s."

"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 my father until the dawn came."

"Who will--who will teach the Lost Prince--the new King--when he is
found?" The Rat cried. "Who will teach him?"

"The hermit said my father would. He said he would also teach his
son--and that son would teach his son--and he would teach his. And
through such as they were, the whole world would come to know the Order
and the Law."

Never had The Rat looked so strange and fierce a thing. A whole world
at peace! No tactics--no battles--no slaughtered heroes--no clash of
arms, and fame! It made him feel sick. And yet--something set his
chest heaving.

"And your father would teach him that--when he was found! So that he
could teach his sons. Your father BELIEVES in it?"

"Yes," Marco answered.