ngs round them. But the
mountains stood there afterwards as if such things had not been and
were not in the world. Winds roared and tore at them, centuries passed
over them--centuries of millions of lives, of changing of kingdoms and
empires, of battles and world-wide fame which grew and died and passed
away; and temples crumbled, and kings' tombs were forgotten, and cities
were buried and others built over them after hundreds of years--and
perhaps a few stones fell from a mountain side, or a fissure was worn,
which the people below could not even see. And that was all. There
they stood, and perhaps their secret was that they had been there for
ever and ever. That was what the mountains said to Marco, which was
why he did not want to talk much, but sat and gazed out of the carriage
window.

The Rat had been very silent all the morning. He had been silent when
they got up, and he had scarcely spoken when they made their way to the
station at Munich and sat waiting for their train. It seemed to Marco
that he was thinking so hard that he was like a person who was far away
from the place he stood in. His brows were drawn together and his eyes
did not seem to see the people who passed by. Usually he saw
everything and made shrewd remarks on almost all he saw. But to-day he
was somehow otherwise absorbed. He sat in the train with his forehead
against the window and stared out. He moved and gasped when he found
himself staring at the Alps, but afterwards he was even strangely
still. It was not until after the sleepy old peasant had gathered his
bundles and got out at a station that he spoke, and he did it without
turning his head.

"You only told me one of the two laws," he said. "What was the other
one?"

Marco brought himself back from his dream of reaching the highest
mountain-top and seeing clouds float beneath his feet in the sun. He
had to come back a long way.

"Are you thinking of that? I wondered what you had been thinking of
all the morning," he said.

"I couldn't stop thinking of it. What was the second one?" said The
Rat, but he did not turn his head.

"It was called the Law of Earthly Living. It was for every day," said
Marco. "It was for the ordering of common things--the small things we
think don't matter, as well as the big ones. I always remember that
one without any trouble. This was it:

"'Let pass through thy mind, my son, only the image thou wouldst desire
to see become a truth