e way from the rest. It is not as tumbled down as
most of them. And there are some red flowers on the balcony."

"Yes! That's it!" said Marco.

They walked up to the low black door and, as he stopped on the
threshold, Marco took off his cap. He did this because, sitting in the
doorway on a low wooden chair, the old, old woman with the eagle eyes
was sitting knitting.

There was no one else in the room and no one anywhere within sight.
When the old, old woman looked up at him with her young eagle's eyes,
holding her head high on her long neck, Marco knew he need not ask for
water or for anything else.

"The Lamp is lighted," he said, in his low but strong and clear young
voice.

She dropped her knitting upon her knees and gazed at him a moment in
silence. She knew German it was clear, for it was in German she
answered him.

"God be thanked!" she said. "Come in, young Bearer of the Sign, and
bring your friend in with you. I live alone and not a soul is within
hearing."

She was a wonderful old woman. Neither Marco nor The Rat would live
long enough to forget the hours they spent in her strange dark house.
She kept them and made them spend the night with her.

"It is quite safe," she said. "I live alone since my man fell into the
crevasse and was killed because his rope broke when he was trying to
save his comrade. So I have two rooms to spare and sometimes climbers
are glad to sleep in them. Mine is a good warm house and I am well
known in the village. You are very young," she added shaking her head.
"You are very young. You must have good blood in your veins to be
trusted with this."

"I have my father's blood," answered Marco.

"You are like some one I once saw," the old woman said, and her eagle
eyes set themselves hard upon him. "Tell me your name."

There was no reason why he should not tell it to her.

"It is Marco Loristan," he said.

"What! It is that!" she cried out, not loud but low.

To Marco's amazement she got up from her chair and stood before him,
showing what a tall old woman she really was. There was a startled,
even an agitated, look in her face. And suddenly she actually made a
sort of curtsey to him--bending her knee as peasants do when they pass
a shrine.

"It is that!" she said again. "And yet they dare let you go on a
journey like this! That speaks for your courage and for theirs."

But Marco did not know what she meant. Her strange obeisance made him
feel a