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And they're half-savages." "They had a big battle outside Melzarr yesterday," the sight-seer standing next to Marco said to the young woman who was his companion. "Thousands of 'em killed. I saw it in big letters on the boards as I rode on the top of the bus. They're just slaughtering each other, that's what they're doing." The talkative Beef-eater heard him.
As the two travelers went on, they heard of burned villages and towns destroyed, but they were towns and villages nearer Melzarr and other fortress-defended cities, or they were in the country surrounding the castles and estates of powerful nobles and leaders.
"And it is not a game to me. The Squad is only playing, but with him it's quite different. He knows he'll never really get what he wants, but he feels as if this was something near it. He said I might show you the map he made. Father, look at it." He gave Loristan the clean copy of The Rat's map of Samavia. The city of Melzarr was marked with certain signs.
He who had pored over maps of little Samavia since his seventh year, who had studied them with his father, knew it as a country he could have found his way to any part of if he had been dropped in any forest or any mountain of it. He knew every highway and byway, and in the capital city of Melzarr could almost have made his way blindfolded.
As it was, he bore himself like a grenadier, and stood by Marco as if across his dead body alone could any one approach the lad. "Until we reach Melzarr," he had said with passion to the two gentlemen, "until I can stand before my Master and behold him embrace his son behold him I implore that I may not lose sight of him night or day. On my knees, I implore that I may travel, armed, at his side.
The people who were standing about turned to look at him, and the next instant they had all torn off their caps and thrown them up in the air and were shouting also. But it was not possible to hear what they said. "We were only just in time," said Vorversk, and Baron Rastka nodded. The train went swiftly, and stopped only once before they reached Melzarr.
The Rat had argued it all out, and had studied Melzarr as he might have studied a puzzle or an arithmetical problem. He was very clever, and as sharp as his queer face looked. "I believe you would make a good general if you were grown up," said Marco. "I'd like to show your maps to my father and ask him if he doesn't think your stratagem would have been a good one."
"Tell him," he said, when he refolded and handed it back, "that I studied his map, and he may be proud of it. You may also tell him " and he smiled quietly as he spoke "that in my opinion he is right. The Iarovitch would have held Melzarr to-day if he had led them." Marco was full of exultation. "I thought you would say he was right. I felt sure you would.
Marco made his way to the meeting-place of the Squad, to which The Rat had in the past given the name of the Barracks. The Rat was sitting among his followers, and he had been reading the morning paper to them, the one which contained the account of the battle of Melzarr. The Squad had become the Secret Party, and each member of it was thrilled with the spirit of dark plot and adventure.
"If the Secret Party rises suddenly now, it can take Melzarr almost without a blow. It can sweep through the country and disarm both armies. They're weakened they're half starved they're bleeding to death; they want to be disarmed. Only the Iarovitch and the Maranovitch keep on with the struggle because each is fighting for the power to tax the people and make slaves of them.
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