"Let me try," said The Rat. "Marco knows."
Marco looked at his father.
"May I help him to show you?" he asked.
"Yes," Loristan answered, and then, as he turned to the Prince, he said again in his low voice: "HE IS ONE OF US."
Then Marco began a new form of the game. He held up one of the pictured faces before The Rat, and The Rat named at once the city and place connected with it, he detailed the color of eyes and hair, the height, the build, all the personal details as Marco himself had detailed them. To these he added descriptions of the cities, and points concerning the police system, the palaces, the people. His face twisted itself, his eyes burned, his voice shook, but he was amazing in his readiness of reply and his exactness of memory.
"I can't draw," he said at the end. "But I can remember. I didn't want any one to be bothered with thinking I was trying to learn it. So only Marco knew."
This he said to Loristan with appeal in his voice.
"It was he who invented 'the game,'" said Loristan. "I showed you his strange maps and plans."
"It is a good game," the Prince answered in the manner of a man extraordinarily interested and impressed. "They know it well. They can be trusted."
"No such thing has ever been done before," Loristan said. "It is as new as it is daring and simple."