quad was put through was stricter and finer than any drill they had
ever known.

"I wish my father could have seen that," Marco said to The Rat.

The Rat turned red and white and then red again, but he said not a
single word. The mere thought was like a flash of fire passing through
him. But no fellow could hope for a thing as big as that. The Secret
Party, in its subterranean cavern, surrounded by its piled arms, sat
down to read the morning paper.

The war news was bad to read. The Maranovitch held the day for the
moment, and while they suffered and wrought cruelties in the capital
city, the Iarovitch suffered and wrought cruelties in the country
outside. So fierce and dark was the record that Europe stood aghast.

The Rat folded his paper when he had finished, and sat biting his
nails. Having done this for a few minutes, he began to speak in his
dramatic and hollow Secret Party whisper.

"The hour has come," he said to his followers. "The messengers must go
forth. They know nothing of what they go for; they only know that they
must obey. If they were caught and tortured, they could betray nothing
because they know nothing but that, at certain places, they must utter
a certain word. They carry no papers. All commands they must learn by
heart. When the sign is given, the Secret Party will know what to
do--where to meet and where to attack."

He drew plans of the battle on the flagstones, and he sketched an
imaginary route which the two messengers were to follow. But his
knowledge of the map of Europe was not worth much, and he turned to
Marco.

"You know more about geography that I do. You know more about
everything," he said. "I only know Italy is at the bottom and Russia
is at one side and England's at the other. How would the Secret
Messengers go to Samavia? Can you draw the countries they'd have to
pass through?"

Because any school-boy who knew the map could have done the same thing,
Marco drew them. He also knew the stations the Secret Two would arrive
at and leave by when they entered a city, the streets they would walk
through and the very uniforms they would see; but of these things he
said nothing. The reality his knowledge gave to the game was, however,
a thrilling thing. He wished he could have been free to explain to The
Rat the things he knew. Together they could have worked out so many
details of travel and possible adventure that it would have been almost
as if they had se