his feet at last, his eyes burning,
"something must stop it! There must be something strong enough. The
time has come. The time has come." And he walked up and down the room
because he was too excited to stand still.

How Lazarus watched him! What a strong and glowing feeling there was
in his own restrained face!

"Yes, sir. Surely the time has come," he answered. But that was all
he said, and he turned and went out of the shabby back sitting-room at
once. It was as if he felt it were wiser to go before he lost power
over himself and said more.

Marco made his way to the meeting-place of the Squad, to which The Rat
had in the past given the name of the Barracks. The Rat was sitting
among his followers, and he had been reading the morning paper to them,
the one which contained the account of the battle of Melzarr. The
Squad had become the Secret Party, and each member of it was thrilled
with the spirit of dark plot and adventure. They all whispered when
they spoke.

"This is not the Barracks now," The Rat said. "It is a subterranean
cavern. Under the floor of it thousands of swords and guns are buried,
and it is piled to the roof with them. There is only a small place left
for us to sit and plot in. We crawl in through a hole, and the hole is
hidden by bushes."

To the rest of the boys this was only an exciting game, but Marco knew
that to The Rat it was more. Though The Rat knew none of the things he
knew, he saw that the whole story seemed to him a real thing. The
struggles of Samavia, as he had heard and read of them in the
newspapers, had taken possession of him. His passion for soldiering
and warfare and his curiously mature brain had led him into following
every detail he could lay hold of. He had listened to all he had heard
with remarkable results. He remembered things older people forgot
after they had mentioned them. He forgot nothing. He had drawn on the
flagstones a map of Samavia which Marco saw was actually correct, and
he had made a rough sketch of Melzarr and the battle which had had such
disastrous results.

"The Maranovitch had possession of Melzarr," he explained with feverish
eagerness. "And the Iarovitch attacked them from here," pointing with
his finger. "That was a mistake. I should have attacked them from a
place where they would not have been expecting it. They expected
attack on their fortifications, and they were ready to defend them. I
believe the enemy could h