XXI "Help!"

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Never had The Rat looked so strange and fierce a thing. A whole world at peace! No tactics--no battles--no slaughtered heroes --no clash of arms, and fame! It made him feel sick. And yet-- something set his chest heaving.

``And your father would teach him that--when he was found! So that he could teach his sons. Your father BELIEVES in it?''

``Yes,'' Marco answered. He said nothing but ``Yes.'' The Rat threw himself forward on the table, face downward.

``Then,'' he said, ``he must make me believe it. He must teach me--if he can.''

They heard a clumping step upon the staircase, and, when it reached the landing, it stopped at their door. Then there was a solid knock.

When Marco opened the door, the young soldier who had escorted him from the Hof-Theater was standing outside. He looked as uninterested and stolid as before, as he handed in a small flat package.

``You must have dropped it near your seat at the Opera,'' he said. ``I was to give it into your own hands. It is your purse.''

After he had clumped down the staircase again, Marco and The Rat drew a quick breath at one and the same time.

``I had no seat and I had no purse,'' Marco said. ``Let us open it.''

There was a flat limp leather note-holder inside. In it was a paper, at the head of which were photographs of the Lovely Person and her companion. Beneath were a few lines which stated that they were the well known spies, Eugenia Karovna and Paul Varel, and that the bearer must be protected against them. It was signed by the Chief of the Police. On a separate sheet was written the command: ``Carry this with you as protection.''

``That is help,'' The Rat said. ``It would protect us, even in another country. The Chancellor sent it--but you made the strong call --and it's here!''

There was no street lamp to shine into their windows when they went at last to bed. When the blind was drawn up, they were nearer the sky than they had been in the Marylebone Road. The last thing each of them saw, as he went to sleep, was the stars--and in their dreams, they saw them grow larger and larger, and hang like lamps of radiance against the violet--velvet sky above a ledge of a Himalayan Mountain, where they listened to the sound of a low voice going on and on and on.