco answered.
Then followed a number of questions. Loristan asked them as he had often asked them before. They were questions as to the height and build of the originals of the pictures, of the colour of their hair and eyes, and the order of their complexions. Marco answered them all. He knew all but the names of these people, and it was plainly not necessary that he should know them, as his father had never uttered them.
After this questioning was at an end the Prince pointed to The Rat who had leaned on his crutches against the wall, his eyes fiercely eager like a ferret’s.
‘And he?’ the Prince said. ‘What can he do?’
‘Let me try,’ said The Rat. ‘Marco knows.’
Marco looked at his father.
‘May I help him to show you?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Loristan answered, and then, as he turned to the Prince, he said again in his low voice: ‘He is one of us.’
Then Marco began a new form of the game. He held up one of the pictured faces before The Rat, and The Rat named at once the city and place connected with it, he detailed the colour of eyes and hair, the height, the build, all the personal details as Marco himself had detailed them. To these he added descriptions of the cities, and points concerning the police system, the palaces, the people. His face twisted itself, his eyes burned, his voice shook, but he was amazing in his readiness of reply and his exactness of memory.
‘I can’t draw,’ he said at the end. ‘But I can remember. I didn’t want anyone to be bothered with thinking I was trying to learn it. So only Marco knew.’
This he said to Loristan with appeal in his voice.
‘It was he who invented “the game”,’ said Loristan. ‘I showed you his strange maps and plans.’
‘It is a good game,’ the Prince answered in the manner of a man extr
aordinarily interested and impressed. ‘They know it well. They can be trusted.’
‘No such thing has ever been done before,’ Loristan said. ‘It is as new as it is daring and simple.’
‘Therein lies its safety,’ the Prince answered.
‘Perhaps only boyhood,’ said Loristan, ‘could have dared to imagine it.’
‘The Prince thanks you,’ he said after a few more words spoken aside to his visitor. ‘We both thank you. You may go back to your beds.’
And the boys went.
chapter nineteen
‘that is one!’
A week had not passed before Marco brought to The Rat in their bedroom an envelope containing a number of slips of paper on each of which was written something.
‘This is another part of the game,’ he said gravely. ‘Let us sit down together by the table and study it.’
They sat down and examined what was written on the slips. At the head of each was the name of one of the places with which Marco had connected a face he had sketched. Below were clear and concise directions as to how it was to be reached and the words to be said when each individual was encountered.
‘This person is to be found at his stall in the market,’ was written of the vacant-faced peasant. ‘You will first attract his attention by asking the price of something. When he is looking at you, touch your left thumb lightly with the forefinger of your right hand. Then utter in a low distinct tone the words “The Lamp is lighted”. That is all you are to do.’
Sometimes the directions were not quite so simple, but they were all instructions of the same order. The originals of the sketches were to be sought out – always with precaution which should conceal that they were being sought at all, and always in such a manner as would cause an encounter to appear to be mere chance. Then certain words were to be uttered, but always without attracting the attention of any bystander or passer-by.
The boys worked at their task through the entire day. They concentrated all their powers upon it. They wrote and re-wrote – they repeated to each other what they committed to memory as if it were a lesson. Marco worked with the greater ease and more rapidly, because exercise of this order had been his practice and entertainment from his babyhood. The Rat, however, almost kept pace with him, as he had been born with a phenomenal memory and his eagerness and desire were a fury.
But throughout the entire day neither of them once referred to what they were doing as anything but ‘the game’.
At night, it is true, each found himself lying awake and thinking. It was The Rat who broke the silence from his sofa.
‘It is what the messengers of the Secret Party would be ordered to do when they were sent out to give the Sign for the Rising,’ he said. ‘I made that up the first day I invented the party, didn’t I?’
‘Yes,’ answered Marco.
After a third day’s concentration they knew by heart everything given to them to learn. That night Loristan put them through an examination.
‘Can you write these things?’ he asked, after each had repeated them and emerged safely from all cross-questioning.
Each boy wrote them correctly from memory.
‘Write yours in French – in German – in Russian – in Samavian,’ Loristan said to Marco.
‘All you have told me to do and to learn is part of myself, Father,’ Marco said in the end. ‘It is part of me, as if it were my hand or my eyes – or my heart.’
‘I believe that is true,’ answered Loristan.
He was pale that night and there was a shadow on his face. His eyes held a great longing as they rested on Marco. It was a yearning which had a sort of dread in it.
Lazarus also did not seem quite himself. He was red instead of pale, and his movements were uncertain and restless. He cleared his throat nervously at intervals and more than once left his chair as if to look for something.
It was almost midnight when Loristan, standing near Marco, put his arm round his shoulders.
