nd his
eagerly burning eyes.

He smiled one of his slow wonderful smiles.

"Yes. It might even matter to Samavia!" he answered.

VI

THE DRILL AND THE SECRET PARTY

Loristan did not forbid Marco to pursue his acquaintance with The Rat
and his followers.

"You will find out for yourself whether they are friends for you or
not," he said. "You will know in a few days, and then you can make
your own decision. You have known lads in various countries, and you
are a good judge of them, I think. You will soon see whether they are
going to be MEN or mere rabble. The Rat now--how does he strike you?"

And the handsome eyes held their keen look of questioning.

"He'd be a brave soldier if he could stand," said Marco, thinking him
over. "But he might be cruel."

"A lad who might make a brave soldier cannot be disdained, but a man
who is cruel is a fool. Tell him that from me," Loristan answered.
"He wastes force--his own and the force of the one he treats cruelly.
Only a fool wastes force."

"May I speak of you sometimes?" asked Marco.

"Yes. You will know how. You will remember the things about which
silence is the order."

"I never forget them," said Marco. "I have been trying not to, for
such a long time."

"You have succeeded well, Comrade!" returned Loristan, from his
writing-table, to which he had gone and where he was turning over
papers.

A strong impulse overpowered the boy. He marched over to the table and
stood very straight, making his soldierly young salute, his whole body
glowing.

"Father!" he said, "you don't know how I love you! I wish you were a
general and I might die in battle for you. When I look at you, I long
and long to do something for you a boy could not do. I would die of a
thousand wounds rather than disobey you--or Samavia!"

He seized Loristan's hand, and knelt on one knee and kissed it. An
English or American boy could not have done such a thing from
unaffected natural impulse. But he was of warm Southern blood.

"I took my oath of allegiance to you, Father, when I took it to
Samavia. It seems as if you were Samavia, too," he said, and kissed
his hand again.

Loristan had turned toward him with one of the movements which were
full of dignity and grace. Marco, looking up at him, felt that there
was always a certain remote stateliness in him which made it seem quite
natural that any one should bend the knee and kiss his hand.

A sudden great tenderness glo