The hours of Marco's unexplained absence had been terrible to Loristan and to Lazarus. They had reason for fears which it was not possible for them to express. As the night drew on, the fears took stronger form. They forgot the existence of The Rat, who sat biting his nails in the bedroom, afraid to go out lest he might lose the chance of being given some errand to do but also afraid to show himself lest he should seem in the way.
“I'll stay upstairs,'' he had said to Lazarus. “If you just whistle, I'll come.''
The anguish he passed through as the day went by and Lazarus went out and came in and he himself received no orders, could not have been expressed in any ordinary words. He writhed in his chair, he bit his nails to the quick, he wrought himself into a frenzy of misery and terror by recalling one by one all the crimes his knowledge of London police-courts supplied him with.
He was doing nothing, yet he dare not leave his post. It was his post after all, though they had not given it to him. He must do something.
In the middle of the night Loristan opened the door of the back sitting-room, because he knew he must at least go upstairs and throw himself upon his bed even if he could not sleep.
He started back as the door opened. The Rat was sitting huddled on the floor near it with his back against the wall. He had a piece of paper in his hand and his twisted face was a weird thing to see.
“Why are you here?'' Loristan asked.
“I've been here three hours, sir. I knew you'd have to come out sometime and I thought you'd let me speak to you. Will you--will you?''
“Come into the room,'' said Loristan. “I will listen to anything you want to say. What have you been drawing on that paper?'' as The Rat got up in the wonderful way he had taught himself. The paper was covered with lines which showed it to be another of his plans.
“Please look at it,'' he begged. “I daren't go out lest you might want to send me somewhere. I daren't sit doing nothing. Ibegan remembering and thinking things out. I put down all the streets and squares he MIGHT have walked through on his way home.
I've not missed one. If you'll let me start out and walk through every one of them and talk to the policemen on the beat and look at the houses--and think out things and work at them--I'll not miss an inch--I'll not miss a brick or a flagstone--I'll--'' His voice had a hard sound but it shook, and he himself shook.
Loristan touched his arm gently.
“You are a good comrade,'' he said. “It is well for us that you are here. You have thought of a good thing.''
“May I go now?'' said The Rat.
“This moment, if you are ready,'' was the answer. The Rat swung himself to the door.
Loristan said to him a thing which was like the sudden lighting of a great light in the very center of his being.
“You are one of us. Now that I know you are doing this I may even sleep. You are one of us.'' And it was because he was following this plan that The Rat had turned into Brandon Terrace and heard the Samavian song ringing out from the locked basement of Number 10.
“Yes, he is one of us,'' Loristan said, when he told this part of the story to Marco as they sat by the fire. “I had not been sure before. I wanted to be very sure. Last night I saw into the depths of him and KNEW. He may be trusted.''
From that day The Rat held a new place. Lazarus himself, strangely enough, did not resent his holding it. The boy was allowed to be near Loristan as he had never dared to hope to be near. It was not merely that he was allowed to serve him in many ways, but he was taken into the intimacy which had before enclosed only the three. Loristan talked to him as he talked to Marco, drawing him within the circle which held so much that was comprehended without speech. The Rat knew that he was being trained and observed and he realized it with exaltation. His idol had said that he was “one of them'' and he was watching and putting him to tests so that he might find out how much he was one of them. And he was doing it for some grave reason of his own. This thought possessed The Rat's whole mind. Perhaps he was wondering if he should find out that he was to be trusted, as a rock is to be trusted. That he should even think that perhaps he might find that he was like a rock, was inspiration enough.
“Sir,'' he said one night when they were alone together, because The Rat had been copying a road-map. His voice was very low--“do you think that--sometime--you could trust me as you trust Marco? Could it ever be like that--ever?''
“The time has come,'' and Loristan's voice was almost as low as his own, though strong and deep feeling underlay its quiet--“the time has come when I can trust you with Marco--to be his companion--to care for him, to stand by his side at any moment.
And Marco is--Marco is my son.'' That was enough to uplift The Rat to the skies. But there was more to follow.
“It may not be long before it may be his part to do work in which he will need a comrade who can be trusted--as a rock can be trusted.''
He had said the very words The Rat's own mind had given to him.
“A Rock! A Rock!'' the boy broke out. “Let me show you, sir.
Send me with him for a servant. The crutches are nothing.
You've seen that they're as good as legs, haven't you? I've trained myself.''
“I know, I know, dear lad.'' Marco had told him all of it. He gave him a gracious smile which seemed as if it held a sort of fine secret. “You shall go as his aide-de-camp. It shall be part of the game.''
He had always encouraged “the game,'' and during the last weeks had even found time to help them in their plannings for the mysterious journey of the Secret Two. He had been so interested that once or twice he had called on Lazarus as an old soldier and Samavian to give his opinions of certain routes--and of the customs and habits of people in towns and villages by the way.
