to break line. He's a soldier, he is--not a raw recruit
that don't know the goose-step. He's been in barracks before."

But after this outburst, he deigned to go on.

"Here's the oath," he said. "We swear to stand any torture and submit
in silence to any death rather than betray our secret and our king. We
will obey in silence and in secret. We will swim through seas of blood
and fight our way through lakes of fire, if we are ordered. Nothing
shall bar our way. All we do and say and think is for our country and
our king. If any of you have anything to say, speak out before you
take the oath."

He saw Marco move a little, and he made a sign to him.

"You," he said. "Have you something to say?"

Marco turned to him and saluted.

"Here stand ten men for Samavia. God be thanked!" he said. He dared
say that much, and he felt as if his father himself would have told him
that they were the right words.

The Rat thought they were. Somehow he felt that they struck home. He
reddened with a sudden emotion.

"Squad!" he said. "I'll let you give three cheers on that. It's for
the last time. We'll begin to be quiet afterward."

And to the Squad's exultant relief he led the cheer, and they were
allowed to make as much uproar as they liked. They liked to make a
great deal, and when it was at an end, it had done them good and made
them ready for business.

The Rat opened the drama at once. Never surely had there ever before
been heard a conspirator's whisper as hollow as his.

"Secret Ones," he said, "it is midnight. We meet in the depths of
darkness. We dare not meet by day. When we meet in the daytime, we
pretend not to know each other. We are meeting now in a Samavian city
where there is a fortress. We shall have to take it when the secret
sign is given and we make our rising. We are getting everything ready,
so that, when we find the king, the secret sign can be given."

"What is the name of the city we are in?" whispered Cad.

"It is called Larrina. It is an important seaport. We must take it as
soon as we rise. The next time we meet I will bring a dark lantern and
draw a map and show it to you."

It would have been a great advantage to the game if Marco could have
drawn for them the map he could have made, a map which would have shown
every fortress--every stronghold and every weak place. Being a boy, he
knew what excitement would have thrilled each breast, how they would
lean forward and