"I am to go—that is your wish!" exclaimed the boy, clasping his hands.
"Yes," said the master gravely.
"Then I will start," he said roughly. "Being of the soil it may be that I can pass through. If not—"
He unclasped his hands and made a rude gesture. Now he stood stockstill entirely absorbed with this new idea that he was to go out from this place which had been a home for so long—go out alone into the unknown.
His master, instead of answering, turned and said three words in English which the boy always remembered by their sound.
"He will go," said the master gravely. The gentlemen turned to one another and repeated the words several times. "He will go," they said.
"I offered your services," resumed his master in the vernacular, speaking very deliberately, "because I knew that you had courage and were accustomed to every kind of life. Most of our people here have lived only in the city—they would be helpless on such a journey. I told these gentlemen how you came to me in the winter from afar and waited at my door. But this is different. It is no small business. Three hundred li by road must you travel and three hundred li back. A man, with everything helping him, may make the journey in ten days and less. But now that the road is infested with soldiers and that fighting is general, we should count ourselves lucky if you made the journey in twenty days. We can wait twenty days, even thirty. But forty days would be too long. Do you understand?"
"Yes, your Honour," said the boy simply. "I shall make inquiries from others who know the road and then it will be easy."
"No inquiries must be made," interrupted the master. "You must remain here until you start tonight. There may be spies in our midst. Silence is necessary. Otherwise all may prove useless. Everything will be explained to you here."
He began showing him on a map the chief places on the road and taught him the names. He drilled him as to his line of conduct in every eventuality that he could think of. And at last, when he had exhausted all this catechizing, he heaved a sigh and stopped abruptly.