The chalk dropped, everything dropped, even Samavia.  The Rat was up and on his crutches as if some magic force had swung him there.  How he gave the command, or if he gave it at all, not even he himself knew.  But the Squad stood at salute.

Loristan was standing at the opening of the archway as Marco had stood that first day.  He raised his right hand in return salute and came forward.

“I was passing the end of the street and remembered the Barracks was here,” he explained.  “I thought I should like to look at your men, Captain.”

He smiled, but it was not a smile which made his words really a joke.  He looked down at the chalk map drawn on the flagstones.

“You know that map well,” he said.  “Even I can see that it is Samavia.  What is the Secret Party doing?”

“The messengers are trying to find a way in,” answered Marco.

“We can get in there,” said The Rat, pointing with a crutch.  “There’s a forest where we could hide and find out things.”

“Reconnoiter,” said Loristan, looking down.  “Yes.  Two stray boys could be very safe in a forest.  It’s a good game.”

That he should be there!  That he should, in his own wonderful way, have given them such a thing as this.  That he should have cared enough even to look up the Barracks, was what The Rat was thinking.  A batch of ragamuffins they were and nothing else, and he standing looking at them with his fine smile.  There was something about him which made him seem even splendid.  The Rat’s heart thumped with startled joy.

“Father,” said Marco, “will you watch The Rat drill us?  I want you to see how well it is done.”

“Captain, will you do me that honor?” Loristan said to The Rat, and to even these words he gave the right tone, neither jesting nor too serious.  Because it was so right a tone, The Rat’s pulses beat only with exultation.  This god of his had looked at his maps, he had talked of his plans, he had come to see the soldiers who were his work!  The Rat began his drill as if he had been reviewing an army.

What Loristan saw done was wonderful in its mechanical exactness.

The Squad moved like the perfect parts of a perfect machine.  That they could so do it in such space, and that they should have accomplished such precision, was an extraordinary testimonial to the military efficiency and curious qualities of this one hunchbacked, vagabond officer.

“That is magnificent!” the spectator said, when it was over.  “It could not be better done.  Allow me to congratulate you.”

He shook The Rat’s hand as if it had been a man’s, and, after he had shaken it, he put his own hand lightly on the boy’s shoulder and let it rest there as he talked a few minutes to them all.