seemed as if she were obliged to collect her thoughts. She stood with her hand at her mouth, looking down at the earth floor.
“God guard you!” she said at last. “You are very—very young!”
“But all his years,” The Rat broke in, “he has been in training for just this thing. He did not know it was training, but it was. A soldier who had been trained for thirteen years would know his work.”
He was so eager that he forgot she could not understand English. Marco translated what he said into German and added: “What he says is true.”
She nodded her head, still with questioning and anxious eyes.
“Yes. Yes,” she muttered. “But you are very young.” Then she asked in a hesitating way:
“Will you not sit down until I do?”
“No,” answered Marco. “I would not sit while my mother or grandmother stood.”
“Then I must sit—and forget,” she said.
She passed her hand over her face as though she were sweeping away the sudden puzzled trouble in her expression. Then she sat down, as if she had obliged herself to become again the old peasant she had been when they entered.
“All the way up the mountain you wondered why an old woman should be given the Sign,” she said. “You asked each other how she could be of use.”
Neither Marco nor The Rat said anything.
“When I was young and fresh,” she went on. “I went to a castle over the frontier to be foster-mother to a child who was born a great noble—one who was near the throne. He loved me and I loved him. He was a strong child and he grew up a great hunter and climber. When he was not ten years old, my man taught him to climb. He always loved these mountains better than his own. He comes to see me as if he were only a young mountaineer. He sleeps in the room there,” with a gesture over her shoulder into the darkness. “He has great power and, if he chooses to do a thing, he will do it—just as he will attack the biggest bear or climb the most dangerous peak. He is one who can bring things about. It is very safe to talk in this room.”
Then all was quite clear. Marco and The Rat understood.
No more was said about the Sign. It had been given and that was enough. The old woman told them that they must sleep in one of her bedrooms. The next morning one of her neighbors was going down to the valley with a cart and he would help them on their way. The Rat knew that she was thinking of his crutches and he became restless.
“Tell her,” he said to Marco, “how I have trained myself until I can do what any one else can. And tell her I am growing stronger every day. Tell her I’ll show her what I can do. Your father wouldn’t have let me come as your aide if I hadn’t proved to him that I wasn’t a cripple. Tell her. She thinks I’m no use.”
Marco explained and the old woman listened attentively. When The Rat got up and swung himself about up and down the steep path near her house she seemed relieved. His extraordinary dexterity and firm swiftness evidently amazed her and gave her a confidence she had not felt at first.
“If he has taught himself to be like that just for love of your father, he will go to the end,” she said. “It is more than one could believe, that a pair of crutches could do such things.”
The Rat was pacified and could afterwards give himself up to watching her as closely as he wished to. He was soon “working out” certain things in his mind. What he watched was her way of watching Marco. It was as if she were fascinated and could not keep her eyes from him. She told them stories about the mountains and the strangers who came to climb with guides or to hunt. She told them about the storms, which sometimes seemed about to put an end to the little world among the crags. She described the winter when the snow buried them and the strong ones were forced to dig out the weak and some lived for days under the masses of soft whiteness, glad to keep their cows or goats in their rooms that they might share the warmth of their bodies. The villages were forced to be good neighbors to each other, for the man who was not ready to dig out a hidden chimney or buried door to-day might be left to freeze and starve in his snow tomb next week. Through the worst part of the winter no creature from the world below could make way to them to find out whether they were all dead or alive.
While she talked, she watched Marco as if she were always asking herself some question about him. The Rat was sure that she liked him and greatly admired his strong body and good looks. It was not necessary for him to carry himself slouchingly in her presence and he looked glowing and noble. There was a sort of reverence in her manner when she spoke to him. She reminded him of Lazarus more than once. When she gave them their evening meal, she insisted on waiting on him with a certain respectful ceremony. She would not sit at table with him, and The Rat began to realize that she felt that he himself should be standing to serve him.
“She thinks I ought to stand behind your chair as Lazarus stands behind your father’s,” he said to Marco. “Perhaps an aide ought to do it. Shall I? I believe it would please her.”
“A Bearer of the Sign is not a royal person,” answered Marco. “My father would not like it—and I should not. We are only two boys.”
It was very wonderful when, after their supper was over, they all three sat together before the fire.
The red glow of the bed of woodcoal and the orange yellow of the flame from the big logs filled the room with warm light, which made a mellow background for the figure of the old woman as she sat in her low chair and told them more and more enthralling stories.
Her eagle eyes glowed and her long neck held her head splendidly high as she described great feats of courage and endurance or almost superhuman daring in aiding those in awesome peril, and, when she glowed most in the telling, they always knew that the hero of the adventure had been her foster-child who was the baby born a great noble and near the throne. To her, he was the most splendid and adorable of human beings. Almost an emperor, but so warm and tender of heart that he never forgot the long-past days when she had held him on her knee and told him tales of chamois-and bear-hunting, and of the mountain-tops in mid-winter. He was her sun-god.
“Yes! Yes!” she said. “‘Good Mother,’ he calls me. And I bake him a cake on the hearth, as I did when he was ten years old and my man was teaching him to climb. And when he chooses that a thing shall be done—done it is! He is a great lord.”
The flames had died down and only the big bed of red coal made the room glow, and they were thinking of going to bed when the old woman started very suddenly, turning her head as if to listen.
Marco and The Rat heard nothing, but they saw that she did and they sat so still that each held his breath. So there was utter stillness for a few moments. Utter stillness.
Then they did hear something—a clear silver sound, piercing the pure mountain air.
The old woman sprang upright with the fire of delight in her eyes.
“It is his silver horn!” she cried out striking her hands together. “It is his own call to me when he is coming. He has been hunting somewhere and wants to sleep in his good bed here. Help me to put on more faggots,” to The Rat, “so that he will see the flame of them through the open door as he comes.”
“Shall we be in the way?” said Marco. “We can go at once.”
She was going towards the door to open it and she stopped a moment and turned.
“No, no!” she said. “He must see your face. He will want to see it. I want him to see—how young you are.”
She threw the door wide open and they heard the silver horn send out its gay call again. The brushwood and faggots The Rat had thrown on the coals crackled and sparkled and roared into fine flames, which cast their light into the road and threw out in fine relief the old figure which stood on the threshold and looked so tall.
And in but a few minutes her great lord came to her. And in his green hunting-suit