ve her soldi. You remember."

"Yes, I remember. And what you say is true," Loristan answered.

Marco leaned forward across the table so that he came closer to him.
The tone in which the words were said made his courage leap like a
flame. To be allowed to go on with this boldness was to feel that he
was being treated almost as if he were a man. If his father had wished
to stop him, he could have done it with one quiet glance, without
uttering a word. For some wonderful reason he did not wish him to
cease talking. He was willing to hear what he had to say--he was even
interested.

"You are growing older," he had said the night he had revealed the
marvelous secret. "Silence is still the order, but you are man enough
to be told more."

Was he man enough to be thought worthy to help Samavia in any small
way--even with boyish fancies which might contain a germ of some
thought which older and wiser minds might make useful? Was he being
listened to because the plan, made as part of a game, was not an
impossible one--if two boys who could be trusted could be found? He
caught a deep breath as he went on, drawing still nearer and speaking
so low that his tone was almost a whisper.

"If the men of the Secret Party have been working and thinking for so
many years--they have prepared everything. They know by this time
exactly what must be done by the messengers who are to give the signal.
They can tell them where to go and how to know the secret friends who
must be warned. If the orders could be written and given to--to some
one who has--who has learned to remember things!" He had begun to
breathe so quickly that he stopped for a moment.

Loristan looked up. He looked directly into his eyes.

"Some one who has been TRAINED to remember things?" he said.

"Some one who has been trained," Marco went on, catching his breath
again. "Some one who does not forget--who would never forget--never!
That one, even if he were only twelve--even if he were only ten--could
go and do as he was told." Loristan put his hand on his shoulder.

"Comrade," he said, "you are speaking as if you were ready to go
yourself."

Marco's eyes looked bravely straight into his, but he said not one word.

"Do you know what it would mean, Comrade?" his father went on. "You are
right. It is not a game. And you are not thinking of it as one. But
have you thought how it would be if something betrayed you--and you
were set up against a wall to