uld see you again."

Both boys fell back.

"Not read the papers!" they exclaimed together.

Lazarus had never before been quite so reverential and ceremonious.

"Your pardon, sir," he said. "I may read them at your orders, and
report such things as it is well that you should know. There have been
dark tales told and there may be darker ones. He asked that you would
not read for yourself. If you meet again--when you meet again"--he
corrected himself hastily--"when you meet again, he says you will
understand. I am your servant. I will read and answer all such
questions as I can."

The Rat handed him the paper and they returned to the back room
together.

"You shall tell us what he would wish us to hear," Marco said.

The news was soon told. The story was not a long one as exact details
had not yet reached London. It was briefly that the head of the
Maranovitch party had been put to death by infuriated soldiers of his
own army. It was an army drawn chiefly from a peasantry which did not
love its leaders, or wish to fight, and suffering and brutal treatment
had at last roused it to furious revolt.

"What next?" said Marco.

"If I were a Samavian--" began The Rat and then he stopped.

Lazarus stood biting his lips, but staring stonily at the carpet. Not
The Rat alone but Marco also noted a grim change in him. It was grim
because it suggested that he was holding himself under an iron control.
It was as if while tortured by anxiety he had sworn not to allow
himself to look anxious and the resolve set his jaw hard and carved new
lines in his rugged face. Each boy thought this in secret, but did not
wish to put it into words. If he was anxious, he could only be so for
one reason, and each realized what the reason must be. Loristan had
gone to Samavia--to the torn and bleeding country filled with riot and
danger. If he had gone, it could only have been because its danger
called him and he went to face it at its worst. Lazarus had been left
behind to watch over them. Silence was still the order, and what he
knew he could not tell them, and perhaps he knew little more than that
a great life might be lost.

Because his master was absent, the old soldier seemed to feel that he
must comfort himself with a greater ceremonial reverence than he had
ever shown before. He held himself within call, and at Marco's orders,
as it had been his custom to hold himself with regard to Loristan. The
ceremonious service