a patriot who was a Samavian.  Whatever his father was doing was for the good of Samavia, and perhaps the Secret Party knew he was doing it.  His heart almost beat aloud under his shirt as he lay on the lumpy mattress thinking it over.  He must indeed look well at the stranger before he even moved toward him.  He must be sure he was the right man.  The game he had amused himself with so long—­the game of trying to remember pictures and people and places clearly and in detail—­had been a wonderful training.  If he could draw, he knew he could have made a sketch of the keen-eyed, clever, aquiline face with the well-cut and delicately close mouth, which looked as if it had been shut upon secrets always—­always.  If he could draw, he found himself saying again.  He could draw, though perhaps only roughly.  He had often amused himself by making sketches of things he wanted to ask questions about.  He had even drawn people’s faces in his untrained way, and his father had said that he had a crude gift for catching a likeness.  Perhaps he could make a sketch of this face which would show his father that he knew and would recognize it.

He jumped out of bed and went to a table near the window.  There was paper and a pencil lying on it.  A street lamp exactly opposite threw into the room quite light enough for him to see by.  He half knelt by the table and began to draw.  He worked for about twenty minutes steadily, and he tore up two or three unsatisfactory sketches.  The poor drawing would not matter if he could catch that subtle look which was not slyness but something more dignified and important.  It was not difficult to get the marked, aristocratic outline of the features.  A common-looking man with less pronounced profile would have been less easy to draw in one sense.  He gave his mind wholly to the recalling of every detail which had photographed itself on his memory through its trained habit.  Gradually he saw that the likeness was becoming clearer.  It was not long before it was clear enough to be a striking one.  Any one who knew the man would recognize it.  He got up, drawing a long and joyful breath.

He did not put on his shoes, but crossed his room as noiselessly as possible, and as noiselessly opened the door.  He made no ghost of a sound when he went down the stairs.  The woman who kept the lodging-house had gone to bed, and so had the other lodgers and the maid of all work.  All the lights were out except the one he saw a glimmer of under the door of his father’s room.  When he had been a mere baby, he had been taught to make a special sign on the door when he wished to speak to Loristan.  He stood still outside the back sitting-room and made it now.  It was a low scratching sound—­two scratches and a soft tap.  Lazarus opened the door and looked troubled.

“It is not yet time, sir,” he said very low.

“I know,” Marco answered.  “But I must show something to my father.”  Lazarus let him in, and Loristan turned round from his writing-table questioningly.