第78章 XXIV “HOW SHALL WE FIND HIM?$$$$$$$$$$(3)

“He's gone to Budapest,'' he said. “NOW how shall we find him?''

Marco was rather pale also, and for a moment he looked paler.

The day had been a hard one, and in their haste to reach places at a long distance from each other they had forgotten their need of food.

They sat silent for a few moments because there seemed to be nothing to say. “We are too tired and hungry to be able to think well,'' Marco said at last. “Let us eat our supper and then go to sleep. Until we've had a rest, we must `let go.' ''

“Yes. There's no good in talking when you're tired,'' The Rat answered a trifle gloomily. “You don't reason straight. We must `let go.' ''

Their meal was simple but they ate well and without words.

Even when they had finished and undressed for the night, they said very little.

“Where do our thoughts go when we are asleep,'' The Rat inquired casually after he was stretched out in the darkness. “They must go somewhere. Let's send them to find out what to do next.''

“It's not as still as it was on the Gaisberg. You can hear the city roaring,'' said Marco drowsily from his dark corner. “We must make a ledge--for ourselves.''

Sleep made it for them--deep, restful, healthy sleep. If they had been more resentful of their ill luck and lost labor, it would have come less easily and have been less natural. In their talks of strange things they had learned that one great secret of strength and unflagging courage is to know how to “let go''--to cease thinking over an anxiety until the right moment comes. It was their habit to “let go'' for hours sometimes, and wander about looking at places and things--galleries, museums, palaces, giving themselves up with boyish pleasure and eagerness to all they saw. Marco was too intimate with the things worth seeing, and The Rat too curious and feverishly wide-awake to allow of their missing much.

The Rat's image of the world had grown until it seemed to know no boundaries which could hold its wealth of wonders. He wanted to go on and on and see them all.

When Marco opened his eyes in the morning, he found The Rat lying looking at him. Then they both sat up in bed at the same time.

“I believe we are both thinking the same thing,'' Marco said.

They frequently discovered that they were thinking the same things.

“So do I,'' answered The Rat. “It shows how tired we were that we didn't think of it last night.''

“Yes, we are thinking the same thing,'' said Marco. “We have both remembered what we heard about his shutting himself up alone with his pictures and making people believe he had gone away.''

“He's in his palace now,'' The Rat announced.

“Do you feel sure of that, too?'' asked Marco. “Did you wake up and feel sure of it the first thing?''

“Yes,'' answered The Rat. “As sure as if I'd heard him say it himself.''

“So did I,'' said Marco.

“That's what our thoughts brought back to us,'' said The Rat, “when we `let go' and sent them off last night.'' He sat up hugging his knees and looking straight before him for some time after this, and Marco did not interrupt his meditations.

The day was a brilliant one, and, though their attic had only one window, the sun shone in through it as they ate their breakfast.

After it, they leaned on the window's ledge and talked about the Prince's garden. They talked about it because it was a place open to the public and they had walked round it more than once.

The palace, which was not a large one, stood in the midst of it.

The Prince was good-natured enough to allow quiet and well-behaved people to saunter through. It was not a fashionable promenade but a pleasant retreat for people who sometimes took their work or books and sat on the seats placed here and there among the shrubs and flowers.

“When we were there the first time, I noticed two things,''

Marco said. “There is a stone balcony which juts out from the side of the palace which looks on the Fountain Garden. That day there were chairs on it as if the Prince and his visitors sometimes sat there. Near it, there was a very large evergreen shrub and I saw that there was a hollow place inside it. If some one wanted to stay in the gardens all night to watch the windows when they were lighted and see if any one came out alone upon the balcony, he could hide himself in the hollow place and stay there until the morning.''

“Is there room for two inside the shrub?'' The Rat asked.

“No. I must go alone,'' said Marco.