I could have thrown these away—down into the abyss!” And The Rat shook his crutches which rested against the table. “I feel as if I was climbing, too. Go on.”
Marco had become more absorbed than The Rat. He had lost himself in the memory of the story.
“I felt that I was climbing, when he told me,” he said. “I felt as if I were breathing in the hot flower-scents and pushing aside the big leaves and giant ferns. There had been a rain, and they were wet and shining with big drops, like jewels, that showered over him as he thrust his way through and under them. And the stillness and the height—the stillness and the height! I can’t make it real to you as he made it to me! I can’t! I was there. He took me. And it was so high—and so still—and so beautiful that I could scarcely bear it.”
But the truth was, that with some vivid boy-touch he had carried his hearer far. The Rat was deadly quiet. Even his eyes had not moved. He spoke almost as if he were in a sort of trance. “It’s real,” he said. “I’m there now. As high as you—go on—go on. I want to climb higher.”
And Marco, understanding, went on.
“The day was over and the stars were out when he reached the place were the ledge was. He said he thought that during the last part of the climb he never looked on the earth at all. The stars were so immense that he could not look away from them. They seemed to be drawing him up. And all overhead was like violet velvet, and they hung there like great lamps of radiance. Can you see them? You must see them. My father saw them all night long. They were part of the wonder.”
“I see them,” The Rat answered, still in his trance-like voice and without stirring, and Marco knew he did.
“And there, with the huge stars watching it, was the hut on the ledge. And there was no one there. The door was open. And outside it was a low bench and table of stone. And on the table was a meal of dates and rice, waiting. Not far from the hut was a deep spring, which ran away in a clear brook. My father drank and bathed his face there. Then he went out on the ledge, and sat down and waited, with his face turned up to the stars. He did not lie down, and he thought he saw the stars all the time he waited. He was sure he did not sleep. He did not know how long he sat there alone. But at last he drew his eyes from the stars, as if he had been commanded to do it. And he was not alone any more. A yard or so away from him sat the holy man. He knew it was the hermit because his eyes were different from any human eyes he had ever beheld. They were as still as the night was, and as deep as the shadows covering the world thousands of feet below, and they had a far, far look, and a strange light was in them.”
“What did he say?” asked The Rat hoarsely.
“He only said, ‘Rise, my son. I awaited thee. Go and eat the food I prepared for thee, and then we will speak together.’ He didn’t move or speak again until my father had eaten the meal. He only sat on the moss and let his eyes rest on the shadows over the abyss. When my father went back, he made a gesture which meant that he should sit near him.
“Then he sat still for several minutes, and let his eyes rest on my father, until he felt as if the light in them were set in the midst of his own body and his soul. Then he said, ‘I cannot tell thee all thou wouldst know. That I may not do.’ He had a wonderful gentle voice, like a deep soft bell. ‘But the work will be done. Thy life and thy son’s life will set it on its way.’
“They sat through the whole night together. And the stars hung quite near, as if they listened. And there were sounds in the bushes of stealthy, padding feet which wandered about as if the owners of them listened too. And the wonderful, low, peaceful voice of the holy man went on and on, telling of wonders which seemed like miracles but which were to him only the ‘working of the Law.’”
“What is the Law?” The Rat broke in.
“There were two my father wrote down, and I learned them. The first was the law of The One. I’ll try to say that,” and he covered his eyes and waited through a moment of silence.
It seemed to The Rat as if the room held an extraordinary stillness.
“Listen!” came next. “This is it:
“‘There are a myriad worlds. There is but One Thought out of which they grew. Its Law is Order which cannot swerve. Its creatures are free to choose. Only they can create Disorder, which in itself is Pain and Woe and Hate and Fear. These they alone can bring forth. The Great One is a Golden Light. It is not remote but near. Hold thyself within its glow and thou wilt behold all things clearly. First, with all thy breathing being, know one thing! That thine own thought—when so thou standest—is one with That which thought the Worlds!’”
“What?” gasped The Rat. “MY thought—the things I think!”
“Your thoughts—boys’ thoughts—anybody’s thoughts.”
“You’re giving me the jim-jams!”
“He said it,” answered Marco. “And it was then he spoke about the broken Link—and about the greatest books in the world—that in all their different ways, they were only saying over and over again one thing thousands of times. Just this thing—‘Hate not, Fear not, Love.’ And he said that was Order. And when it was disturbed, suffering came—poverty and misery and catastrophe and wars.”
“Wars!” The Rat said sharply. “The World couldn’t do without war—and armies and defences! What about Samavia?”
“My father asked him that. And this is what he answered. I learned that too. Let me think again,” and he waited as he had waited before. Then he lifted his head. “Listen! This is it:
“‘Out of the blackness of Disorder and its outpouring of human misery, there will arise the Order which is Peace. When Man learns that he is one with the Thought which itself creates all beauty, all power, all splendor, and all repose, he will not fear that his brother can rob him of his heart’s desire. He will stand in the Light and draw to himself his own.’”
“Draw to himself?” The Rat said. “Draw what he wants? I don’t believe it!”
“Nobody does,” said Marco. “We don’t know. He said we stood in the dark of the night—without stars—and did not know that the broken chain swung just above us.”
“I don’t believe it!” said The Rat. “It’s too big!”
Marco did not say whether he believed it or not. He only went on speaking.
“My father listened until he felt as if he had stopped breathing. Just at the stillest of the stillness the Buddhist stopped speaking. And there was a rustling of the undergrowth a few yards away, as if something big was pushing its way through—and there was the soft pad of feet. The Buddhist turned his head and my father heard him say softly: ‘Come forth, Sister.’
“And a huge leopardess with two cubs walked out on to the ledge and came to him and threw herself down with a heavy lunge near his feet.”
“Your father saw that!” cried out The Rat. “You mean the old fellow knew something that made wild beasts afraid to touch him or any one near him?”
“Not afraid. They knew he was their brother, and that he was one with the Law. He had lived so long with the Great Thought that all darkness and fear had left him forever. He had mended the Chain.”
The Rat had reached deep waters. He leaned forward—his hands burrowing in his hair, his face scowling and twisted, his eyes boring into space. He had climbed to the ledge at the mountain-top; he had seen the luminous immensity of the stars, and he had looked down into the shadows filling the world thousands of feet below. Was there some remote deep in him from whose darkness a slow light was rising? All that Loristan had said he knew must be true. But the rest of it—?
Marco got up and came over to him. He looked like his father again.
“If the descendant of the Lost Prince is brought back to rule Samavia, he will teach his people the Law of the One. It was for that the holy man taught