Did you see him? Did you get near enough?" he drowsed.

"Yes," Marco answered. "I got near enough."

The Rat sat upright suddenly.

"It's not been easy," he exclaimed. "I'm sure something
happened--something went wrong."

"Something nearly went wrong--VERY nearly," answered Marco. But as he
spoke he took the sketch of the Chancellor out of the slit in his
sleeve and tore it and burned it with a match. "But I did get near
enough. And that's TWO."

They talked long, before they went to sleep that night. The Rat grew
pale as he listened to the story of the woman in violet.

"I ought to have gone with you!" he said. "I see now. An aide-de-camp
must always be in attendance. It would have been harder for her to
manage two than one. I must always be near to watch, even if I am not
close by you. If you had not come back--if you had not come back!" He
struck his clenched hands together fiercely. "What should I have done!"

When Marco turned toward him from the table near which he was standing,
he looked like his father.

"You would have gone on with the Game just as far as you could," he
said. "You could not leave it. You remember the places, and the
faces, and the Sign. There is some money; and when it was all gone,
you could have begged, as we used to pretend we should. We have not had
to do it yet; and it was best to save it for country places and
villages. But you could have done it if you were obliged to. The Game
would have to go on."

The Rat caught at his thin chest as if he had been struck breathless.

"Without you?" he gasped. "Without you?"

"Yes," said Marco. "And we must think of it, and plan in case anything
like that should happen."

He stopped himself quite suddenly, and sat down, looking straight
before him, as if at some far away thing he saw.

"Nothing will happen," he said. "Nothing can."

"What are you thinking of?" The Rat gulped, because his breath had not
quite come back. "Why will nothing happen?"

"Because--" the boy spoke in an almost matter-of-fact tone--in quite an
unexalted tone at all events, "you see I can always make a strong call,
as I did tonight."

"Did you shout?" The Rat asked. "I didn't know you shouted."

"I didn't. I said nothing aloud. But I--the myself that is in me,"
Marco touched himself on the breast, "called out, 'Help! Help!' with
all its strength. And help came."

The Rat regarded him dubiously.

"What did it call to?" he asked.