‘The Game –’ he began, and then was silent a few moments while Marco felt his arm tighten its hold. Both Marco and The Rat felt a hard quick beat in their breasts, and, because of this and because the pause seemed long, Marco spoke.
‘The Game – yes, Father?’ he said.
‘The Game is about to give you work to do – both of you,’ Loristan answered.
Lazarus cleared his throat and walked to the easel in the corner of the room. But he only changed the position of a piece of drawing paper on it and then came back.
‘In two days you are to go to Paris – as you,’ to The Rat, ‘planned in the game.’
‘As I planned?’ The Rat barely breathed the words.
‘Yes,’ answered Loristan. ‘The instructions you have learned you will carry out. There is no more to be done than to manage to approach certain persons closely enough to be able to utter certain words to them.’
‘Only two young strollers whom no man could suspect,’ put in Lazarus in an astonishingly rough and shaky voice. ‘They could pass near the Emperor himself without danger. The young Master –’ his voice became so hoarse that he was obligated to clear it loudly – ‘the young Master must carry himself less finely. It would be well to shuffle a little and slouch as if he were of the common people.’
‘Yes,’ said The Rat hastily. ‘He must do that. I can teach him. He holds his head and his shoulders like a gentleman. He must look like a street lad.’
‘I will look like one,’ said Marco, with determination.
‘I will trust you to remind him,’ Loristan said to The Rat, and he said it with gravity. ‘That will be your charge.’
As he lay upon his pillow that night, it seemed to Marco as if a load had lifted itself from his heart. It was the load of uncertainty and longing. He had so long borne the pain of feeling that he was too young to be allowed to serve in any way. His dreams had never been wild ones – they had in fact always been boyish and modest, howsoever romantic. But now no dream which could have passed through his brain would have seemed so wonderful as this – that the hour had come – the hour had come – and that he, Marco, was to be its messenger. He was to do no dramatic deed and be announced by no flourish of heralds. No one would know what he did. What he achieved could only be attained if he remained obscure and unknown and seemed to everyone only a common ordinary boy who knew nothing whatever of important things. But his father had given to him a gift so splendid that he trembled with awe and joy as he thought of it. The Game had become real. He and The Rat were to carry with them The Sign, and it would be like carrying a tiny lamp to set aflame lights which would blaze from one mountain-top to another until half the world seemed on fire.
As he had awakened out of his sleep when Lazarus touched him, so he awakened in the middle of the night again. But he was not aroused by a touch. When he opened his eyes he knew it was a look which had penetrated his sleep – a look in the eyes of his father who was standing by his side. In the road outside there was the utter silence he had noticed the night of the Prince’s first visit – the only light was that of the lamp in the street, but he could see Loristan’s face clearly enough to know that the mere intensity of his gaze had awakened him. The Rat was sleeping profoundly. Loristan spoke in Samavian and under his breath.
‘Beloved one,’ he said. ‘You are very young. Because I am your father – just at this hour I can feel nothing else. I have trained you for this through all the years of your life. I am proud of your young maturity and strength but – Beloved – you are a child! Can I do this thing!’
For the moment, his face and his voice were scarcely like his own.
He kneeled by the bedside, and, as he did it, Marco half sitting up caught his hand and held it hard against his breast.
‘Father, I know!’ he cried under his breath also. ‘It is true. I am a child but am I not a man also? You yourself said it. I always knew that you were teaching me to be one – for some reason. It was my secret that I knew it. I learned well because I never forgot it. And
I learned. Did I not?’
He was so eager that he looked more like a boy than ever. But his young strength and courage were splendid to see. Loristan knew him through and through and read every boyish thought of his.
‘Yes,’ he answered slowly. ‘You did your part – and now if I – drew back – you would feel that I had failed you – failed you.’
‘You!’ Marco breathed it proudly. ‘You could not fail even the weakest thing in the world.’
There was a moment’s silence in which the two pairs of eyes dwelt on each other with the deepest meaning, and then Loristan rose to his feet.
‘The end will be all that our hearts most wish,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow you may begin the new part of “the Game”. You may go to Paris.’
When the train which was to meet the boat that crossed from Dover to Calais steamed out of the noisy Charing Cross Station, it carried in a third-class carriage two shabby boys. One of them would have been a handsome lad if he had not carried himself slouchingly and walked with a street lad’s careless shuffling gait. The other was a cripple who moved slowly, and apparently with difficulty, on crutches. There was nothing remarkable or picturesque enough about them to attract attention. They sat in the corner of the carriage and neither talked much nor seemed to be particularly interested in the journey or each other. When they went on board the steamer, they were soon lost among the commoner passengers and in fact found for themselves a secluded place which was not advantageous enough to be wanted by anyone else.