Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: September 15, 2025
The Rat was sitting huddled on the floor near it with his back against the wall. He had a piece of paper in his hand and his twisted face was a weird thing to see. "Why are you here?" Loristan asked. "I've been here three hours, sir. I knew you'd have to come out sometime and I thought you'd let me speak to you. Will you will you?" "Come into the room," said Loristan.
"I will look like one," said Marco, with determination. "I will trust you to remind him," Loristan said to The Rat, and he said it with gravity. "That will be your charge." As he lay upon his pillow that night, it seemed to Marco as if a load had lifted itself from his heart. It was the load of uncertainty and longing.
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 even extended itself to The Rat, who appeared to have taken a new place in his mind. He also seemed now to be a person to be waited upon and replied to with dignity and formal respect.
He carried his shoes in his hands, as he meant to put them on only when he reached the street. He made his sign at his father's door, and it was Loristan who opened it. "Shall I go now?" Marco asked. "Yes. Walk slowly to the other side of the street. Look in every direction. We do not know where he will come from. After you have given him the sign, then come in and go to bed again."
He was so fervent in spite of his hesitation that Loristan began to watch him with sympathetic respect, as he always did when the boy was trying to express something he was not sure of. One of the great bonds between them was that Loristan was always interested in his boyish mental processes in the way in which his thoughts led him to any conclusion. "Go on," he said again.
They had nothing but dry bread and coffee this evening, but Lazarus had made the coffee and the bread was good. As Marco ate, he told his father the story of The Rat and his followers. Loristan listened, as the boy had known he would, with the far-off, intently-thinking smile in his dark eyes. It was a look which always fascinated Marco because it meant that he was thinking so many things.
Marco's voice almost shook with the thrill of his feeling. "How shall I know him?" he said at once. Without asking at all, he knew he was the "some one" who was to go. "You have seen him before," Loristan answered. "He is the man who drove in the carriage with the King." "I shall know him," said Marco. "When shall I go?" "Not until it is half-past one o'clock.
It was not merely that he was allowed to serve him in many ways, but he was taken into the intimacy which had before enclosed only the three. Loristan talked to him as he talked to Marco, drawing him within the circle which held so much that was comprehended without speech. The Rat knew that he was being trained and observed and he realized it with exaltation.
He was inwardly shuddering with a rapture of exultation which was almost anguish. The people were looking at him shouting at him surely it seemed like it when he looked at the faces nearest in the crowd. Perhaps Loristan "Listen!" said Marco suddenly, as the carriage rolled on its way. "They are shouting to us in Samavian, 'The Bearers of the Sign! That is what they are saying now.
His face twisted itself, his eyes burned, his voice shook, but he was amazing in his readiness of reply and his exactness of memory. "I can't draw," he said at the end. "But I can remember. I didn't want any one to be bothered with thinking I was trying to learn it. So only Marco knew." This he said to Loristan with appeal in his voice. "It was he who invented 'the game," said Loristan.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking